Text of the article:

Ford floats use of notwithstanding clause in Toronto bike lanes case

‘Let’s see what happens at the Court of Appeal,’ Premier Doug Ford told reporters

Aidan Chamandy

Aug 6, 2025 1:41 PM

Premier Doug Ford is gearing up for a fight after a judge pumped the brakes on his government’s plan to remove some Toronto bike lanes. 

On Wednesday, Ford left open the possibility of invoking the notwithstanding clause to ensure his government retains the authority to remove bike lanes it disapproves of. 

“Let's see what happens at the Court of Appeal, and then we'll go from there,” he said at an unrelated announcement in Thornhill. 

Ford criticized Justice Paul Schabas’ decision as the “most ridiculous” he’s ever seen. 

“You talk about the Charter? It’s trampling on the democratic rights of Ontarians that elected a government, just a few months before … that said they’re going to move, not eliminate … bike lanes from the main arterial roads,” Ford said. 

Ford, however, struck a confident tone and said he has confidence the Court of Appeal will rule in his government’s favour. 

Using the notwithstanding clause would allow the government to push through the removals, regardless of what the three-judge panel at the Court of Appeals says. 

In his July 30 ruling, Justice Schabas wrote “the evidence is clear” that “restoring a lane of motor vehicle traffic … will create greater risk to cyclists and to other users of the road.” 

Schabas’ decision didn’t hinge on whether he thought citizens had a right to bike lanes. Instead, it revolved around whether the government’s arguments for removing the lanes — and causing harm to non-driving road users — was based in fact. 

The government’s central point was that removing the bike lanes on Yonge Street, University Avenue and Bloor Street would reduce congestion. That, according to Schabas, was predicated on “weak anecdotal evidence and expert opinion,” which was “unsupported, unpersuasive and contrary to the consensus view of experts.”

He wrote that “there is no evidence that the government based its decision on data, manuals or expert ‘highway engineering’, or that its decision would ‘contribute to highway safety.’”

“Rather, the evidence is to the contrary,” he wrote.

Ford is no stranger to using — or threatening to use — the notwithstanding clause, a constitutional provision that was previously taboo in Ontario politics. 

He was the first premier in the province’s history to invoke the clause, which has been in place since 1982. 

In 2018, he threatened to invoke the clause to reduce the number of Toronto city council members from 47 to 25. Doing so was ultimately unnecessary because the Court of Appeal upheld Queen’s Park’s authority to make the council change.

In 2021, the Superior Court struck down Ford’s attempt to [extend third-party election spending limits](https://www.barrietoday.com/local-news/supreme-court-strikes-down-ford-governments-third-party-political-ads-law-10339531: outbound&utm_medium=referral) to 12 months, up from six months. Ford recalled the legislature and passed the bill with the notwithstanding clause — marking the first time in provincial history the clause was actually used. 

Then, in 2022, Ford [used the clause](https://www.ola.org/en/legislative-business/bills/parliament-43/session-1/bill-28: outbound&utm_medium=referral) to ban education workers from striking after contract negotiations broke down. That sparked intense public backlash and Ford repealed the bill days later.

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CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article said Ford in 2022 used the notwithstanding clause to ban teachers from striking. It was in fact used to stop education workers, like librarians, custodians and early childhood educators, from striking.

Organisers of today’s pro-Palestine protest in Sydney have successfully addressed Premier Minns’ ‘concerns’ about the impact it would have on traffic, by seemingly getting the whole city off the roads and marching along side them.

“Turns out roughly a hundred thousand people wanted to cross the bridge at the time of the march,” said one organiser, “which would have been the worst traffic Sydney has ever seen, but luckily they were all protesters walking around so it was fine.”

The peaceful protest, which Minns wanted to have police break-up by force, has potentially broken records both in terms of protest size, and lack of car accidents in Sydney on a rainy day.

[...]

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/33591374

Vietnam has build working towards some serious transit upgrades lately. The HSR line between the major cities, and starting to ban gas powered vehicles on a very accelerated time scale both show a nation wanting to modernize and build needed resources for their people.

France and Vietnam relations have come a long way since the 1960's... building relationships and resources is good work.

Huge fire trucks are a real problem for cities. Requiring roads to be huge so emergency vehicles can move through them is locking streets into being big for unnecessary reasons.

I lived in a tiny town for a few years. They wanted to build a road out to some spread out houses, but couldn't afford it. The reason? The fire department bought a new huge truck and demanded the road be wide enough for them to turn the truck around anywhere they liked.

The result was part of the city being cut off for decades as the city council fought the firefighters. All because anyone of 1800 people bought a hook and ladder truck capable of handling skyscraper fires. The tallest building in town is three stories and it still burned down, even with the oversized truck on hand.

For context, Water Street in Vancouver looks like it was taken straight out of Paris or Amsterdam. It's one of the oldest parts of the city and one of the few streets that were developed before cars. It should be an absolute no brainier to make it car free permanently, but carbrained North American city council gonna carbrain. This is less than the bare minimum and is absolutely not praiseworthy.

More importantly, they're proposing it to be car free on the day with the least transit service and what little there is randomly gets delayed or cancelled without notice. Great idea!

Seriously, as someone who exclusively uses transit in Vancouver, the weekend service is infuriating and basically unusable if you're under any sort of time pressure. You show up at a bus station, transit app says the next one is in 30 minutes when it would be 5-10 minutes on weekdays. So you resign yourself to a 30 minute wait only for the bus to not show up with zero announcements, even though they're pretty good at notifying you of these things on weekdays. So now you have to wait for the next one in an hour, which might not show up either, and when it does, it's packed to the brim because it's carrying three buses worth of passengers and the driver puts on the "sorry bus full" sign and refuses to let you on even when several people get off at the same stop. It's genuinely like they want you to drive on the weekend.

Calling it now: when car free Sundays inevitably flop because no one wants to bother with the shitty weekend transit, city council will go "see? car free streets never work!" And it will be used to shoot down every subsequent car free initiative. Wonder if that was their plan in the first place.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.bestiver.se/post/443781

Comments

Not the first time this has happened either, here's another similar case in Atlanta: https://abcnews.go.com/US/mother-boy-killed-hit-run-driver-probation-community/story?id=14158040

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/5034764

from the latest NotJustBikes video: https://youtu.be/wqGxqxePihE

https://pacersbikeshare.org/ (Indianapolis, Indiana)

Muscle Bike $2 + $0.20/min Electric Bike $5 + $0.25/min

That's $14 for an hour long ride and $26 or even $40 for a long ride and a short ride.

https://www.carmel.in.gov/our-city/experience/attractions/bike-carmel/bike-share-program

Similarly located, more walkable urbanism focused but less urban Carmel, Indiana has a more reasonable rate:

Muscle Bike $1.50 per half hour to rent with a cap of $24 for up to a 24-hour period.

Can anyone explain to me why this difference is so large? Over the years I've come across some expensive bike shares and some very affordable ones. The only other thing worth noting is that residents of Marion County, which Indianapolis is in, can ride a certain amount free and at a discount after that. I thought bike shares were perfect for visitors or travelers who may not have a car at their destination.

Would you consider the Pacers Bike Share in Indianapolis Expensive?

For this price, if I was in Indy for a week, I'd buy a Craigslist bike and donate it to some random kid when I left. $40 of gas would take me across the state.

Fewer cars. Faster travel. Less honking....

https://archive.is/NRCcg