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Monday’s headlines

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• Mayor won’t ask council to take pay freeze [ Toronto Star ]
• One of Miller’s old allies goes rogue [ Globe & Mail ]
• Public gets first look at Gardiner teardown [ Toronto Star ]
• City planners take new look at urban vistas [ Globe & Mail ]
• New wind turbine on GO line could power 80 per cent of station’s needs [ Globe & Mail ]
• Wilson station’s escalators motionless for months [Metro] (Update to story posted here)

6 comments

  2. The fact that one wind turbine costing $600K is needed to provide most of the power for one GO station tells us a lot about alternative energy.

    The major need is to get more people onto GO and local transit systems so that they are not driving. Turbines powering GO stations are cute and make for great photo ops (especially if there is actually some wind that day), but providing service and attracting customers does the real work of saving energy.

  3. $600k for a wind turbine to (almost) power a $200K pre-fab shack of a train station? Is no one at GO Transit good at math?

    Also, tearing down the Gardiner and replacing it with a “grand boulevard” is stupid. We already have a grand boulevard – the Lake Shore – and it severely restricts pedestrian access to the lake, which is a problem the elevated Gardiner neatly avoids.

    And why would pedestrians want increased access to a lakefront that is rapidly becoming nothing more than an impenetrable wall of condo towers?

  4. Diane’s right: Lake Shore is the barrier to the waterfront, not the Gardiner. Not sure why people don’t see that you walk, drive, or cycle UNDER the Gardiner, but have to hope drivers on Lake Shore are obeying some traffic laws when you cross it. The Gardiner is ugly to look at, but ugly is less relevant than dangerous (Lake Shore), and every ‘solution’ is worse: bury it ($$$$$$) or put all the traffic on to Lake Shore (more pedestrian and cyclist deaths, and isolate Queen’s Quay more – and $$$).

    The status quo is better than the alternatives, with just one addition: pedestrian overpasses over both roads at Yonge and Rees.

  6. I also agree that tearing down the Gardner is not a good idea until a better plan for the City is put forward. Unfortunately this is unlikely to happen any time soon because a) we are many years away from having an efficient public transit system, b) property developers will probably get first dibs on the land around the new part of the Lakeshore and therefore erect many more condos, c) because there’s little evidence that tearing down the eastern fringes of the Gardner ten years ago led to any better access to the lake, and d) our government doesn’t have the guts to put a toll on major roads leading into Toronto to help finance improvements and discourage car traffic.

    Miller’s position is unenviable in that he is trying to create positive change but can never count on the province or Ottawa to care enough about Toronto to finance proper development. And this then leads to more local taxes and fees and tickets and levies to fund the changes that might create a better city. And this leads to more resentment of Miller and then his plans. As much as our Mayor has tried and shown strength of will to improve the City, I just don’t think he’s the person who can ultimately do this. Beholden too much to developers and true believers at the same time, I feel like he’s becoming more remote from my concerns living downtown each and every day.