It wasn’t tear gas or pepper spray causing the crowd of protesters to don respirator masks and goggles on Tuesday night in Etobicoke.
It was a cloud of asphalt exhaust and tar fumes spewing from an enormous pavement milling machine as it crawled east along Bloor Street, engulfing the crowd of coughing, red-eyed demonstrators in a cloud of pulverized concrete dust that had been, up until that moment, a 1.2-kilometre stretch of bike lanes.
As members of the crowd passed out water bottles and N95 masks, a police presence nearly equal to that of the demonstrators formed a stern line on the curb, allowing the roaring machine to trudge along unimpeded.
A Humber engineering student, a filmmaker, and a two-time Paralympian are among four protesters facing charges as demonstrations against bike lane removals on Bloor Street West continue into their second week.
On the night of Tuesday, Oct. 13, hundreds of pro-bike lane demonstrators successfully thwarted construction crews’ attempts to begin lane removal work as scheduled. However, the dedicated cycle lanes between Royal York Road and Islington Avenue in Etobicoke have been slowly dismantled over the past week.
Despite the protesters’ victory last Tuesday, construction crews returned early the next morning.
They were accompanied by a massive police presence consisting of more than 40 marked cruisers, several unmarked Ford Transit vans, dozens of officers riding bicycles, and at least two Court Services wagons.
That police presence has remained constant throughout the week, allowing crews to slowly remove the concrete barriers, plastic bollards, and signage that comprised the separated cycle lanes.
Bike lanes across several main streets in Toronto are slated for removal after Premier Doug Ford’s government enacted the controversial Bill 212 in 2024, which included sweeping measures allowing the province to remove existing lanes on Toronto streets.
The protests continue as a cycling advocacy group awaits word on whether they will be able to fight for the bike lanes in front of the Supreme Court of Canada.
The group, Cycle Toronto, is behind an ongoing constitutional challenge to the province’s anti-bike lane legislation.
It's hoping the nation’s top court will hear an appeal to a lower court’s August ruling that the legislation is constitutional.
In sharp contrast to the celebratory, festival-like atmosphere of last Tuesday night’s demonstration, tensions between protesters, police, and even construction workers have boiled over on several occasions throughout the week.
Humber electrical engineering student Khoa Thanh Phan, who also goes by the name Candice Doe, was arrested the following day on mischief charges. Candice’s custom-built bicycle was a crowd favourite amongst the demonstrators, complete with cellphone charging ports, speakers, pink Christmas lights, and a programmable LED sign.
During the next day of protests, Aly Van Wyck-Smart, a two-time Paralympic swimmer who was born with cerebral palsy, sat defiantly in front of the oncoming barrage of police and heavy machinery, the wheels of their pink wheelchair straddling one of the hundreds of concrete lane dividers destined for removal. Despite pleas from police, they refused to move.
An officer spoke to protestors and said the last thing he wanted to do was remove Van Wyck-Smart and arrest them.
“It would be one of the worst things I’ve ever done in my career if I have to do that,” the officer said.
In a shocking video posted to social media, two police officers can be seen physically removing a screaming Van Wyck Smart from their wheelchair, carrying them awkwardly by their shoulders and ankles, and forcing them into the back of a police car.
The 24-year-old Van Wyck Smart was taken to 23 Division, where they were later released. They are facing mischief charges and will appear in court at the Ontario Court of Justice on Friday, Jan. 8, 2027.
A fourth protester, 29-year-old filmmaker Prajjwal Rajawat, was arrested near Bloor Street and Islington Avenue on Monday, Oct. 19, after refusing to move out of the way of construction crews dismantling one of the many raised transit platforms that the Bloor bike lanes run through.
After exchanging a few hushed words with a crouched Jess Spieker, an organizer and cycling advocate, the cross-legged, helmet-clad Rajawat calmly put down his fluorescent pink sign reading “BIKE LANES PROTECT ALL ROAD USERS” and allowed police to handcuff him and lead him to a waiting cruiser across the street.
Rajawat was asked by an onlooker if he had anything to say as police ushered him into the back seat of the cruiser.
“Bike lanes save lives.”
Spieker, an organizer and member of cycling safety advocacy group Families and Friends for Safe Streets, said the demonstrators who got arrested are community heroes.
“They're willing to put themselves on the line to make a statement that what is happening here is profoundly unacceptable,” Spieker told Humber Et Cetera on Monday.
For Spieker, the protests have been a great success despite the deconstruction of bike lanes proceeding during what she describes as the most intense week of her life.
“I think it's definitely safe to say we have slowed them down, and that is part of the goal. I’m also filled with an incredible amount of hope and camaraderie because the biking community in Toronto is huge,” Spieker said.
She said the biking community built overnight on Sunday a memorial on Bloor to cyclists who died on Toronto streets. The installation, an artfully twisted pile of red bicycles fastened to a utility pole, is located in a parking lot near Tom Riley Park.
Something Spieker didn’t expect, however, was getting a flat tire while cycling along Bloor St in the bike lane near the protest last week.
She said she is one of at least eight cyclists to experience flats along that stretch of Bloor since protests began, many of whom have reported finding thumb tacks and small nails lodged in their tires.
Cycling advocates Constantine Moeller, Cohen Hammond, and Emmett Cassan spent several hours painstakingly scouring the Bloor bike lanes for tacks and nails on Monday afternoon.
Armed with a broom and dustpan, the trio discovered and removed dozens of tacks and nails, concentrated mainly around the area between Royal York Road and Montgomery Avenue, a stretch of Bloor they say is home to several vocally anti-bike lane businesses.
They say the nails did not appear to be construction debris or garbage.
“We looked at the nails themselves and found that they've been entirely unworn. Like they're they've not been hit by a hammer or anything. They look fresh out of a box,” Moeller said.
“And they’re all the same, like someone grabbed a handful out of a box, as opposed to them being from a construction site,” Hammond added.
What would they say to a person who would intentionally throw nails in a bike lane?
“Cheap move. There are better ways to express your hate for the bike lanes without putting people in harm's way,” Cassan said.
Verdi Alliance Civil Inc., the construction company listed as the contractor on the City of Toronto’s public road closure notice, has faced scrutiny over covering the company’s logo on its trucks, equipment, and road signs.
A worker said he didn’t know why their vehicles and equipment had paper duct-taped on them.
One protester alleges a construction worker used a homophobic slur against her.
The protester, Valerie, who asked to be identified only by her first name, alleges that a worker used the slur against her while she protested on the sidewalk on Bloor. A member of the media also heard the worker use the slur.
“One of the construction workers, I don't know where he's at right now, he called me a f----t,” Valerie told Humber Et Cetera.
For Valerie, a member of the queer community, the incident is emblematic of the sort of company that would take on a project such as this.
“They're willing to rip up public infrastructure. They're not good people. They're not the people who actually care about other people. They’re people who call you a slur for speaking back to them,” Valerie said.
While bike lane supporters have been out in full force over the past week of protests, a number of businesses in the area are glad to see them go.
One business, The Old Sod Pub, is even hosting a “Bike Lane Removal Celebration Party” next weekend.
Although some of the lanes have gone up in a cloud of asphalt dust, organizers like Spieker know that this is just the beginning of a long fight to preserve biking infrastructure.
The lanes targeted this week make up just 1.2 kilometres of 19 kilometres the province has earmarked for removal.
Spieker’s assessment?
“I don't think the provincial government calculated this move particularly well,” she said.
