Waterfront, GTTA news, Mississauga BRT, trees in Oakville

The Toronto Star has a number of articles today that may be of interest to you:

Christopher Hume from the Toronto Star, on the city’s waterfront: “The bulk of the work remains to be done, but this week’s launch — if that’s the right word — marks the start of a process whose importance cannot be overstated. In short, this is where Toronto will either become the city it thinks it is or remain the city it really is, a second-rank centre of little interest to itself, let alone the rest of the world. The waterfront is our opportunity to change all that, to build sustainable mixed-use communities based on public transit, anti-suburbs designed for people not cars, connected by roads rather than highways.”

Burlington Mayor Rob MacIsaac is a top candidate for heading up the agency that will set the transit agenda for the GTTA (Greater Toronto Transportation Authourity). The Ontario government is said to be “high” on the 44-year-old, who will not be seeking re-election in November. And MacIsaac said yesterday in an interview that he would gladly serve on the GTTA, given his long-time belief that there should be a public transit system across the GTA and the Golden Horseshoe. “I am a big believer in the GTTA. I have been talking about transportation for a long time and the fact we deserve a world-class transportation system here in the Golden Horseshoe,” said MacIsaac, who has been mayor for nine years and spent 15 years on council. And I don’t understand why we are so accepting of the fact that we don’t have one,” he said. “There are so many big cities elsewhere that have a transportation system that blow ours away.”

As of tomorrow, Mississauga will be flush with $64 million in provincial cash to spend on its long-awaited Bus Rapid Transit line, but officials aren’t celebrating yet. Mayor Hazel McCallion now begins what could be the long and difficult task of lobbying the federal government to kick in its one-third share. Until that money is committed, the city can’t start the estimated five-year construction project, aimed at easing traffic gridlock in the city of 700,000.

About 100 mature hardwood trees in an environmentally significant area were cut down without a permit at Glen Abbey Golf Club in Oakville, a Halton Region official says. The trees were situated along Sixteen Mile Creek in an area officially designated environmentally significant in the regional official plan. Conservation Halton has also been notified and is assisting in the investigation. If charges are laid, it will be the first test of a new bylaw to regulate tree cutting on private property that went into effect on Jan. 1. Aimed at preventing the indiscriminate cutting of trees, it requires that a permit be obtained for cutting in a greenbelt area or in a woodlot larger than a half-hectare.

photo from TWRC document on Commissioners Park