The Maple Leafs may have won on Sunday, beating the Utah Hockey Club (formerly Arizona Wild) 3-2, but once again, bike lanes somehow entered the conversation. The traffic, which was likely even worse than usual due to the annual Santa Claus Parade, led Utah to post a TikTok captioned “Walk to work type of night,” showing the entire team walking to Scotiabank Arena from the St. Regis Hotel, just over a kilometre away. Instead of taking a team bus or drivers, they marched toward the game to avoid missing it.
Utah walks the walk
“Wow. There’s way too much traffic, the bus is not moving at all,” defenceman Maveric Lamoureux, Utah’s defenceman, said in the video. “It’s pretty much the whole team walking the street; I think that’s a first for everyone.”
@utahhockeyclub Walk to work type of night 🚶♂️ #NHL #Toronto #Hockey ♬ original sound – Utah Hockey Club
Premier Doug Ford wasted no time in making the viral video about his favourite topic: bike lanes.
“When Toronto traffic is so bad that NHL teams have to walk to their games, we’ve got a serious problem. So, that’s why it’s so important that we deliver on our plan to fight gridlock by bringing sanity back to bike lane decisions, building highways and public transit, and speeding up construction on the Gardiner,” he posted on X.
War on bike lanes continues
Ford has been railing against bike lanes for months this fall. Bill 212, officially known as the Reducing Gridlock, Saving You Time Act, would require provincial approval for new bike lanes on municipal roads that involve removing vehicle traffic lanes. It also mandates the removal of bike lanes along Bloor St., Yonge St., and University Ave. in Toronto, converting these lanes back to vehicle traffic.
“It was embarrassing that the Utah hockey team had to get out of the bus and start walking to the hockey arena. It is just unacceptable, people are avoiding downtown,” Ford said at a news conference n Monday. “Toronto traffic is an absolute nightmare right now, around the world and North America.”
Congestion worse than ever because of Santa Claus Parade
Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow said the particularly bad traffic was also the result of the parade, which had just ended. “Once a year we’re at the Santa Claus parade, and with all the floats and all the cars coming out, that whole area was quite jacked up,” Chow said to NOW magazine. The…
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