Mayor John Tory's Toronto

[W. K. Lis]

Mr. Tory, read this article on

How pedestrians and cyclists are changing the face of Toronto: Hume

The historic dominance of the car is being challenged and that’s having a profound effect on Toronto.

From this link, at The Star:

Cities are their streets. Great cities are those with great streets. Other things matter, of course — parks, buildings, transit — but it's streets that bring a city to life, that make it a place people choose to live, visit, work, play . . .

​

The article includes a four-part video documentary.

 

[jje1000]

Interesting note on why Tory might be going around asking for money rather than borrowing to fix issues like the TCHC and transit expansion:

Related problem: the City is very, very close to its self-imposed debt ceiling, a ratio of debt to property tax revenue

https://twitter.com/DavidHains/status/874304948728729604

Of course, new revenue sources might be a solution, but they aren't solutions according to Tory.

 

[W. K. Lis]

Six years of budget cuts, cuts, cuts. There is no more room to cut. We need the funds from the city itself to improve the city, not keep on bending our knees to the province or the feds.

 

[tripwire]

Mr. Tory, read this article on

How pedestrians and cyclists are changing the face of Toronto: Hume

The historic dominance of the car is being challenged and that’s having a profound effect on Toronto.

From this link, at The Star:

Cities are their streets. Great cities are those with great streets. Other things matter, of course — parks, buildings, transit — but it's streets that bring a city to life, that make it a place people choose to live, visit, work, play . . .

​

The article includes a four-part video documentary.

I had a weekend trip to Boston recently, and loved how walkable it is. There were multiple pedestrian only areas which I really wished Toronto had more of. Boston/Toronto is a not fair comparison by any means, but I do agree that we need to rethink how our streets serves us (be it in the city or the suburbs).

 

[Videodrome]

Kevin Clarke followed me again on Twitter. He is running for mayor...

 

[PinkLucy]

I've blocked so many Kevin Clarke accounts over the years. I wish he would just give up already

 

[Midtown Urbanist]

Keesmaat clearly has political ambitions. After first opposing the East Gardiner rebuild, she shut up when Tory very publicly told her to stand down. She followed up by delivering the lunatic one-stop SSE proposal to lock down support in Scarborough, as well as along the strategic Karygiannis-Pasternak axis. Not to be too hard on her - it's arguable that no planner with any professional integrity and honour could serve this Council. However, Keesmaat has demonstrated she doesn't have any scruples in that department. And if she's eye candy for the good folks who get their information from the Sun, that's just gravy on top of the steaming pile of crap that constitutes her record.

For me it is a matter of whether she runs in 2018 or in 2022.

There are pros to both, and she has nothing to lose. The Liberals would pick her up as a candidate either provincially or federally in the future if she fails to secure a mayoral victory, or, she can work as city planner(/private sector) in any major city as she has the name recognition and reputation within the professional field already.

 

[adma]

Personally, I find Keesmaat to be too Little Miss Perfect for comfort. Even as "eye candy" (i.e. a female counterpart to hunky Richard Florida). Provincial/federal would better suit her.

 

[OneCity]

Personally, I find Keesmaat to be too Little Miss Perfect for comfort. Even as "eye candy" (i.e. a female counterpart to hunky Richard Florida). Provincial/federal would better suit her.

The City's far Left has hopes for her to have strong supports for their main agenda mainly because of quotes she made pre Tory where her views were more in line. We will have to see when the time comes if she has changed her views a bit. But one thing is for sure if the City's Left leaning Opposition is going to hammer the one stop subway, the they would be hammering her as the architect. Interesting scenario if she runs sooner than later

 

[MetroMan]

Please don't mistake your ignorance for understanding.

Be sure to vote for one of the other two, and vote often. And you might actually wish to read something about Keesmaat. Here's a good start:
http://www.nationalobserver.com/2017/04/21/news/chief-city-planner-jennifer-keesmaat-how-fix-toronto

Edit to Add: And here's Keesmaat at her best...so good that she's actually managed to change my thinking *somewhat* on the sanity or not of the SSE. She's able to sketch a detailed plan and vision that Tory would mime, and Ford would fumble, let alone spell wrong.

But you might be right 08, she probably talks above the heads of many who don't walk tall. All the facts, context and reference, and frank honesty. Why can't she just make it up like the others?

This is all about the Scarborough Subway. How "Old City Limits" is that? I wonder what Sue-Ann Levy would have you think about that?

If Keesmaat isn't Mayor within the next couple of election cycles, I'll eat my shoe. She's not only knowledgeable but media ready. She has an answer for everything and can steer an interview in her favour. I'm impressed.

And yes, this interview has nudged me towards being a Scarborough subway supporter but with a major caveat: priority. Scarborough is only getting this kind of attention for political reasons, not planning. Yes, plan and build a dense Scarborough downtown around a subway but this is decades away. The subway should not come first, not at the cost of the much more urgent Relief Line and its north expansion to Don Mills.

 

[Midtown Urbanist]

The City's far Left has hopes for her to have strong supports for their main agenda mainly because of quotes she made pre Tory where her views were more in line. We will have to see when the time comes if she has changed her views a bit. But one thing is for sure if the City's Left leaning Opposition is going to hammer the one stop subway, the they would be hammering her as the architect. Interesting scenario if she runs sooner than later

She is not a far left candidate. I would expect her to campaign from a respectfully center/center-right position with an urbanistic agenda.

 

[Bob Burnhamthorpe]

It's nauseating to think that we may have to vote for Tory because Ford is running.

You don't *have* to do anything.

 

[pman]

You don't *have* to do anything.

Actually, anybody with a double digit IQ and concern for Toronto's future does "have" to vote against DoFo, however flawed the alternative.

 

[zang]

Actually, anybody with a double digit IQ and concern for Toronto's future does "have" to vote against DoFo, however flawed the alternative.

Actually, you don't. Aside from the fact that the re-warding for the 2018 election should shift less of the power imbalance the suburbs has back to denser areas, protest voting is a problem and in sheer defiance of democracy as a whole. Ford was a protest vote. Trump was a protest vote. Protest-voting to fight against a tyrant/idiot being protest-voted into office ensures absolutely no one actually gets whats in their best interests.

 

[pman]

I agree that the likely crop of Mayoral candidates will ensure that Toronto continues to be misgoverned, the only question is how bad it will be. Voting for Tory (for example) against DoFo isn't a protest, it's supporting a bad alternative to prevent a catastrophe. It will have to be a matter of voting for the candidate with the best chance of beating Ford. Perhaps the recent US election is a decent analogy. Few people seemed enthusiastic about Clinton, but she couldn't have been worse than Trump.