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SunriseChampion said:
I should do it. I don't think he's mismanaged anything. I'm just bored of him. He's a great dude, much respect, but it's time for some bold moves in this staid town.

A vote for me is a vote to blow up the Gardiner. PPP! Or private donors! I'm connected. Give me a try.

Beautify the streets a bit. Set TPS priorities straight: no more drugs law enforecement. Live beaches with full bars and restaurants and not just the....what is there at the western beaches? Oh, right.....

Blow the place up a bit. It's always boring compromise and pushing staid ideas. Time for some youngblood.

Just look at our past: Lastman, Miller, Ford, Tory.....you can't possibly go wrong with me at the helm. :)
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Hey, all it takes is $200 and filling out a form!
 
Yeah, true, and I do have that sort of money just kicking around for naught these days.
The problem is, I would want to get serious and then have to try and goad my connections to help and all that seems like work.
Is it worth it?

I sort of plan on quitting my hometown as soon as possible either for a hippie commune on the BC coasts or a small town somewhere in the east.

We'll see how I feel when the time comes. I guess it would be a great honour and privilege to sort this place out a bit.
 
bury the gardiner and create a jogging cycle path with restaurants and snack bars and benches above it. best idea I've ever had. people will flock there in the summers if it's done right. trees and all that jazz.
 
Finally our Mayor and his Medical Officer of Health are catching up to the science!

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https://twitter.com/x/status/1258122704902852611
 
I feel that we will be disappointed in the details of the proposal as we have been before- Tory is not one to aggressively push against car use.

The drop in traffic in the last month could have been a good opportunity to have implemented temporary versions of the bike lanes, using the bolt-in curbs.

As traffic returns- adjust and correct, and after a year or two of use and study- make permanent.
 
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Ahhhh

(CNN) — Seattle residents will have more space to exercise and bike on as the city plans to permanently close 20 miles of streets to most vehicular traffic, the mayor announced Thursday.
The Stay Healthy Streets initiative started in April to temporarily provide more space for residents to get out of the house and exercise while maintaining social distancing during the pandemic. Seattle Mayor Jenny A. Durkan said Thursday that the closures will be permanent.
"Safe and Healthy Streets are an important tool for families in our neighborhoods to get outside, get some exercise and enjoy the nice weather," Durkan said in a news release. "Over the long term, these streets will become treasured assets in our neighborhoods."
The streets were selected to promote outdoor exercise opportunities in areas with limited open space options, low car ownership and routes that connect people to essential services and food take out, according to the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT).
People are encouraged to skate, walk, jog, bike and roll down the closed streets. Only vehicular traffic from delivery drivers, first responders, sanitation crews and residents are allowed access.
"We've witnessed a 57% drop in vehicle traffic volumes accessing downtown Seattle during Governor Inslee's Stay Healthy, Stay Home order," SDOT said in a news release. "Finding new and creative ways, like Stay Healthy Streets, to maintain some of these traffic reductions as we return to our new normal is good for the planet, but is also good for our long-term fight against COVID-19."
The city also announced it will accelerate construction of bike infrastructure to provide more mobility options for residents as Seattle begins the process on reopening.
"It is the kind of bold actions we need to encourage healthy options for recreating and traveling in our city as we deal with our current crisis, and discourage a return to high levels of traffic and associated pollution and injuries as we move into recovery," the Seattle Bicycle Advisory Board said in a statement. "All these actions together will help Seattle come back as a safer, healthier, and more climate friendly city."
From: https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/seattle-streets-closed-stay-healthy-trnd/index.html
 
The ‘Al Fresco Economy’: Restaurants Want to Start NYC’s Revival — All They Need is Space

From link.

Open streets can save a shuttered economy.

A group of Manhattan restaurateurs is hopeful that the de Blasio administration will expand its “open streets” program beyond its current passive recreation mandate to allow eateries to repurpose public roads for the ultimate public purpose: to jumpstart an economy and put New Yorkers back to work.

Upper West Side restaurant fixture Henry Rinehart, who owned Henry’s for about 20 years before he sold it in 2018, is leading the effort — one, he says, that will start the process of reviving an industry that employs hundreds of thousands of people in the New York area.
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“My people are hurting,” Rinehart told Streetsblog of the larger community, which includes restaurant owners, but also the hundreds of thousands of workers who keep eateries supplied and operating. “My city is hurting. Our leaders are not creating the safety and certainty that our lives, and our jobs require. The devastation and desperation is hidden behind closed doors for now, but if you poke around you can hear very clearly that people need to plan for the future.”

Cities around the world are already pursuing two seemingly unconnected coronavirus strategies that are not actually disconnected: creating open space so that people can get outside without violating social distance rules and planning how to jumpstart the economy. Many outlets have hailed efforts in Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital, to turn a huge swath of downtown into an open-air cafe, but similar strategies are being employed closer to home. Tampa, Fla. allowed restaurants to set out tables in the street in what it called “Business Recovery Zones.”

And Cincinnati — that restaurant hotbed — is opening 25 streets in two neighborhoods to help restaurants reopen.

The de Blasio administration was slow to pursue open streets. Rinehart and others are hoping it will seize this opportunity.

Since early May, Rinehart has been making frenzied calls to generate support from scores of restaurant industry leaders including Andrew Rigie of the New York Hospitality Alliance, whose group includes some of the biggest names in the business. The goal is to have a plan in place for the first nice day after the official “pause” ends — which is looking more and more like June 7.

“When the weather changes, after 100 days of solitude, we are all going to be desperate to be together, but to be safe,” Rinehart said. “And safety requires space. There is available public space in front of every door.”

The challenge, of course, is Mayor de Blasio, who has consistently been unwilling to see public roadways as anything but space for cars. His first open streets program, run by the NYPD, involved so much police staffing that it was killed after 11 days. The current open streets effort, which currently consists of mostly roadways in parks or residential streets adjacent to parks, is so timid that it can’t jumpstart the economy in the way Rinehart envisions.

“Open streets are a form of economic development,” he said. “Think of Stone Street — only with less crowding, obviously.”
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Here’s how it would work:

Hundreds of roadways in the city would be closed to all vehicles, and parking eliminated, to allow for restaurants to put their tables directly in the roadbed (leaving room only for emergency vehicles). The closure could simply be in the form of sawhorses or gates, like the current open streets plan. It does not require the involvement of the NYPD, Rinehart said.

“There is no enforcement issue; restaurants have been enforcing safe streets since the beginning of time,” he said. “We sweep up, we oversee the area, we put half our tables outside. All we need is coordination from City Hall.” (It is unclear at this time how such a program would work in neighborhoods with less restaurant density than, say, Manhattan.)

Existing technology would make it easy for a restaurant on, say, Columbus Avenue between 77th and 78th streets to serve someone sitting at a table on W. 76th between Columbus and Amsterdam avenues, Rinehart said.

“With the advent of geo-location technology, much of what was formerly full-service dining rooms will morph into food that is pre-ordered, pre-paid, and delivered outside to a cafe, or around the corner, to blocks away,” he said. “But obviously the city should focus on keeping the distance between kitchen and table as short as possible. But space is the key. Tables would have to be spaced at a distance that would allow people seated to be at least six feet apart, so we need the entire street bed.”
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Other open streets advocates are on board.

“Restaurants will need to reopen yet maintain physical distancing, which is impossible to do in a limited footprint — but there is plenty of street space in New York,” said Danny Harris, the executive director of Transportation Alternatives. “Our street usage right now is inequitable and is not serving the people. It needs to be reallocated. This is not a heavy lift.”

Roadways could easily be configured so that the elderly or disabled could be dropped off at their destinations, and deliveries could still be made, albeit at 5 miles per hour in the newly created shared space, Harris added.

A lot will depend on the de Blasio administration’s reaction to the proposal. Two sources told Streetsblog that for now at least, this is one of the last things on the mayor’s mind. “There’s a lack of bandwidth right now,” one source familiar with City Hall told Streetsblog.

But Department of Transportation Commissioner Polly Trottenberg told the City Council on Tuesday that there is an “inter-agency group looking at how you would manage [restaurant seating] and permitting issues.”

Rinehart does not believe he needs much help from the city — except maybe to just “stay out of the way.”

“Let us get it done and do not over-regulate us,” he said. “There’s no time for gross incompetence. We have thousands of employees all sitting at home saying, ‘Put me in, coach.’ This could be the best block party in the history of New York, but if we don’t get this right in the next three months, there will be a complete collapse of the tax base of the city.”
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mjl08 said:
Silver lining of the last two months: Less wear and tear on thoroughfares, leading to a smaller roads budget?
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The weird freeze thaw cycle were still stuck in this month with rain and snow is probably doing 10x more than damage than what any vehicles do. This is a record asphalt unfriendly spring.
 
Anyone who was hoping ActiveTO would even modestly resemble pedestrian thoroughfares like those in Europe will be rather disappointed.
So far, the list looks for the most part like a bunch of already low traffic back streets. Oh, and they’ll still be open for “Local Traffic Only”, making them essentially optional for the selfish drivers:

www.toronto.ca

COVID-19: ActiveTO

Last updated: November 27, 2020 at 12:50 p.m. ActiveTO is about making sure people have space to get around while respecting physical distancing. ActiveTO is a measured and data driven approach to support essential trips, front-line workers, and vulnerable road users. ActiveTO Initiatives...
www.toronto.ca www.toronto.ca

In the downtown, where’s Yonge, Bloor, Queen or King? Or even Parliament, Bay, or Wellesley? Y’know, the streets with substantial foot traffic that *need* the space?

But hey, glad to know the hordes on Earl and Sumach can be easily avoided. :/
 
zang said:
Anyone who was hoping ActiveTO would even modestly resemble pedestrian thoroughfares like those in Europe will be rather disappointed.
So far, the list looks for the most part like a bunch of already low traffic back streets. Oh, and they’ll still be open for “Local Traffic Only”, making them essentially optional for the selfish drivers:

www.toronto.ca

COVID-19: ActiveTO

Last updated: November 27, 2020 at 12:50 p.m. ActiveTO is about making sure people have space to get around while respecting physical distancing. ActiveTO is a measured and data driven approach to support essential trips, front-line workers, and vulnerable road users. ActiveTO Initiatives...
www.toronto.ca www.toronto.ca

In the downtown, where’s Yonge, Bloor, Queen or King? Or even Parliament, Bay, or Wellesley? Y’know, the streets with substantial foot traffic that *need* the space?

But hey, glad to know the hordes on Earl and Sumach can be easily avoided. :/
Click to expand...

The pictures says it all.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1261010932265881603
 
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