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I was originally planning on writing more about the Toronto mayoral race, but I hadn't fully decided who to support and my opinions kept changing.
It seems there is a culture war in the Toronto mayoral race between the two front-runners. The suburbanite, Rob Ford, vs the "Toronto Elite", George Smitherman. I am conflicted with who I want to win between the two. I agree with much of what Ford says about the waste and size of the city government, but it is hard to get on board when he constantly seems to trash many of the things that living in a big city so great. I agree with Smitherman on things that make cities great, but he also wants to grow the size of government.
I agree with Ford that grid lock is bad, but it seems Ford's vision is a city where everyone can drive and we don't have enough room for that in Toronto. I don't drive, yet I pay taxes too. Last weekend there was the Scotiabank Waterfront Marathon in Toronto and Ford said, "But I think we're using the roads one too many times and it's really frustrating for people trying to get in and out of the city." Not only does Ford show a lack of respect for sharing the roads with the taxpayers that may not drive, he also just started speaking without thinking first. In another article he suggested that the marathons could be held at parks, which really isn't possible according to all logic and marathon organizers.
The marathons themselves aren't the issue, but there are two main problems I have that this issue highlights. One, Ford seems like a moron. I seem to have faith that he isn't, but it is hard to argue against someone that makes this claim. Second , it just seems that Ford is trying to create a culture war with the dense downtown area against the suburban areas of the city. Well I live in downtown, I like walking, I like Kensington Market's pedestiran Sunday's, marathons, TIFF, Nuit Blanche, the pride parade and I even like lattes from 3rd wave coffee shops (screw Starbucks). It may be smart electorally for Ford to attack people like me, but it certainly isn't going to gain my support. Providing subsidized roads to surburban Toronto at the expense of downtown residents isn't actually fiscally conservative, no matter how many conservatives want to romanticize cars.
So this should mean I like Smitherman, right? Well, he was part of the biggest spending government in Ontario's history, E-Health scandal and the horrible Samsung deal. I think he generally cares about many of the things in the city I care about, but I think he has potential to be only marginally less bad than socialist David Miller.
Rosso Rossi seems like the only candidate that is the best of both worlds. He wants to cut the size of government, but he also doesn't seem to be against cities. Also, majority of the current council doesn't hate Rossi so he may actually be able to get stuff done if he were to win. So now, I am endorsing Rocco Rossi for mayor, regardless of how far back in the polls he may be. I sincerely hope that Rossi doesn't leave the race, no matter how hard The Star may push him to do so.
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12 comments:
I will begin by giving you some qualified support for Rocco Rossi. Initially, I felt an affinity to Rossi. I stopped supporting him when he took on Warren Kinsella as an advisor. Three guesses who championed the wise guy connection that was quickly dropped. You judge a person by the company he keeps and the advice he listens to.
Smitherman is a spokesman for the inner city and the unions. I do not like the hegemony of both.
By the way, Etobicoke, Scarborough and North York stopped being suburbs a few generations ago. We are a BIG CITY now so we must stop thinking about downtown as an exclusive priveleged class anymore. Freedom Is My Entire City not just downtown. Why denigrate midtown and uptown and west town and east town. To you midtown is Bloor St. Others it is Eglinton. Uptown is Sheppard. Unlike Manhattan we have an East Town in Scarborough and a Central Etobicoke in the West.
As for closing the roads into downtown you only hurt the downtown merchants. Why do you think people avoid the city on weekends. If you want a thriving downtown don't close access. I have personally been boycotting BECEL for closing the DVP for years now. Both of my children have homes and family downtown but I don't see them much. It is easier to drive to Muskoka to visit them and my grandchildren.
You may not recognise your non Conservative elitist viewpoint but it is painfully obvious to people who do not/or cannot afford to live downtown.
Don't be one of those people who live up to the reason people hate Toronto.
I have lived in several cities in Canada throughout my career. Each of them were parochial in their own way, but nowhere has been as parochial and supercilious as downtown Toronto. There are probably very few cities and towns where I have not spent a considerable ammount of time.
Torontonians pejorativly refer to their true suburbs as the 905. (refering to the area code). Even the 905 includes many adjoining cities of half a million or more residents such as Peel Region, York Region and Durham Region.
Those people too, need to be able to move around. When Bill Davis, P.C. cancelled the Spadina Expressway he began the decline of the Greater Toronto Area as a viable region to live. He defered to the downtown residents. That is the battle to be fought against in this latter day.
I don't denigrate Etobicoke, Scarborough and North York. I have lived in North York before (Yonge & Sheppard, Yong & Finch and Leslie & Finch) as well as in midtown (Yonge & Davisville). I just don't view downtown Toronto streets as parking lot and passage way for suburban Toronto/GTA exclusively. People need to get around, I agree, but people also need to enjoy themselves. Living downtown isn't just for elites. St James Town, Regant Part, etc are downtown too.
I disagree that people avoid the city on the weekends though. Weekends downtown are quite busy actually.
Just ask my neighbours if they go downtown or not. It is rare if they do. Miller et al have even forbidden their condominium projects adequate owner parking as well as visitor parking.
If I were a merchant downtown I would be screaming blue murder at the elitist exclusion of car drivers. If you had FAST transit rather than slow 1920's era streetcars things might be different.
Streetcars do have a nostalgia about them that seems to slow down the pace of life to their vintage. That pace is to be envied but that is NOT the pace of today. We all have only so much time and those in the greater city of Toronto need not be insular in their narcisistic attitude.
Toronto will never be a great city until they recognise that they are not a society apart.
I'll never forget Mayor Barbara Hall marching in and leading a General Strike with the city unions against her own people. Now she is a champion of the denial of free speach. A typical downtown attitude. Slitherman beware.
Enough ranting.
I am not sure about your neighbors (how could I be?), but plenty of people are downtown on the weekends. There should be easier ways to get downtown, but that doesn't mean you have to hurt the fun that can be had downtown in the process.
I agree, streetcars are horrible and need to go. Any streetcar without a dedicated lane should be removed immediately.
I also like absolute free speech. I dislike Barbara Hall and I want to abolish the HRC... you aren't arguing against anyone.
Frankly I don't know how any conservative could vote for Smitherman but I'll address your criticisms. Ford said that there are too many events on city streets and he is correct. Under Miller there is events every few days now on top of the usual fare like parades and the long running festivals all part of the war on the automobile. Ford wants to reduce the number of events that is mushrooming and I agree with him. Besides Marathons are better in less dense neighbourhoods of the city. The other things that make a city great, I don't know what you mean, spell it out? (real conservative)
Cities are great because of the things, like events (but also restaurants, specialty stores, better bars etc), that dense populations allow for. I want more events in Toronto, not less.
Sure, maybe stuff could be planned better, but I don't want the default position to be that people in cars can never be inconvenienced. I agree we shouldn't spite drivers with stupid ideas like bike lanes on Jarvis, but that has to do with everyday commute, not one-off events that are mostly on weekends.
Events like the marathon and Becel Ride for the Heart are a positive good for the City of Toronto.
Ford showed he just doesn't get it with that comment (and that, yes, he is a bit of a moron - I mean, a marathon through a park? A parade through a park?) and that all he is is Auntie Rob - as in his entire platform is being anti-something. Add to that his bizarre fiscal "policy" statement - wooh-boy! - and I think, for better or for worse (and likely both), it's going to be Smitherman. (I just think it's too bad we didn't have a real faceoff between Smitherman and Rossi.)
These types of events draw far more people into the city than keep out. I have friends who have come in from the US or out of province to run in the marathon. That's a hotel bill, dinner, theatre, etc. Speak to actual owners of small businesses and merchants and they will tell you that they want more of this kind of thing, not less. It puts dollars in their pockets. It is the best kind of earned media with positive coverage of the city across the North America for a heck of a lot less than the cost of a $2 billion dollar media show with its fake lake, drained real lakes and luxury furniture. And it is great for the image of the city.
Miller has indeed waged a stupid war on cars. But shutting down major roads for a few hours every several weeks is not an example of this. He's not authorizing these events because he hates cars. In fact, I'm not sure there are that many more now than before he was mayor.
As for street cars, what is the alternative? Buses are: far more expensive to purchase, to run and to maintain; they cause far more traffic problems because they are in and out of traffic (traffic engineers hate them); carry fewer passengers; carry a fixed number of passengers (you can add cars to special streetcars so they have more flexibility); are louder in neighbourhoods; have more accidents; are slower than streetcars. Subways are: far far far too expensive; far too long to build; far too unresponsive to changing demographics and developing areas of the city; far too limited in scope and range; far more disruptive to neighbourhoods; far less economic benefit; far more expensive to operate, maintain and repair. We need transit to get around. Street cars make by far the most sense.
Ted, the issue with street cars are worse than busses. You say busses go between lanes... yes, but street cars stop both lanes of traffic. Basically everytime a street car stops, every car behind them has to wait for an entire light cycle. This means more idling and more pollution. Busses can be added or subtracted from routes in minutes, street cars are not as flexible like that. If one breaks down, the delays are outrageous. They also take longer than busses to get to speed, so they are slower.
Basically there is no real advantage to street cars other than making some people feel warm and fuzzy about themselves because they seem like a good idea in theory. Getting street cars off the street would be huge to helping gridlock.
There are thousands of charities and many corporations lining up to look like 'good corporate citizens' as per their MBA run marketing departments, thus the profussion of events. But the consumer pays for this so-called caring corporate attitude also. Now back to the issue, a city is a functioning place where people live and it exists as a city becuase of transportation of various kinds, if you impede this unnecessarily you impede its ability to function. Too many events of dubious return on the pain inflicted to the city. On the subject of not inconveniencing motorists, you can't live in a city and drive and not be inconvenienced at all, not possible. People understand that and accept it, but Toronto is one of the most grid locked cities in the world right now and it hurts everyone directly and indirectly most of all. (real conservative)
William:
Is that your opinion or have you read that analysis somewhere? Not a challenge, but a genuine question, because I have read the opposite from traffic engineers and transit analysts.
"Basically everytime a street car stops, every car behind them has to wait for an entire light cycle."
Street cars aren't perfect and this is an absolutely fair comment about a frustrating aspect of streetcars. It's one of the reasons I'm puzzled by Ford's strong opposition to dedicated street car lanes, actually. With dedicated streetcar lanes, there really is no comparison between buses and cars. Without them, this is a fair complaint.
I'd also add that there are far more motor vehicle accidents with busses than streetcars. This mucks up traffic too, of course, though admittedly not as badly as a streetcar breaking down.
"This means more idling and more pollution."
Actually, busses are far worse in this regard. The pollution from buses is way more. They are in and out of traffic which causes more stopping and traffic problems and more idling.
"Busses can be added or subtracted from routes in minutes, street cars are not as flexible like that."
I don't think there would be much difference. A streetcar is on the ready on a rail line ready to go. A bus needs to be gassed up, warmed up. It still needs to get to the route which may be a bit easier, but not by much I'd wager.
"If one breaks down, the delays are outrageous."
Absolutely true. As noted above though, busses have more accidents. Also, busses weaving in and out of traffic to pick up passengers every couple of minutes adds up to way more gridlock and delays than the very rare streetcar breaking down.
"They also take longer than busses to get to speed, so they are slower."
From what I have read, this is not true. Technically, I believe streetcars can get up to speed faster and can maintain a faster speed. While theoretically, busses can weeve in and out of to avoid traffic, it is actually the weeving in and out of traffic to pick up passengers, etc. that makes them slower on their routes.
"Basically there is no real advantage to street cars other than making some people feel warm and fuzzy about themselves because they seem like a good idea in theory. Getting street cars off the street would be huge to helping gridlock."
Obviously the first sentence is just uninformed hyperbole and the last sentence is flat out incorrect as busses cause more gridlock than streetcars.
So, on the whole, some very good points, some not so strong points and some incorrect points. There are also the many similar type of issues that make streetcars better for residents: noise, accidents, capacity, timeliness, pollution, etc. I can also think of one major drawback to streetcars you didn't mention: the cost and gridlock created in initially building the rail lines.
But none of that addresses the primary benefit of streetcars: cost and efficiency. Streetcars simply cost less to buy, to operate, to maintain and to replace. By quite a lot. In a city where finances are in trouble, where gridlock is a problem, where the TTC is losing tons of money everyday, that has to be weighed very heavily.
The reality is, though, that in a city like Toronto, you cannot have only one. Streetcars are an excellent addition to the public transit mix where appropriate on main, long routes like King, Queen, Spadina, St. Clair. I think we would do well to have more of them where appropriate. But we couldn't work with only streetcars. Too many routes, too many short routes, too many routes through small streets and residential neighbourhoods that are needed and could never have streetcars.
Streetcars vs busses is not the essential problem in Toronto's transit woes. And building more subways is only going to make things way worse.
Real:
Do you have any data we could look at that concludes Toronto is worse than any other major city of comparable size, let alone one of the "worst in the world"?
It is bad and getting worse, no question, but I've driven in a lot of cities and even some in Canada that are worse, including Montreal and Vancouver. But that, I admit, is my anecdotal opinion. Is your comment opinion or do you have any of those things called "facts" to back you up?
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