October 16, 2026 - Together we stopped them on Tuesday, Oct. 13. But this morning is the third day of Verdi Alliance and ATS Traffic actively dismantling the Bloor Street West protected bike lanes in Etobicoke contrary to the will of Toronto City Council. Protesters are out right now to meet them, with work reportedly continuing from 6am to 4pm.
Tell Verdi Alliance to Stay Home
Council has voted on (and approved) these lanes four separate times under two mayors. Cycle Toronto continues to challenge this unprecedented overreach in the courts, as the facts are clear: bike lanes do not cause traffic congestion, ripping them out will put people’s lives at risk, and there is no network of side streets that can replace these lanes.
This isn’t just the opinion of cycling advocates. A safety analysis prepared for the province’s own Ministry of Transportation by engineering firm CIMA+ estimated that removing the bike lanes could increase collisions for all road users by as much as 54 per cent. It also found no clear evidence that removal would ease congestion. The city has estimated that removing all 19 km of bike lanes targeted by the provincial legislation will cost $48 million.
None of this work is necessary. Mayor Olivia Chow presented the Ford government with updated City of Toronto designs that would restore car lanes while keeping bike lanes. This isn’t a binary choice of bikes versus cars. There are real, pragmatic solutions, and the province has rejected them.
We understand that key personnel at Verdi Alliance may be high-level donors to Doug Ford’s party. That is disappointing, but perhaps not surprising. CBC reporting based on publicly available records appears to show that five directors with Verdi Alliance donated over $12,000 to the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party between 2021 and 2022. CBC reporting of possible ties to the Greenbelt land development scheme also calls into question the motivations behind this work.
Neither of these companies is based in Toronto. Tell Verdi Alliance and ATS Traffic and tell them they’re not welcome here. Tell them to keep their workers home.
Public pressure works. Last year before our case was heard in court, Stantec Consulting Ltd. was initially involved with the planned removals but bowed out after public pressure and protests.
The past 72 hours have been a whirlwind. Since Tuesday morning, when we announced that Cycle Toronto is seeking leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada, it’s been the best of times and the worst of times.
A special shoutout to the hundreds of individuals who lawfully and peacefully stopped the removals on Tuesday evening. Their principles and courage speak to a larger community of support for this life-saving infrastructure. That it took a literal army of Toronto police officers (at least 30 cruisers on site blocking car traffic at one point) to start the removal of curbs and flexi-posts along a mere 270 metres on one side of Bloor the next day speaks to the monumental waste of resources behind this entire project.
This short stretch of Bloor is just the beginning of the 19 km of protected bike lanes targeted by the province.
Send a message before it’s too late.
