Globe: The truth about sidewalks (Bathurst St./Island Airport)
The truth about sidewalks
JOHN BARBER
Only a genius of the stature of Charles Dickens could have done justice to the extraordinary meeting senior city officials convened Monday to speak the truth about sidewalks, as they monolithically conceived it, to recalcitrant Councillor Adam Vaughan. So I'm glad I wasn't invited, unlike the surprise "legal adviser" Mr. Vaughan sprang on the unwitting 'crats - in itself a comic moment of irresistible appeal to those who can imagine such minds at work and see it through their pallid masks.
So, a simple roll call will have to do: In order to dissuade the councillor from building a $160,000 sidewalk along the west side of Bathurst Street south of Queen's Quay West, the bureaucracy assembled six of its heaviest hitters with a combined annual salary of more than $950,000. It was a command performance, they being the commanders, its purpose to "brief" Mr. Vaughan on their strenuous objections to his preferred design for the block-long strip of concrete.
Finding him armed with a legal adviser and ready answers for every objection, they next sounded the alarm at community council, in the form of a sternly worded report recommending against the rookie's folly. One can only imagine what they felt when Mr. Vaughan's colleagues brushed them off without a word of debate or a single query, voting unanimously to endorse his latest offensive against the noisome island airport.
The bureaucrats' plan for the sidewalk, drawn up by the Toronto Port Authority, the airport operator, is designed to ensure the safety of vehicles getting to and from the airport ferry. Mr. Vaughan's plan, which the bureaucrats are now required to build, is designed to ensure the safety of local pedestrians at the direct expense of vehicles getting to and from the ferry.
Given the paltry flow of traffic down there, the Vaughan plan will do little to disrupt airport operations. The grandiose queuing lanes it eliminates, to be replaced with parking stalls beside the sidewalk, have never once served the function for which they were intended - way back when some people thought Porter Airlines was a smart bet. The real victory is internal: a timely whack upside the heads of senior bureaucrats who, left to their own devices, would continue to serve the interests of an institution that local politicians, driven by actual constituents, are determined to suppress.
The message is simple, according to Mr. Vaughan: "If you're going to fight an airport, fight it." If the facility is unsafe, let the port authority, not the city, fix it. "They've got ample land to make it safe."
The port authoritarians could sue, according to the bureaucrats. "Let them," Mr. Vaughan replies. They could build a new road on an easement straight through Little Norway Park. "Let them," he repeats, salivating at the prospect.
"It's time to stand up to them for a change," Mr. Vaughan says, "and we're going to."
The first round, which took place yesterday when community council voted for the new sidewalk, was "the most fun I've had at city hall since being elected," according to fellow rookie Gord Perks.
Others are less zealous, if only because the airport appears to be dying of its own accord, unaffected by anything the city may or may not do to help or hinder it.
Many industry observers, including one respected analyst on the record and others off, are predicting the imminent death of Porter Airlines as promoter Robert Deluce continues to paper the town with free tickets to Ottawa - and offers new flights to Northern Ontario in favour of the promised U.S. destinations.
When that happens, there will be a whole lot more fresh concrete to rip up along the waterfront.
