September 26, 2026 - (Toronto, ON) Toronto riders showed up strong and in huge numbers once again, with nearly 1,000 riders gathering for another Critical Mass Ride on Sept. 25 in support of bike lanes in Toronto and throughout the province.
The ride is in protest to the recent Court of Appeal for Ontario ruling that allows Premier Doug Ford’s government to rip out 19 kilometres of protected bike lanes in Toronto along Bloor St., University Ave. and Yonge St. – and a majority of Ontario residents agree with the cyclists.
A recent survey by the Abacus Group, commissioned by Share the Road Cycling Coalition and the Ontario Traffic Council, found that 64% of Ontario residents believe municipalities, not the provincial government, should decide where local bike lanes are located.
Nearly two-thirds of Ontarians (65%) agree the provincial government should invest in cycling infrastructure because it makes roads safer for both cyclists and motorists, while 72% agree that investing in proper cycling infrastructure makes roads safer for all road users. Another 66% believe more people would ride if communities had more and better cycling infrastructure, such as protected bike lanes and paved shoulders – read a summary of the survey here.
Riders started at High Park and headed west over the Humber River and into Tom Riley Park. Organizers explained that this is where the province plans to remove bike lanes, possibly within the next two weeks, and requested that riders show up and try to make it difficult for the bike lanes to be removed.
The route took riders along Runneymede, South Kingsway, through Bloor West village and back to High Park where the group disbanded.
According the Ontario Society of Professional Engineers (OSPE), “OSPE continues to believe that changes to transportation infrastructure should be grounded in current, independent engineering evidence and municipal knowledge of local conditions, rather than applied uniformly through provincial directive. Notably, the strongest case for this position now comes from the province’s own commissioned work: a safety analysis prepared for the Ministry of Transportation by engineering firm CIMA+, which surfaced through a court challenge, estimated that removing the bike lanes could increase collisions for all road users, cyclists, pedestrians, and drivers alike, by as much as 54 per cent, and found no clear evidence that removal would ease congestion.” – read more here.
More Critical Mass Ride coverage on The Biking Lawyer here; and on Biking in a Big City here.
