Transportation Management

      As with Housing and Development issues, Transportation is closely tied to the same density concerns being raised. Growth demands that more people have to be accounted for and their transportation needs met.

      However,  bike lanes as the preferred solution of the City cannot make up for the loss of the finite road space available for their use. The City has not, and will not, be adding car lanes and is indeed reducing the high speed capacity of the Gardiner to accommodate even more development down by the waterfront. As a result they need to be doing a better job of using the $150 million traffic center to synchronize traffic lights and generally aid traffic movement in particular so that emergency vehicles are not impeded as is frequently seen when traffic cannot pullover but must stop on single lane roads like Danforth.

      As with most development generally today,  there has been too little realization that the use of cars now, and even in a future with EV’s instead of gas vehicles, will not be going away. Transportation policy today is directly aimed at denying the truth that there are 1.2 million licensed Toronto residents owning 1.5 million vehicles.
Current trends are suggesting that more people are filling their transportation needs with personal vehicles over public transit, and ignoring these facts is proving to be a disaster for congestion and travel times while detracting from safety on our streets. The approach of the City to transportation is a triumph of ideology over sanity, and many in the ward have seen the negative fallout from these policies that are firmly supported by Brad Bradford having no solutions for it. But I have a solution.

      If elected, I will push for the removal of the Woodbine bike lanes and the relocation of the Danforth bike lanes off of Danforth and a more balanced take on bike lanes going forward.

      The benefits would be innumerable but to start it would help eliminate the needless idling and environmental impact of congestion caused by reduced road capacity.  It would improve travel times along Woodbine for many travelling to and from the Beaches area and generally not raise the frustration levels of all who travel it. The same would be true for travel along Danforth which has now reached notable levels of delay during even off rush hour periods. It would allow for more support for businesses on Danforth as they come out of the economic challenges of the pandemic. It would also be reason to stop the wasteful spending that has been promoted to deal with cut through traffic, much of which harms the peaceful use of what are residential streets.  Leave arterial roads such as Woodbine and Danforth to do the task they were always meant to do, move high traffic volumes efficiently.  That is not the same as saying I want to raise speeds; it’s a volume question,  as with coming out of the pandemic traffic has returned to prior levels but has to deal with reduced lanes of travel.  The bike ridership numbers do not justify the continued placement of bike lanes on busy Danforth or Woodbine. Certainly not at the cost we’ve seen which can only worsen in the future if the City grows as planned.

       The same is true for the Cafe TO program.  It’s time has past in its current policy,  and it needs to be reevaluated or possibly cancelled.   As many of its locations now sit empty for the majority of the time,  and it does not really offer any 'enjoyable' dining experience for many patrons, next to exhaust fumes from the now congested traffic all around, or the impediment to the operation to neighbouring businesses.  Many installation have now become the target of vandalism,   another city eyesore that could be done without.

       The general aimlessness of the City’s approach to transportation is also seen in the many and frequent closures of the subway system which only makes the shortage of vehicle travel lanes more difficult on local residents,  who must now deal with the unfair fallout when shuttle buses are put in use.

      The excuse of signal improvements has to be ended as that project has been in progress for over 5 years already, with no end in sight. I would call TTC management 'on the carpet' to read them the riot act over these continual delays that have only dampened the public’s image of the TTC,  which may become permanent. This is now being reflected in the lack of a full rebound to TTC ridership post pandemic. This is troubling as the City needs a fully functional,  and near capacity TTC,  to increase its revenues and alleviate all of the other "self-created traffic trouble" we see with the many regular road closures.  This also includes construction that does not appear well coordinated,  nor monitored by project management inspectors,  or the infrequently worked upon projects,  often regularly remaining idle, until completion. 
This will be managed better,  if I am elected.