Mayoral Race
• Smitherman attacks Pantalone over garbage strike [ Globe & Mail ]
• Mayoral candidates square off in televised debate [ Toronto Star ]
• Mammoliti vows 5% property tax cut [ National Post ]
• Giorgio Mammoliti may bill city for legal bills totaling $92,276 [ Toronto Life ]
G20
• Anarchists say firebombing of Ottawa bank part of attack against corporate ‘Kanada’ [ Globe & Mail ]
• Harper goes global to control agenda of G20 summit in Toronto [ Toronto Star ]
Transit City
• Truncated Transit City is ‘wrong’ Miller says [ Globe & Mail ]
• Analysis: Why David Miller is still protesting revised Transit City [ Toronto Star ]
• Compromised Transit City plan doesn’t shoot for the moon, won’t hit stars either [ Toronto Life ]
City Building
• Cost overruns heat up public works committee [ Globe & Mail ]
• City’s tourism sector gets thumbs up [ Toronto Star ]
• Prettier Bloor to cost $4.5 million extra [ Toronto Star ]
• Pedestrian zones planned at U of T and Ryerson [ Toronto Star ]
Other News
• Doors Open: When private spaces become public [ Toronto Star ]
• DVP shoulder approved for GO buses [ National Post ]
• Fire Chief burned by G8 gaffe [ Globe & Mail ]
6 comments
The main problem with Transit City in any of the proposed forms is that new lines will pour thousands and thousands more riders onto the existing, already stressed subway lines. It’s like expanding a 5-floor building to 40 floors without reinforcing the foundation.
What has been needed for a long time now is new subway in the older, densely populated areas of the city, i.e. King/Queen and/or DRL and/or perhaps a diagonal, broad “V” line from the northwest (Pearson?) to downtown (Union?) to the northeast (Scarbie?). Then all these Transit City lines could feed into a system at a great number of intersecting points without swamping it.
I cringe every time I here Mayor Miller frame Transit City as some form of social justice. Look at Ward 8, where to proposed lines meet, Finch and Jane LRTs. Between 89 and 04 the Ward lost 10% of its full time employment. Between 91 and 01 the number of residents that had to travel outside the city for work increased by 30%. These priority neighbourhoods need employment opportunities first, so they can utilize transit.
Rossi says he will create 250k jobs… must be a relative of Rumpelstiltskin who was able to spin straw into gold.
I used to cringe every time Glen commented, and boy he has a lot of time to comment. Now I just ignore his comments….
Glen: they need both! You have to stop only thinking about employment and start thinking about the other 50% of our daily lives.
They shouldn’t have to travel to Markham to work, but they also have to be able to do other things besides work that involve transit — like visit a doctor, shop for groceries, take kids to school/sports. Those residents deserve higher-order transit than a bus line once every 20 minutes. Kudos to Mayor Miller for sticking up for them and proposing Transit City in the first place (don’t forget this wasn’t a Metrolinx plan to begin with — they just hopped on board). I may not like everything he has done as mayor, but Transit City is one of the most important things he’s done.
I actually think Glen is raising a good point… The facts are that the inner suburbs seem to have become a reservoir of labour for the outer suburbs and unemployment in many downtrodden areas of the inner suburbs has increased drastically. (To all those politicians who say that we need to maintain high immigration because we have a labor shortage, go to the Jane/Finch area and ask people if they think there is a labor shortage.) There are parts of Transit City that I think are worthwhile… but it’s hardly the transit fix that many people want to pretend it is.