{"id":1555,"date":"2007-02-22T11:28:23","date_gmt":"2007-02-22T15:28:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingtoronto.ca\/?p=1555"},"modified":"2013-01-21T13:18:35","modified_gmt":"2013-01-21T18:18:35","slug":"dale-duncan-at-city-hall-feb-22-2007","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2007\/02\/22\/dale-duncan-at-city-hall-feb-22-2007\/","title":{"rendered":"Dale Duncan at City Hall: Feb. 22, 2007"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm1.static.flickr.com\/17\/23421148_7138684e3f.jpg?v=0\" \/><\/h3>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/images\/dale-duncan-cityhall.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<h3>Paving bike lanes with good intentions<\/h3>\n<p>It isn&#8217;t often that people in Toronto pine for the days of former Mayor Mel Lastman, but take a look at Mayor David Miller&#8217;s track record on building new bike lanes and you may find yourself fighting a bout of nostalgia. Good ol&#8217; Megacity Mel managed to create twice as many bike lanes as our current bike-friendly mayor, who saw a mere 26 kilometres implemented over the past three years.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153All the easy parts were done before I was mayor,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Miller in his defence to a crowd filled with a number of people ringing bike bells and holding up \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Take the Tooker\u00e2\u20ac\u009d signs at the Political Party, the mayoral event held by Eye Weekly and Spacing magazine prior to November&#8217;s municipal election. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153My approach was to significantly increase investment in the Bike Plan,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Miller, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153but it didn&#8217;t work. And one of the reasons it didn&#8217;t work was because of determined fights by opponents of bike lanes.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Lesson learned: throwing money at the Bike Plan won&#8217;t do any good if councillors, such as notable lane-killer Case Ootes, are going to stand in the way. The Ooteses on council will have a harder time, however, now that the rules have changed, giving community councils the power to approve bike lanes, but not the power to shoot down motions to build them.<\/p>\n<p>Which brings me to this year&#8217;s budget. During his campaign, Miller also said this: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Next year, the bicycle infrastructure budget will double to $6.2 million.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>The number earmarked for bike lanes in this year&#8217;s proposed budget? $3 million &#8212; that&#8217;s a zero per cent increase from 2006. On top of that, the budget recommends a 20 per cent cut to the cash allocated for bike trails in Toronto parks, with zero funds set aside to ensure bike paths be kept in a state of good repair.<\/p>\n<p>What gives? In addition to Miller&#8217;s enthusiastic support for bike lanes at campaign time, each and every one of the councillors now on the budget committee said they would support spending $6 million on bike lanes and $1.5 million on new and upgraded bike paths for parks in a survey organized by the Toronto Coalition for Active Transportation (TCAT) prior to the election. Like Miller, they&#8217;ve also changed their tune. Council meets for final consideration of the budget until March 7, which leaves plenty of time for phone calls and letters asking council to live up to its promises.<\/p>\n<h3>Valentine&#8217;s Day silent treatment<\/h3>\n<p>I settled myself down in council chambers on Valentine&#8217;s Day expecting a long, romantic afternoon of listening to deputations from the public on the capital budget. This was, after all, the time set aside for public comment, and if there&#8217;s one thing I&#8217;ve learned from attending public forums and the like, it&#8217;s that the public loves to comment. To my surprise, only eight of Toronto&#8217;s 2.5 million people had signed up to speak. Public consultation on plans that will, in large part, determine what the sixth largest government in Canada accomplishes this year was all over in less than an hour.<\/p>\n<p><em>photo form <a href=\"http:\/\/bikingtoronto.blogspot.com\/2007\/02\/bikingtoronto-photo-of-day_20.html\">Biking Toronto<\/a> <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Paving bike lanes with good intentions It isn&#8217;t often that people in Toronto pine for the days of former Mayor Mel Lastman, but take a look at Mayor David Miller&#8217;s track record on building new bike lanes and you may find yourself fighting a bout of nostalgia. Good ol&#8217; Megacity Mel managed to create twice<a href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2007\/02\/22\/dale-duncan-at-city-hall-feb-22-2007\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"sr-only\">&#8220;Dale Duncan at City Hall: Feb. 22, 2007&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4003,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7,21759,2],"tags":[457,331,35,425,423,426,551,3554,22085,19,3253,391,4650],"class_list":["post-1555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bikes","category-features","category-politics","tag-canada","tag-dale-duncan","tag-dale-duncan-columns","tag-david-miller","tag-eye-weekly","tag-mayor","tag-mel-lastman","tag-political-party","tag-politics","tag-toronto","tag-toronto-coalition-for-active-transportation","tag-usd","tag-valentines-day"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Dale Duncan at City Hall: Feb. 22, 2007 - Spacing Toronto<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2007\/02\/22\/dale-duncan-at-city-hall-feb-22-2007\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Dale Duncan at City Hall: Feb. 22, 2007 - Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Paving bike lanes with good intentions It isn&#8217;t often that people in Toronto pine for the days of former Mayor Mel Lastman, but take a look at Mayor David Miller&#8217;s track record on building new bike lanes and you may find yourself fighting a bout of nostalgia. 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