Toronto’s bike lanes had undergone a significant growth spurt since the pandemic, carving out safer spaces for cyclists.

“The city was finally making strides,” Ms. Ng, a doctoral student in history, said after cycling onto the leafy downtown campus of the University of Toronto.

Then came the backlash.

Some of the most popular bike lanes were making Toronto’s notorious traffic worse, according to the provincial government. So Doug Ford, Ontario’s premier, passed a law to rip out 14 miles of the lanes from three major streets that serve the core of the city.