The Ontario Superior Court has ruled that the provincial government’s law mandating the removal of bike lanes on key Toronto streets violates Canadians’ constitutional rights to life, liberty and security of the person.
This decision marks a significant victory for bike-lane advocates and raises questions about similar policies across the country that seek the removal of bike lanes.
On Wednesday, Justice Paul Schabus of the Ontario Superior Court found that the Ontario government’s decision to remove bike lanes was made without proper considerations, and breached S. 7 of the Charter.
The decision raises new questions about how far governments can go when public safety is on the line and raises questions about the way courts can handle disputed infrastructure development.
Here’s more on what the court said, and what it might mean for cities across Canada.
The judge’s verdict
After going over evidence provided by Ontario’s government and by the cyclists and advocates who had sued the Ontario government, Schabas decided that the applicants were successful in showing the plan to remove three bike lanes was unconstitutional.
Schabas found the evidence shows that removing the already existing bike lanes on Bloor Street, Yonge Street. and University Avenue to restore it to a motor vehicle lane will create greater risk to cyclists and others in the roads.
With the evidence provided, Schabas concluded that the removal of the target bike lanes would lead to more collisions and injuries involving cyclists. For him, the benefit of saving drivers some travel time is disproportionate to the negative impact to the cyclists’ safety.
“It is reasonable to conclude that people who cycle will be injured and killed when lanes for motor vehicles are installed and protected bike lanes are removed,” said Schabas.
How did we get here?
In October 2024, the Ontario government introduced Bill 212: Reducing Gridlock, Saving you Time. At first the bill only mandated that municipalities in Ontario would need approval from the provincial minister of transportation before they decided to construct bicycle lanes that would remove a lane of motor vehicle traffic.
A month after being introduced, the bill was amended. The new amendment sought the removal of bike lanes on Bloor Street, University Avenue and Yonge Street. in Toronto to restore lanes for vehicle traffic. The amendments also sought to make the government immune to claims for damages that could arise from collisions, injuries or deaths that occur as a result of removing the target bike lanes.
With that, individual cyclists and an organization that advocates for cyclists in Toronto filed a lawsuit in January 2025, claiming that this amendment is a violation of Section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms because it would infringe the right to life and security of the person by putting cyclists at greater risk of injury and death. They also argued that restoring the lanes for motor vehicles will not alleviate traffic congestion, which was the provincial government’s stated purpose with its legislative changes.
The government said that if the applicant’s position was found correct, it would make all traffic decisions subject to Charter scrutiny. The Ontario government also argued that if bike lanes were removed, it would help solve traffic issues in Toronto.
In April 2025, Schabas granted an injunction, which prevented the government from removing the bike lanes until a decision had been reached.
In June 2025, the amendments announced in November 2024 were changed by the government. Now, instead of requiring that the bike lanes be removed, the amendment stated that it would “restore a lane for motor vehicle traffic … by reconfiguring the bicycle lanes.” With that, the provincial government said the lawsuit was no longer relevant, as the amendment was differently worded.
(The court only found out a month after the changes were enacted.)
However, according to Schabas, the new changes made no meaningful change to the law or the dispute between the parties.
After reviewing the evidence from both parties, Schabas said that evidence shows that restoring lanes for cars will not result in less congestion, as it will induce more people to use cars and any reduction in congestion would only be over a short distance and, eventually, will lead to more congestion. The evidence provided by cyclists also showed that bike lanes can actually help alleviate traffic congestion, as it offers another safe option of transportation in the city.
“The evidence presented by the (Ontario government) consists of weak anecdotal evidence and expert opinion which is unsupported,” said Schabas in his decision.
According to Schabas, the government has the right to make decisions about roads and traffic infrastructure, but if it puts people at risk, its actions can be restricted by the Charter.
Does the ruling create a “right” to bike lanes?
That has been one of the main criticisms of the ruling. However, Bruce Ryder, a professor emeritus of law at Osgoode Hall Law School, says that’s not quite accurate.
“We don’t have a right to bike lanes … but we do have a right to not have governments taking actions, including the removal of bike lanes, that put lives and safety at risk,” said Ryder.
Ryder said that if there was evidence showing that removing bike lanes actually helped improve traffic flow, there would be no issue with having them removed. But because that is not the case, the government cannot prove that the decision achieves its goals.
“If they (the government) did have evidence that removing the bike lanes would improve traffic flow, and if they did take steps to ensure that there were alternative routes that would protect people’s safety, there would be no problem. There would be no constitutional issue,” said Ryder.
Schabas also said that the cyclists are not asking for the whole bill to be changed or for more bike lanes to be built, but just that these specific bike lanes are kept in the way they are.
When did Toronto build these bike lanes?
Since 2016, the city of Toronto has been expanding bike lanes in the city. In a 2024 report, the city outlined the investment for bike lanes and bike share, and said that by having that, Toronto would be a more successful city by giving people more choices to get around.
Since the bike lanes project started, there has been a decrease in traffic accidents involving cyclists, and an increase in the number of people using bikes to get around, according to the evidence presented in court.
The bike lane on Bloor Street. was completed in late 2016. The bike lanes on both University Avenue and Yonge Street. were first installed through ActiveTO, a project created by the city during the COVID-19 pandemic. About $27 million was spent to install these target bike lanes in three of the main roads of Toronto.
What were the reactions to the plan to remove the bike lanes in Toronto?
In statements, comments and open letters, Ontario Traffic Control, Ontario Professional Planners Institute, 120 physicians and researchers from the University of Toronto, Ontario Society of Professional Engineers and Toronto Parking Authority were all concerned about the bike lanes removal, claiming it would actually make traffic worse and give less transportation options to citizens.
The City of Toronto released reports showing why bike lanes are important and how there was nowhere to put them in the city without redesigning the road system. Mayor Olivia Chow also asked the provincial government to respect the local government’s decision making around cycling infrastructure.
At the request of the provincial government, CIMA, an engineering company, provided a report on the matter. In the report, they said that while restoring a lane of motor vehicle traffic may seem to reduce traffic over a short distance, over a longer distance the benefits of it could not even be noticed due to other factors that influence traffic, like on-street parking, transit stops, bridges, and delays at intersections.
Schabas noted that just like internal advice before Bill 212 was passed, the CIMA report was only produced by the government when required in this court application and not before the bill was passed.
At the same time, the provincial government provided evidence explaining how the restoration of a lane for motor vehicles would help fix traffic in Toronto. However, Schabas said in his decision that the statements of Prabmeet Singh Sarkaria, the minister of transportation, and Premier Doug Ford are not supported by any data or internal analysis or advice.
The government also claimed that only 1.2 per cent of trips are made by bicycle, which is inconsistent with the data the government had at the time. Just in June 2024, there were more than 760,000 trips made with bike share in the city.
The counsel for the provincial government argued that the experts consulted by the cyclists in this case are cycling advocates and that would make them biased. However, all the claims made by the experts in the case were made based on research, Schabas concluded.
What it might mean for other provinces/cities with similar plans
Following in Ontario’s footsteps, the Alberta government is looking into making some changes in bike lanes in both Calgary and Edmonton.
Despite the recent developments in Ontario, Devin Dreeshen, Alberta’s transportation minister, said that it’s not ruling out the removal of bike lanes. The minister had a meeting with Calgary’s mayor, Jyoti Gondek, to discuss the future of bike lanes in the city. Differently from Ontario, the two seemed to keep the conversation open to finding a solution for it.
“Whatever happened in Ontario is the perspective of the government and the courts there. Here, we are simply trying to keep people safe no matter how they choose to travel,” Gondek said, as Global News reported.
Nova Scotia is also facing a similar issue, with Premier Tim Houston planning to override Halifax’s city council decision about adding a new bike lane that would close a street to two-way traffic, leaving one vehicle lane and adding a two-way bike lane.
“As Premier, I have a responsibility to stand up for Nova Scotians who are concerned with ever-worsening traffic problems in Halifax. I won’t stand by as decisions are made that will make their lives worse,” Houston wrote on Facebook in mid-July.
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