City Selling Sidewalks, Kyle Rae says Pusateri's is the public

[DarnDirtyApe]

Kyle Rae is out of touch. He doesn't like cyclists because he thinks parked bicycles aren't aesthically pleasing, which is why there were no bike rakes in the plans for the Bloor remake and no bike lanes. He loves all development because he wants downtown to be "like Manhattan". He takes taxis all around town unlike the rest of us in this ward who rely on walking, cycling, or the TTC. He doesn't seem to care about any of the problems in the ward.

It's people like him that make me wish we had a party system. He sucks, but he has a solid organization and most people are disengaged so he wins handily every election.

 

[ShonTron]

John Sewell should have run here in 2006 instead of against the city's best councillor, Joe Mihevc.

The comments in the Star (which is largely dominated by the same angry anti-Miller, anti-McGuinty conservatives that lurk at the Globe and Mail site) are almost completely against Kyle Rae and the lay-bys. Rae is no longer all that progressive, and it is time for new blood in that ward.

Oh, and please take the Holt Renfrew shopping talk to a more on-topic thread.

 

[DarnDirtyApe]

While I'd relish the competition, I wouldn't vote for Sewell. He seems to have gotten really angry about everything these days.

I'd like to have a counciller who is someone normal, not an 'activist'. It's nice having Bob Rae as an MP - he's well-spoken, has reasonable views on most issues, and most importantly isn't embarassing to have as my elected representative.

I'd be happy to have Mihevc as my councillor. My parents actually met him once in Cuba and he seemed like a really genuine person.

 

[Hipster Duck]

^I agree. Sewell is a crank. He would be like the James Howard Kunstler of city councillors.

If he would have won in Rae's ward, you guys could kiss any proposal greater than 4 storeys goodbye.

 

[junctionist]

Rae's remarks are increasingly reminding me of a certain councillor in Etobicoke.

 

[ShonTron]

^I agree. Sewell is a crank. He would be like the James Howard Kunstler of city councillors.

If he would have won in Rae's ward, you guys could kiss any proposal greater than 4 storeys goodbye.

Oh, of course. But Rae's practically the polar opposite in that he never saw a development that he didn't like (except 3Dementia's). Would have made things actually interesting, and brought about at least some serious opposition to this virtually unopposed councillor.

 

[adma]

The building that makes me the angriest is the pink marble on on the south-east side of Church-Bloor. That building is less than 25 years old. Taxis and delivery vehicles constrict Bloor eastbound to 1 lane pretty much all day, every day. It's criminal that planners never insisted these developments allow for this type of temporary parking when they were built.

These days, the bottleneckiness around here is due to road construction, not delivery vehicles per se...

 

[Urban Shocker]

I can't recall the issue of urban lay-by design ever being discussed on this forum before. There aren't that many downtown, they're easily missed if they don't interrupt pedestrian traffic, and most seem to work fairly well - the Pantages tower, for instance, has a lay-by that takes about 3 vehicles, is well used during the day, and doesn't impede pedestrian flow along the sidewalk. I'm more concerned with those passenger drop-offs that actually interrupt the sidewalk - there's one at 10 Yonge for instance. And I've always found that wheelchair ramp that impinges on the sidewalk outside 69 Yonge a bit odd - it's been there for quite a few years now and I haven't seen it adopted as a model anywhere else.

Shon: Rae was quoted as saying, "Mr. Dickson did a good design." - not that he didn't like it.

 

[Urban Shocker]

Some places where you'd think they might have these things - on Simcoe outside Roy Thomson Hall for instance - they don't ( yet? ).

However, fully two-thirds of the lay-by space outside the Royal York hotel is taken up by large planters, so vehicles can't use most of it. I wonder if these things will become the quaint heritage-worthy oddities of the future if they fall into disuse?

Add laneways, underground parking garages that empty onto the street, and driveways in traditional neighbourhoods to the urban obstacle course that pedestrians already face ( and don't get me started on cyclists ... ). They all impinge on sidewalk space in ways that lay-bys don't.

 

[dowlingm]

It's the principle of the thing. Ordinary citizens get grief about rummaging from blue boxes, cyclists get the finger when they want a Bloor bike lane, but Pusateri's and Holt's open the chequebook and it's no problemo...

Since Kyle Rae says that Pusateri's is "the public" then the public should visit their property frequently but without buying anything. Shame that layby would become so congested, a real shame...

 

[torontoguy]

Rae's done little for public space - College Park and its state of blandness, the grey and garish TLS, the many parking lots with no plantings or surrounding trees -in this city, and now it's clear what his feelings are towards pedestrians.

 

[Urban Shocker]

dowlingm: The public does visit Holts frequently without buying anything. Maybe these "ordinary citizens" also rummage through blue boxes, who knows? "Ordinary citizens" also live in small, moderately-priced condos at the Pantages - which has a lay-by. Attempts to portray the creation of a few lay-bys as a war waged by elites against the working class fail to convince.

 

[ShonTron]

Don't read too much into this being a "class war" - I think the issue here is whether more lay-bys should be installed, as well as Rae's dumb and crass comment that shows that he is completely out of touch.

 

[Dilla]

The public does visit Holts frequently without buying anything.

I'm not sure where the power of your conviction has come from on this. Maybe your friends do, but I'd say easily 95% of the people I know have never been in there, myself included. You'd want to be pretty self assured to drive a banged up Geo into that lay-by and walk around that place in crappy clothes only to realize this is a fantasy world for people like you, then leave and get your car back from the valet. I mean, I know you could, but it's just not going to happen. Unless you've got a really awesome sense of humor, and big, brass balls.

At any rate, Shon Tron is right, this isn't a class war thing as much as it is that there was no public consultation (unless you actually count Pusateri's as "the public"), and that Kyle Rae was a snide ass when his highness was questioned on the subject.

 

[Urban Shocker]

Nobody is forced to buy anything in Holts or Pusateri's if they don't want to but anyone can go in. You can be a billionaire in jeans and dirty t-shirt, or someone who buys designer duds at the Goodwill for all the sales staff know.

The claim was made by one forum member that only "a very elite few" ever benefit from lay-bys. But, as the article indicates, the "ordinary people" who ride TTC buses that uses lay-bys, or who are residents of condos that have them, or who rent moderately priced hotel rooms, aren't an elite. They're the public, and this is public use, as Rae points out.