Bungling on Bloor
Published On Tue May 04 2010
Toronto Star Editorial
Meant to turn already-upscale Bloor Street into a destination akin to Rodeo Drive, a $25 million “transformation project” has, instead, produced a Boulevard of Broken Dreams. Badly behind schedule, $4 million over-budget, creating disruptions that cost millions in lost sales, and with the city and its partners bickering over whom to blame, Bloor’s botched facelift has undermined public confidence in Toronto’s ability to get things done.
Coming atop earlier fiascos like the bungled St. Clair streetcar right-of-way, the Bloor St. project can’t help but spread doubts about the city’s efficiency among Toronto residents, merchants, and potential investors.
It shouldn’t have been especially complicated to install wider sidewalks made of granite, a series of raised planters, some trees, stylish lighting and some art. Yet somehow those in charge of Bloor’s beautification managed to fumble the job. Making matters worse, as a public-private partnership between the city and the Bloor-Yorkville Business Improvement Area, the project was initially hailed as a model of administrative innovation.
At a 2006 news conference heralding that deal, Mayor David Miller described the Bloor project as setting “an important precedent” for future work. Torontonians can only hope that he was wrong.
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They have a point. One of the unsung problems is that the City of Toronto's record at project management is deeply flawed. It seems to me that they need to consider either a top-to-bottom revamping of that department or to move toward a design/build model with the private sector. People often point to City projects and say that they're actually built by the private sector because private contractors do the actual work. That's not accurate since the City manages those private contractors and designs the projects.