{"id":32180,"date":"2012-07-26T07:10:35","date_gmt":"2012-07-26T11:10:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingtoronto.ca\/?p=32180"},"modified":"2012-07-26T17:45:23","modified_gmt":"2012-07-26T21:45:23","slug":"making-the-ttc-and-downtown-toronto-hospitable-to-families","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2012\/07\/26\/making-the-ttc-and-downtown-toronto-hospitable-to-families\/","title":{"rendered":"Making the TTC and downtown hospitable to families"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"338\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/WMys6l1oCqw?rel=0\" width=\"600\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Yesterday morning, I got into an argument with a stranger while riding with my wife and kids on the subway. I\u2019d been standing for several stops with my two-year-old in my arms, when an empty seat became available. As I lunged for it, another (young, male) passenger started to sit down. I was, I admit, not polite in asking if we could sit instead of him. I reasoned that our need should be obvious, and our presence unmissable. It turned out I was wrong about that; he really didn\u2019t see us.<\/p>\n<p>But I guess I should be less surprised that I went unnoticed and unregarded; my kids are often the only people their age on transit when we head to and from their daycare in the heart of Toronto. They\u2019re also most definitely in the minority when we walk along Yonge Street at 8:30am, or duck into a restaurant after school instead of scurrying to our east-end home to make dinner. We\u2019re invisible, my brood and I, because we have few comrades, and we\u2019re not remarkable enough in our appearance to cause a stir.<\/p>\n<p>This encounter reminded me of Etobicoke Councillor <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theglobeandmail.com\/news\/toronto\/torontos-deputy-mayor-faces-backlash-over-disparaging-downtown-living\/article4411595\/\">Doug Holyday\u2019s recent proclamation<\/a> that King and Spadina is no place to raise children, as well as the many passionate rebuttals to that claim by downtown parents. And it also got me thinking about the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pembina.org\/pub\/2358\">Pembina Institute study<\/a> released shortly after Holyday\u2019s gaffe, and the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thestar.com\/news\/gta\/article\/1226816--gta-residents-warming-to-density-pembina-rbc-report\">eloquent analysis of that study<\/a> by the <em>Star<\/em>\u2019s Christopher Hume.<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->With respect to <a href=\"http:\/\/downtownkids.tumblr.com\/\">everyone who wrote open letters to Holyday<\/a> about the joys of being an urban parent, I must concede that Holyday inadvertently made a good point: downtown Toronto is inhospitable in many ways to people with children. Parks are few and far between, accessibility challenges are common in buildings, and the TTC can quickly become a veritable battleground. More advocates challenging these inadequacies would make a huge difference, but that\u2019s unlikely to materialize anytime soon; there are virtually no affordable places in the core in which people like my family and I could live. It\u2019s this point that forms the core of Hume\u2019s column about the Pembina study.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMore families than ever <em>do<\/em> want to live downtown,\u201d Hume writes, \u201cand most of those who live in suburbs want their neighbourhoods to be more walkable, better connected to transit, more mixed-use, in short, more urban.\u201d The rub, of course, is that downtown Toronto is prohibitively expensive, which is why policies like <a href=\"http:\/\/www.toronto.ca\/legdocs\/mmis\/2009\/pg\/bgrd\/backgroundfile-24366.pdf\">making three-bedroom units mandatory in new developments<\/a> (which is what got Holyday all worked up in the first place) are absolutely essential.<\/p>\n<p>The Pembina Institute agrees. \u201cGovernment needs to do more to make it more attractive for developers to build compact, family-friendly homes,\u201d Cherise Burda, the Ontario policy director at Pembina, said to Hume. \u201cA lot of politicians are still encouraging developers to build sprawl.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Despite well-intentioned efforts like the proposed family-unit condo rule, we\u2019re veering dangerously close to \u2014 as The Arcade Fire song goes \u2014 living in a city with no children in it. And while it\u2019s true that there are places downtown where kids probably don\u2019t belong (I\u2019m in the camp who believes that fine dining establishments are the province of adults, and if my wife and I go out to eat somewhere nice, it\u2019s because we\u2019re seeking respite from children for the evening), city-building with families in mind benefits everyone. As Hume points out, parents want things like walkability, green spaces, safe streets, shops and buildings with accessibility features, and easy access to amenities.<\/p>\n<p>On transit, our needs are simple: fare media that make sense; and a place to sit. I dream of a day when I can show a Child Metropass and then find a <em>reserved<\/em> seat, not one that someone has to give up for me. If we can build parking lots with designated spaces and roads with HOV lanes, surely we can adjust the language and etiquette on the TTC in a similar fashion. This, too, has universal appeal \u2014 many transit riders with a need for a seat can\u2019t find and aren\u2019t offered one, and are unwilling or unable to beg for it every time they board. It\u2019s a situation as inhospitable as the lack of affordable downtown housing for families, and is a big reason why so many Toronto parents give up on transit \u2014 and, often, urban living itself \u2014 altogether. Personally, I\u2019m hoping I\u2019ll never concede defeat on either front, but I would definitely love to stop fighting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yesterday morning, I got into an argument with a stranger while riding with my wife and kids on the subway. I\u2019d been standing for several stops with my two-year-old in my arms, when an empty seat became available. As I lunged for it, another (young, male) passenger started to sit down. I was, I admit,<a href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2012\/07\/26\/making-the-ttc-and-downtown-toronto-hospitable-to-families\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"sr-only\">&#8220;Making the TTC and downtown hospitable to families&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4039,"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":[18,8],"tags":[20674,340,949,8545,13322,370,636,6626,20675,405,19],"class_list":["post-32180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-neighbourhoods","category-transit","tag-cherise-burda","tag-christopher-hume","tag-doug-holyday","tag-etobicoke-councillor","tag-fare-media","tag-king","tag-ontario","tag-pembina-institute","tag-policy-director","tag-the-star","tag-toronto"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Making the TTC and downtown hospitable to families - 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\/2012\/07\/26\/making-the-ttc-and-downtown-toronto-hospitable-to-families\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Making the TTC and downtown hospitable to families - Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Yesterday morning, I got into an argument with a stranger while riding with my wife and kids on the subway. 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