September 1, 2026 - (Toronto, ON) Following the Ontario Court of Appeal’s ruling in mid-August that sided with the province, the Ford government is moving ahead with bike lane removal and reconfiguration on some of Toronto’s busiest roads, according to a news release by the provincial government reports CBC and other news outlets.
The Court of Appeal’s ruling reversed a lower-court decision made in July 2025 that agreed with cycling advocates who claimed that removing 19 kilometres of protected bike lanes in Toronto along Bloor St., University Ave. and Yonge St. would not ease congestion and will make the roads more dangerous for cyclists, drivers, and pedestrians – read more here.
The province will begin the process of “restoring motor vehicle lanes” that were previously removed to make bike lanes on Bloor Street, Yonge Street, University Avenue, Queen’s Park, Queen’s Park Crescent and Avenue Road – read the official release here.
A Request for Proposals (RFP) has also been issued to “study and provide design options” for restoring vehicle lanes along some “sections” of Toronto’s busiest streets including options for retaining or reconfiguring bike lanes.
According to the release, “The province is also immediately beginning to restore motor vehicle lanes on Bloor Street W., starting east of a 600-metre section at Clissold Road where vehicle lanes were restored in December 2025.”
When asked about safety concerns once the bike lanes are removed, Ontario Transportation Minister Prabmeet Sarkaria said the rules of the road will still apply to cyclists and drivers. “We expect, just like the hundreds of thousands of other streets in Ontario where both the vehicles and cyclists can coexist, that that will continue to happen on the streets that we are specifying right now,” he told CBC.
Yet the province is aware that bike lane removals may not reduce congestion, and could make people less safe. Internal documents from the transportation ministry that were made public as part of Cycle Toronto’s court challenge to Bill 212 — the legislation that gave the province sweeping control over municipal bike lanes — cast doubt on some of Sarkaria’s statements.
Those documents include a report prepared by engineering and urban planning firm CIMA+, which said collisions for all road users could increase upwards of 54% if bike lanes are removed, based on existing research – read more here.
