A city divided - over bike lanes

Mississauga's plan for Bloor Street has become a volatile issue in mayoral byelection

- NOOR JAVED

The intersection of Bloor Street and Dixie Road in Mississauga. The city's recently approved bike lane project has become a divisive issue among mayoral candidates.

It's a city of a nearly a million people, with a housing crisis and rising crime rates, but a plan to install bike lanes along a five-kilometre stretch of Bloor Street has become one of the most divisive issues in Mississauga's upcoming mayoral byelection, with sitting councillors accusing candidates of using the issue to incite "anger and hate" and pit residents against each other.

With the election less than a month away, one candidate has promised residents that if she wins, she will reopen and reassess the contentious plan that passed in a close 6-4 council vote last summer.

That plan would see separated bike lanes installed along Bloor from Central Parkway East to Etobicoke Creek, a busy throughway flanked by homes, strip malls, apartment buildings and several planned development projects, and require removing two car lanes in the process. Critics of the bike plan says the road goes from "nowhere to nowhere," while supporters see this is a small part of bigger biking network being planned for the city.

In three posts on X, Coun. Dipika Damerla one of 20 candidates running in the election on June 10 -said her goal is to avoid the gridlock that is seen on Bloor in downtown Toronto and Etobicoke, which she says is due to designated bike lanes.

"I do not want to repeat this mistake in Mississauga and create more congestion," said Damerla. "Removing car lanes without providing our drivers with real credible alternatives is wrong and unfair."

Her promise has galvanized opponents of the bike lanes, who say they will rally in support of any mayoral candidate who saves the four-lane roadway.