It’s a good time to re-think our imports from the U.S., but not just because of tariffs. We can certainly do without the tactics increasingly common in politics and exploited by Donald Trump: bullying adversaries; making outrageous claims; scapegoating the vulnerable; dismissing research as fake news, and using the courts to intimidate rivals. A questionable lawsuit, among other tactics, launched by a group of businesspeople against the City of Toronto, its transportation manager, and a local councillor about the Bloor West Complete Street Extension falls within this troubling trend.
The lawsuit was filed mere days before the provincial election, presumably intended to support the Conservative incumbent [now defeated] in Etobicoke-Lakeshore who continued to trumpet bike lane removal instead of focusing on urgent provincial issues. Last October, she stood shoulder-to-shoulder with one of the current lead plaintiffs, Sam Pappas, at a press conference at which Ontario’s transportation minister, Prabmeet Sarkaria, announced restrictions on new bike lanes. Banners of the curiously-named Balance on Bloor, a group created by Pappas and other businessmen to fight the Complete Street project, provided the backdrop for the press conference.
Soon thereafter, Premier Ford, to curry favour with the opponents, went a step further, passing into law — after rushed public hearings (where his Bill 212 got virtually no support) — a requirement to remove bike lanes on Bloor as well as University Avenue and Yonge Street. But victory for these opponents was only step one, to be followed by retribution, akin to what Trump often threatens against his adversaries.
The lawsuit claims that the conduct of the city and the councillor in the bike lane installation was “reprehensible, scandalous, and outrageous.” No matter that the project simply advances the city’s climate, cycling, and road safety goals, and constitutes good planning in an area of surging population growth.
Other opponents have shown even less restraint. A local pub owner sells t-shirts with the logo, “Fuck bike lanes” — apparently indifferent to the six city residents killed while riding their bikes in 2024, five of them on roads without bike lanes, and a sixth on a blocked lane.
Even though the Complete Street Extension was approved in June 2023 after a 21-1 vote by councillors, the lawsuit targets local councillor Amber Morley, demanding $10 million in damages. Over recent months, opponents have taunted her at public meetings and berated her with verbal attacks that bordered on abusive. Her treatment has verged on the type of “Lock her up!” chants incited by Trump in his campaign against Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Premier Ford fueled the anger of the Complete Street opponents with his rhetoric, claiming that 50,000 people had signed a petition opposing the bike lane (the real figure was 13,000) and that there might be but a single cyclist each year on Bloor in Etobicoke. (Our single-day count in September 2024, less than a year after installation, documented almost 900 riders, including on e-bikes). Ford also exploited misconceptions by claiming — much like Trump blames immigrants for America’s problems — that bike lanes cause Toronto’s traffic congestion. Ford and his transportation minister haven’t offered any actual research to support the claim.
At a Town Hall meeting organized by Councillor Morley in October 2024, opponents actually booed the Deputy Fire Chief when he said that emergency response times decreased since bike lane installation, not increased — as opponents claimed, and repeat in the lawsuit. The opponents, who had maintained that no one wanted the bike lanes, were clearly taken aback by strong local support at the public meeting for the new infrastructure.
We can disagree on issues such as bike lanes, but let’s embrace a Canadian approach based on decency, courtesy, and respectful dialogue.
Photo by Albert Koehl
Albert Koehl is an environmental lawyer, founder of Community Bikeways, and author of Wheeling Through Toronto, A History of the Bicycle and Its Riders (University of Toronto Press)
