Bloor is our “Main Street” — in some ways the heart of our civic life — traversing the entire west end from the Mississauga border to the Valley of the Don. Important enough to merit a subway, it’s one of our great public thoroughfares. What we do on Bloor matters. So if, as a community, we want to make Toronto healthier and more livable, this is a good place to do it.

Very shortly, city council will vote on a proposed bike lane for this street, running over two kilometres from Shaw to Avenue Road. If council approves it, the lane could go in as early as this summer. That would be a tremendous accomplishment for a number of reasons.

By making biking safer, the lane would encourage folks to leave the car at home and cycle more frequently to work or school. It would encourage exercise, reduce congestion and improve the air we and our children breathe. Not just a boon to cyclists, it would help make the street more predictable — and less dangerous — for all road-users, including motorists. It would also benefit local stores, as research shows people arriving by bike tend to spend more money, over the course of a month, than those arriving by automobile.

But a Bloor bike lane would also bring something quite extraordinary. It would demonstrate that Toronto is embracing the imperative to reduce fossil-fuel use. It would show we are finally getting serious about climate change.

Facing this danger means nothing less than overhauling how our community lives — everything from how we eat and keep ourselves warm to how we move from place to place. But changes of this magnitude can feel daunting, to put it mildly. It seems immense; so much needs to be remade if we’re to reach Toronto’s goal of an 80 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. Many of us worry: What can we actually do? Where do we begin?

Implementing novel transportation initiatives is a great starting place because emissions associated with hauling people and goods are the largest single source of greenhouse gases in Ontario. The Bloor bike lane would be a concrete and very helpful step on the way to the grand transformation we need. It would be valuable in itself and set the stage for larger, more profound actions later on.

As we move into the future, the very function of our streets needs to be different. Until recently, their purpose was facilitating the movement of vehicles that foster climate change. Now their purpose must be precisely to facilitate movement that impedes climate change. Roadways need to go from being a problem to a key part of the solution; they need to be active “participants” in Toronto's transition to a low-carbon community. By putting a bike lane on Bloor, we enlist the street as an ally in the fight against climate chaos.

The Bloor lane would also have a powerful psychological benefit, showing Torontonians that climate change need not be overwhelming, that there’s still time to address it. The situation is serious but not hopeless. If we alter the nature of city infrastructure — if we design it specifically to reduce emissions rather than create them — we can significantly shrink our carbon footprint. This might be the bike lane’s greatest virtue: spreading much-needed climate optimism.

What would the climate-friendly Bloor of the near-future look like? It would have wider sidewalks to make walking and jogging easier and more appealing; it would have a lower speed limit to encourage non-motorized transportation; it would have more trees to provide shade and keep us cool in summer; it would have electric-vehicle charging stations; and, yes, it would have a separated bike lane — one that gives cyclists the protection they need if they’re to continue their absolutely essential work of lowering our carbon output.

Gideon Forman is a Climate Change and Transportation Policy Analyst at the David Suzuki Foundation. Jared Kolb is Executive Director of Cycle Toronto.

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