Bad news for the anti-bike-lane crusade

And the Grits first contested nomination race is...

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OLIVIA CHOW is kicking her long-shot resistance to DOUG FORD’s anti-bike-lane brigade up a notch.

Like most mayors under provincial rule, Chow doesn’t have many levers to stop the province from ripping up bike lanes — but she might be looking to the court of public opinion for help.

A new city report suggests that tearing up existing lanes on Yonge, University and Bloor could cost taxpayers a pretty penny — $48 million (on top of the $27 million it cost to install them in the first place) — and that it wouldn’t do much to ease gridlock.

That’s bad optics — but the Tories are already poking holes in those numbers. “If it costs $48!!! Million to remove some concrete and repaint some street lanes, maybe we need a Department of Government Efficiency too. It cost less than a million to remove the bike lanes on Jarvis a decade ago,” tweeted CHRIS CHAPIN, managing principal at Upstream Strategy.

Civic clash: While the province has already promised to foot the bill for removing ex…