Also, an opinion article in The Star about the continued exodus of long-time residents from Toronto:
Toronto should be more than just a place to pass through on your way to another stage in life.
www.thestar.com
The usual, legitimate complaints:
* Housing is too expensive and too small
* Travel times are obscene
* City services are crumbling
I’m honestly unsure what the Mayor can do about this. I suspect it’s going to take multiple years of significant tax increases, and streamlining required procedures, insourcing, outsourcing, etc. to get departments more efficient to actually start fixing these issues. And, honestly on the congestion front - it’s going to take real changes by people.
There is no way to tackle the housing situation w/o the Feds radically turning down the inflow of newcomers. For which I will give the mayor a page from the U.S. playbook........ its mean......first, send refugee families or anyone needing shelter to Rideau Hall in Ottawa, the City can pay for the buses, the cost per person is way cheaper than the shelter. I wouldn't be above telling people that MP constinuency offices are permitted encampment locations, and threatening privately to give out home addresses of said MPs........ actually doing that is a different matter..........but induced panic may help break the back of terrible policy.
A second tack on TFWs, the City should send a note to every company employing low-wage TFWs that they aren't welcome in Toronto and the City will not do business with them. Tim's Coffee banned from City offices, baked goods from commercial bakeries employing TFWs gone, and security guard companies with even one TFW on the payroll can't get City contract.
That will get Ottawa's attention. Once you do that..........the crises will immediately begin to abate.
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Next, staff at all levels in the City need to be held accountable. They need to be told that its about the outcome, not the process. Don't break any laws.......etc, But there are no points for meetings, reports, action plans, strategies or engagements. Only for fewer encampments, more well maintained flower beds, libraries open longer, lower recreation user fees, projects that finish on time, buses that are evenly spaced, reliable and where most people can get a seat, most of the time.
To do this, some people at all levels must be fired........ I'm 100% for positive inspiration as preferable to a culture of fear........... but fear (of losing one's job) is an essential tool to breaking indifference and apathy.
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Big transit projects will take ages............but there are so many small things that could be done, at relatively low cost. Lets take making buses run better. At Main Station, buses and streetcars are regularly held up by the fact that buses and cars do not have a left-turn advance signal at Main/Danforth. This doesn't just delay the 3 bus routes that turn onto to Danforth though, it delays the 506 Carlton as the left-turn queue is on its tracks. Moreover, buses going south through the intersection can't exit the station due to the congestion of the other buses and the streetcars. Fix this, and with no new rolling stock and no new operators you can improve schedule adherence/headway management, shorten the trip time and increase service frequency.
Yes, I've told the City and I hope to get this done this year, but then again, I hoped that last year........ LOL
Multiple bus routes, across the City have too many stops, too close together, these can be removed at very low cost, and in some cases that frees up existing shelters to be relocated to stops currently lacking same, while making the trip times for buses shorter. This works even more effectively when traffic lights were added at locations that didn't warrant them but for people crossing the street due to the bus stops. Pulling the lights back down at even 4 dozen locations in the City (and I might argue for 3x that number) would result in more free-flowing transit, and car traffic.
All-door boarding, and relocated fare validation would speed up buses too, so would eliminating cash and paper transfers.
There are lots of things we can do, relatively quickly and relatively cheaply if we try.
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We can also discourage congestion from cars, by raising parking taxes/rates, by cracking down hard on those who block intersections, and by building physical barriers that preclude illegal turns. We've talking about the King corridor alot, just pedestrianizing (with transit) a single block achieves a lot, as it effectively blocks cross-town travel with physical curbs.
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On encampments, clearly we need more housing (not more shelter space as shelters currently operate), but we also need to prioritize units for those in encampments, but then have zero tolerance for refusal of help. You get a choice, here's your new home, or its jail.
I can also on the back of napkin make relatively low cost design changes to a park like Allan Gardens that would encourage positive use and discourage encampments. Its not hard, add proper seating, and more landscaping, put small ornamental barriers around flower beds..........and most of all........install irrigation, the nightly 2am shower tends to discourage nightly occupancy. Funny the lack of encampments on irrigated golf courses, no ? Irrigation is the one pricier item, but it can still be done for less than security in the park will cost this year.
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The tough challenge for the City in the longer term does involve a mix of contracting-in, hiring/retaining more expertise, and making major capital investments, funded in part, by tax increases. But there is a lot of money floating around badly used, and a lot of bureaucratic deadwood in need of removal.
Actually, he didn't, I tried to coach him to do that, but he refused, so I did it while he licked his ice cream cone.