Fewer bike lanes, more community gardens: What some Toronto mayoral hopefuls pitched Thursday

Bike lanes, food banks and safe injection sites were some of the issues on the agenda Thursday for those vying to be Toronto's next mayor.

This morning, candidate Anthony Furey, a former columnist for Sun News, took aim at bike lanes in Toronto and said he'd remove existing lanes on University Avenue. 

Meanwhile, former city councillor Ana Bailão shared her plan to address food insecurity in the city by giving space to food banks and repurposing green space.

Later Thursday, former police chief and mayoral hopeful Mark Saunders is set to speak to reporters with a family he says has been negatively impacted by a nearby supervised injection site. Saunders will also share changes he'd put in place as mayor to "protect the families and children" who live near the sites.

Speaking at the Allan Gardens Food Bank, Bailão said if elected mayor she would add $2 million to the city's community partnership and investment program — which provides grants to programs supporting equity-deserving communities — and create a new funding stream specifically for food security and sustainability programs, which would help with overhead costs, she said. 

"In the longer term, we need to be working toward a Toronto where our residents aren't relying on food banks in record numbers," she said. But there are actions that need to be taken in the short term, Bailão added.

Earlier this month, the CEO of Toronto's Daily Bread Food Bank said more people visited Daily Bread locations in March than at any time in the charity's 40-year history.

Bailão also said she would also allocate vacant city space for food banks and work with community partners to turn underutilized green spaces into community gardens to grow food.

She said she would push grocers to donate to food banks and launch a citywide food drive. 

"By connecting food banks with city space, increasing access to fresh food and pushing corporations to provide locally, we can help meet this urgent need," she said.

Bailão said long term, it's important to address root causes of food insecurity like access to housing. She said she'll have more to say about housing in the coming weeks.

Meanwhile, Furey said he will halt the city's pledged construction of new bike lanes and scale back on the existing infrastructure if he's elected mayor. 

"The current approach to bike lanes in Toronto is outrageous — it has just gone too far," Furey said in a news release.

He alleged that bike lanes have slowed ambulance response times and worsened traffic.