Reaction to the proposed cycling plan:
A blog about cycling and political advocacy based in Toronto, Canada. (#BikeTO)
www.twowheeledpolitics.ca
TL;DR: not happy with it. Lays out some reasons, and also calls for a process change on bike lane design.
(My opinion: the Mayor’s primary focus appears to be the state of the city’s finances and public affordable housing. Everything else - biking and the TTC for example - is getting less attention and money.)
Hold on there Allen............. TL : DR ? It was only ~2,800 words! (yes, I put it through a word counter, cause I couldn't believe you called it 'long') LOL I mean that's less than 12 typical pages for a High School essay.
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As for Robert's take.......... he'll love me for this.......... ornery and naive.
I like Robert, which is more than can be said for many, LOL ; but when he pontificates on what he'd like to see, he seems unable to grasp how exactly he would get that through Council.
His essential complaint is that the plan is of the same scale as the one now winding down, about 100km over 3 years.
However, in most years, we have yet to hit the requisite pace to deliver that number (we should be close this year). While I'm all for saying 40km or 50km or 100km per year would be nice, that's just a pie-the-sky number if you don't have a plan to deliver it. Staff have, by and large brought forward sufficient plans to hit the goal of the last plan. But as Robert notes, a couple of big pieces got pushed off (ie. Danforth-Kingston), though these will hopefully still be delivered in the next year or two.
Robert, however, seems blissfully unaware of things like by-elections, unsupportive councilors, less than cooperative agency partners, and utilities impact outcomes. To double the plan, to pick an arbitrary target, you need roughly double the staff count, you need double the implementation budget, you need some ruthless push from the top to ensure interdepartmental cooperation, and then you need more than a little luck.
The Mayor has (and will further) jack taxes. I support this, but its important to realize the first part of that exercise was about nothing but erasing a current operating shortfall, it didn't fund anything new.
Its the increases that will (or will not) come next year that can fund 'service enhancement'. If/when new money shows up, there are a lot of hands out............see all the clamouring to accelerate the Gardiner project (the province would have to agree); more for TTC, Parks, Library, the Arts, public realm, recreation, housing etc. are all desired/needed.
Then there's the matter of lining up votes to get something through Council.
He seems to want more cycle tracks in wards where the Councillors will offer luke warm support at best, and probably something less than that. The problem here is not the staff plan; its the Councillors.......staff can't change those; voters can.
Sigh.
