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This is why you need to go vote for a new mayor and new council. This article sums up this issue nicely:
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Let's ditch anti-car policies
New council should officially declare that the auto is not the enemy
These are only a few of the things I want from the new Toronto council we will elect today -- besides the killing of that salary hike the last crowd voted for themselves.
First, a new deal on road construction.
Make it so that no more than one road in an area can be dug up at a time. Repairs cannot be allowed to last for months or even years. There must be fines about not meeting a deadline. Simple repairs must be done at night.
No closing of expressways for marathons. Let the runners run in parks.
Second, a new deal on parking. It should be free earlier in the evening -- and on Saturday nights and Sunday mornings. And if council really wants to help strip merchants, no parking charges at all in some blighted areas. That might help to stop the flight of business to plazas in the 905.
They're killing the goose of golden parking revenue -- because bankrupt shops don't pay taxes.
There's no need for Toronto Parking Authority rates that are so high, you think you're buying, not renting, a few feet of asphalt for a few hours.
Third, council must pursue the idea, just floated, that assessment would not go up on houses between sales.
The U.S. has had such a system for years. Our system of assessment is now under review, thank heavens, but any conclusions must be studied by a special task force because the province has demonstrated that it can't be trusted in this as well as many other urban areas, such as the downloading of costs.
Fourth, council must officially declare the car is not the enemy and that present traffic (and transit) policies, which are formally anti-car, must be killed.
Let's start listening to traffic engineers about unnecessary signals and speed humps that just dump traffic on neighbouring streets.
Let's stop this measles of stop signs and the deliberate narrowing of corners to handicap vehicles.
Also, let's tell Queen's Park that it must limit the size of tractor-trailers inside cities because many giants can't even turn a street corner without taking most of the road.
Fifth. stop the $100-million scheme to elevate St. Clair streetcars on their own right-of-way.
This project has proven to be poisonous to the neighbourhood.
It will strangle other traffic and make a simple trip across the avenue an obstacle run. Obviously the stores will suffer, just as people now avoid Spadina.
It was said that when this was done on Spadina, it was a success.
Yet John Sewell has pointed out that streetcars move just as quickly on Bathurst, where nothing has been done to help them.
Now, in my view, Sewell is like that girl in the rhyme who, "when she was good, she was very, very good/And when she was bad, she was horrid."
When the former mayor (and would-be comeback councillor) is right, he can save us a lot of money. When he's wrong, he's a pain.
Sixth, the city must get the province to pay for more of the TTC. When you try to get on the subway at Royal York station in the morning rush, the train is already jammed with Mississauga riders -- who don't contribute as much as Torontonians do to the cost of every TTC ride. Just one of the many reasons why the province must stop cheating and pay up for the TTC.
The suburban parking lots at the end of subways, which are supposed to be a bargain for Metropass holders, fill early with GTA users.
Sure, it keeps their cars off our streets, but why do we, who pay more to live in the city, have to subsidize them?
Seventh, Jane Pepino has raised the question of why we have cops supervising at construction sites. Why indeed? If the cops are short in manpower, let every cop do real policing. Let the developers hire security guards.
It really isn't that difficult to stop traffic so a truck can back up. And tell the builders they can't routinely block off the inside lane of the road beside their new building without paying, say, Toronto Parking Authority rates.
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| quote: | Originally posted by jester
Everything in this country is illegal. |
"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery…" Winston Churchill
"If you have ten thousand regulations you destroy all respect for the law" - Winston Churchill
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