Ministry of Transportation of Ontario

Over the summer, the Ford government won a legal battle to rip out 19 kilometers of bike lanes along Bloor Street, Yonge Street, and University Avenue.

Ontario's Ministry of Transportation says, "Our government received a clear mandate from the people of Ontario to tackle gridlock that is costing our economy more than $56 billion every year.

That's why we're restoring vehicle lanes on Toronto's busiest streets to reduce traffic and get people and goods moving again.

We have always been clear, bike lanes should go where they make sense, not at the expense of vehicle lanes, commuters' time, or our economy."

If you get to any tickets towards it or demerit points, They're going to look at that and they're going to say, I think maybe we need to come and have an audit and have a chat and just see what do you have on files? Are you keeping up to what your requirements are? So that's the big one we have with that.

And then the other question we now get nowadays is how do I get a CVOR? So for people who aren't familiar, you get on the Ministry of Transportation's website and you can actually fill out the CVOR form online and you submit it.

And then what happens is you'll receive a date and the location to attend and do a written test.

Now, Mike, I'm not sure when you got your CVOR, but now they recommend you read this book and the book's got like 380 pages and you have to go through this, which is a little more difficult, especially if you're, let's say, in the landscaping industry and you're now reading stuff that really applies to cross-border truckers.

The city has said, Mayor Olivia Chow has said that they presented a compromise solution that would have preserved the bike lanes, but also restored some lanes of traffic to the roadway.

Mayor Chow has said that they basically got radio silence from the Ministry of Transportation, that there was no engagement with that idea.

The government obviously seems dead set on this issue.

They want to remove these bike lanes.

Uh, when you're thinking of the 407 highway, it, it was a very short highway, sold for 3 billion, but the requirement for the, for the, uh, buyers was you had to extend the highway to its, its current ex- extent, and they had to maintain the highway.

That, that doesn't come from Ministry of Transportation dollars, hasn't for 30 years.

Mm-hmm.

It comes from the private sector, which saves the Ontario taxpayer billions of dollars.

"We can state on their behalf that this young man has sustained serious and lifelong injuries and will require a lot of help.

The matter is now before the courts." The Star contacted the Ministry of Transportation and received a response from the Ministry of the Attorney General.

Ontario was served with the statement of claim on September 8, 2026.

"As this matter is before the court, it would be inappropriate to comment," said a spokesperson for the attorney general.

Some of these tools include community and school safety zones, safety signage, pavement markings, pedestrian head start signals, and red light cameras," said Russell Baker, Director of Communications.

Many safe street advocates warned that the removal of speed cameras, which multiple studies have shown are effective at reducing speeds, would result in more injuries and deaths across the city.

Several mayor- mayors and municipalities pleaded with Ford and the Ministry of Transportation to adjust the program as opposed to completely removing the cameras.

Six months after the removal of the speed cameras, Safe Parkside, a residents group that have been trying to slow speeders on Parkside Drive for years, found that speeding had increased by two hundred and thirty-five percent since the removal of the camera on that road.