Thursday’s Headlines

5 comments

1. Not sure how Ontario is going to allow green plate cars free parking – how many lots do they run or are they going to impose another unfunded mandate on municipalities? As far as I’m concerned parking should only be free for bikes, no matter how green the car is (and I say that as a car owner).

2. I am of the opinion that MTO plan to allow “eco-friendly” cars perks is at best, a nice sounding policy that won’t really do much, or at worst, pure greenwash.

   One of the perks might be to allow single occupants of hybrid cars on HOV lanes. It is similar to calling highway widenings “environmentally friendly” because they are adding HOV lanes (while the idea of giving up regular lanes to HOVs is not open for discussion).

   Two or three passengers in a regular smallish sedan is probably preferable to a single occupant in a Prius, but certainly more perferable than Laurel Broten in her Escape mild-hybrid.

3. This green plate thing is all hogwash. McGuinty wants to put pressure on Alberta to cut greenhouse gas emissions which will hurt their oil industry, but will not impose minimum emission standard on cars for fear it will hurt the auto industry (do as I say, not as I do). Both measures should be put in place in my opinion.

   There should be no benefits for driving cars, only penalties. Do not create any incentives for “green cars” (what an oxymoron) and penalize the gas guzzlers like crazy. Here is a suggestion for a tax: if your car is a SUV then you have to pay at least the same amount on taxes that you pay in insurance every year to the city. Dream on… Drivers are the citizens with the most rights in our car dependant society and it will only change once oil passes $200 a barrel (and that still might not do it).

4. Why are we still being sucked into subsidising the private automobile/oil industries? These do not pay their share now nor ever have. Invest in greener transport? Is there a municipality which has no use for public transit funding?
   If the province is willing to spend on the motor vehicle industry how about beginning with the safety of our roads, particularly with respect to vulnerable road users, aka cyclists and pedestrians. The present state of affairs seems to all but glorify driving aggressively around these parties. Endeavoring to marginalise and intimidate these from riding/walking where they should as described by the HTA is the present norm. Cyclists and pedestrians are practicing the de facto greenest forms of transportation so considering them FIRST whenever we consider uttering the new marketing greenspeak should be obligatory.

   C’mon province.

   http://www.toronto.ca/cycling/coroner_appendix.htm

   Time to get off the pot and get legislating. Then time to begin educating motorholics intimidating and maiming vulnerable road users is no longer acceptable practice.

   http://www.toronto.ca/cycling/coroner_index.htm

5. Carlos, we’ve come to expect your usual tiresome ad hominem attacks on cars and drivers, but now you have elevated it to the absurd.

   It’s fine that you have chosen to maintain a local singles-scene lifestyle, unencumbered by the responsibilities of a family or career, and completely circumscribed by your self-imposed transportation limits.

   But for a significant portion of the GTA population who participate in making Toronto the economic centre it is, walking or cycling everywhere we must go is simply not an option. Public transit is also currently woefully inadequate.

   You’ll be thrilled to learn that most drivers already pay “at least the same amount on taxes that {you} pay in insurance every year”, in the form of added environmental charges, levies, service fees, duties and taxes on plates and permits, as well as on leasing or purchase, resale and recycling of vehicles, and taxes that that nearly double the cost of every litre of fuel purchased.

   And although we’re told by the various levels of government collecting this enormous windfall that our money goes to building and maintaining roads to ease traffic congestion (and thus emissions) and to fund additional public transit, you’ll also be thrilled to learn that drivers are actually the citizens with the least rights (and the greatest responsibilities), when compared to pedestrians and cyclists.

   So instead of calling for more repressive measures against a portion of your fellow citizens, I suggest you focus on calling for more and better public transit, which will benefit everyone, including you.