Just as DC Comics has the fictional cities of Gotham City and Metropolis, the fictional country of Canada has the fictional city of Toronto, which is, in turn, governed by a fictional group of city councilors.
One Councillor in particular, Brackley Shawshages, has convinced Mayor Johnny Meeps to do away with miles of unused bicycle lanes, and replace them with something smaller-- much, much smaller.
"Hot Wheels lanes!" Councillor Shawshages blurted out from the passenger side of his wife's 1991 Honda Civic. "That's my idea! And the Mayor is completely behind it! He was pretending to be asleep, but I know better!"
Many miles of the fake city had been allocated to bike lanes, at the cost of millions of Canadian dollars used only by Canadians, and gallons and gallons of black paint to erase white lines for cars, and shrink the right-side lane to fit a bicycle rider. This resulted in horrendous grid-lock, bringing so-called 'major roads' to a crawl, while the mere one percent of hipsters and health nuts cruised along in their personal lanes.
Realizing that 99 percent is just a little bigger than 1 percent, Mayor Meeps backtracked and had planned to return the traffic lanes to automobiles. Enter Councillor Brackley Shawshages.
"As I was rearranging my super hero action figure collection in my kitchen, I had a brain storm! And this time it wasn't because of kung pao chicken that went bad, like last time! I checked Google, and do you know how many Hot Wheels are made every year? 519 million! Isn't that crazy?! And we were catering to just a few thousand bike riders?! Gimme a break!"
Thinking that the math spoke for itself, Councilor Shawsages bought buckets-worth of a lovely teal-colored paint, to designate the so-called 'Hot Wheels Lanes'. After all, the Hot Wheels lanes will be sharing the right-side lane with regular traffic, hence no need to paint over white lanes, or shrinking the car lanes by any noticeable width.
"Bike lanes took up a good three feet of the car lanes, but the new Hot Wheels Lanes will only use up a single foot! Just enough room for kids to play with their Hot Wheels, and hey, even their Matchbox and Corgi and Dinky diecast cars to their hearts content! I used to lie down on the sidewalk for hours playing with my Hot Wheels as a little boy in the '60's, and now kids of today can lie down on the edge of the street and play with their little cars as real cars race by! It's gonna be awesome!"
Asked if children playing so close to traffic posed a safety hazard, the city councilor that had served for 27 years in virtual anonymity rolled his eyes and proclaimed,
"Well, obviously drivers will now just have to also pay attention to the tiny traffic lights that'll be installed across the city!"
