Mayor Olivia Chow's Toronto

[thettctransitfanatic]

I think @Northern Light has touched on this previously, but a lot of the tangible improvements from Chow start coming online this fall - things like improved TTC frequencies and other municipal services. I'd say Chow is a big improvement over the last few mayors and she has had quite a mess to clean up. These things can't be fixed overnight.

Good. It's nice to see positive change for once.

 

[afransen]

I expect it's both. Doesn't matter as it's 25% more money out of my pocket either way for the city's governance and services. I'd get rid of property tax on assessed value entirely - instead charge everyone a poll tax, adjusted to declared income (to avoid regressive taxation) and based on the number of service users in the premises.

One might argue that a per person tax is more regressive, even if based on income, because there are large implied rents in owning and living in a $2m detached home.

I'd vote for a land value tax.

 

[Admiral Beez]

Good. It's nice to see positive change for once.

I like her plan to open emergency shelters across the city. It's ridiculous that nearly 30% pf the city's men's shelters (see map below) are concentrated in downtown east.

We need everyone and every neighbourhood to carry the share of homeless shelters. But somehow there's nothing north of Eglinton between the 400 and 404.

 

[evandyk]

My wife and son enjoyed the early pool opening yesterday at Christie Pits. She said it was jammed with hordes of kids and teenagers, so people were making good use of it.

 

[Northern Light]

I like her plan to open emergency shelters across the city. It's ridiculous that nearly 30% pf the city's men's shelters (see map below) are concentrated in downtown east.

View attachment 659903

You filtered the results in some fashion. (not an accusations, just an observation), this is what the shelter map looks like:

We need everyone and every neighbourhood to carry the share of homeless shelters. But somehow there's nothing north of Eglinton between the 400 and 404.

Certainly, there is an over concentration in the core, one can also see fairly substantial representation in Scarborough and pockets of the Junction as well.

Other areas are definitely under represented, including the one you note, though there are 2 shelters north of Eglinton, between 400 and 404 south of 401, and one more to the north.

****

Shelter location is a function of meeting client needs (ie. good transit)

Land costs/existing City sites.

Where visible homelessness is most acute.

Councillor support/opposition.

Affluent community opposition.

Those last two should not play a role but they do....

 

[Admiral Beez]

You filtered the results in some fashion.

I filtered for Men's shelters only. That's where the more disruptive cases come from. Hopefully by spreading them out across the city, some of that disruption is diluted or at least more visible to the NIMBYs who see homelessness as a downtown issue.

Where visible homelessness is most acute.

Chicken or egg? Like ducks at the pond, you go to where the bread is.

 

[evandyk]

Affluent community opposition.

Those last two should not play a role but they do....

We all remember the TSN host...

 

[rbt]

I was hoping that with my now 25% property tax increase since Chow was elected that I'd finally start to see some improvements across this city - beyond more huge increases in the TPS budget. I'll still vote for her a second time around with blind optimism.

2024 was 9.5% and 2025 was 6.9%: that's both operations and city building fund increases together.

As for the other 10%, congratulations on being in a high-demand neighbourhood.

 

[otto]

Finally a street sweeper appeared in my neighbourhood and street to sweep up the dead leaves from the fall, screws, nails, crushed cans and bottles, straws, cigarette butts, cups, broken asphalt, paper that blew out of the recycling bins, garbage that the raccoons pulled out of the garbage bins, small broken tree branches, flower pedals, and someone's lost shoe. See you next year.

when i lived in SF, as much as i hated the street parking rules for street sweeping, at least they did it with frequency and are able to sweep an entire block without parked cars. i wish there would be an effective frequency to the service here in toronto... and especially having a side of the street clear for the sweeping.

 

[DSCToronto]

when i lived in SF, as much as i hated the street parking rules for street sweeping, at least they did it with frequency and are able to sweep an entire block without parked cars. i wish there would be an effective frequency to the service here in toronto... and especially having a side of the street clear for the sweeping.

In Montreal they have (or had 25 years ago) a MUCH better system where my downtown residential street (which was, I think, typical) was swept weekly from April through October. There was NO PARKING for an hour (maybe two) on one side of street one day and the other another and the sweeper truck was preceeded by a parking officer in his car with the horn blaring. The aim was to get cars removed NOT to get $$$. Of course they did get some $$ from those not speedy enough to move but it really worked. Of course, it would mean the street-sweeping City silo would need to liaise with the parking enforcement silo at TPS and they would need to keep to the schedule. Dreams! As soon as the street was swept it was OK to park there and, despite signage, no tickets were issued.

 

[zang]

In Montreal they have (or had 25 years ago) a MUCH better system where my downtown residential street (which was, I think, typical) was swept weekly from April through October. There was NO PARKING for an hour (maybe two) on one side of street one day and the other another and the sweeper truck was preceeded by a parking officer in his car with the horn blaring. The aim was to get cars removed NOT to get $$$. Of course they did get some $$ from those not speedy enough to move but it really worked. Of course, it would mean the street-sweeping City silo would need to liaise with the parking enforcement silo at TPS and they would need to keep to the schedule. Dreams! As soon as the street was swept it was OK to park there and, despite signage, no tickets were issued.

But here in Ontario, we listen only to our drivers, who will moan and complain that forcing them to move their cars is somehow a personal attack on every driver and any cost that may be incurred because of their own negligence is yet another “tax” on the little guy.

 

[Monarch Butterfly]

But here in Ontario, we listen only to our drivers, who will moan and complain that forcing them to move their cars is somehow a personal attack on every driver and any cost that may be incurred because of their own negligence is yet another “tax” on the little guy.

Parking on any street should always be considered TEMPORARY. It should be not storage space for any motor vehicle. The street is "owned" by the city, not the province, not adjacent property owner, and certainly not the motor vehicle.

 

[DSCToronto]

This may fit here or in the Doug Ford thread ...

From this week's economist:

MAURA RYAN, a speech therapist in New York City, was dreading the introduction of congestion pricing. To see her patients in Queens and Manhattan she sometimes drives across the East River a couple of times a day. The idea of paying a $9 toll each day infuriated her. Yet since the policy was actually implemented, she has changed her mind. A journey which used to take an hour or more can now be as quick as 15 minutes. “Well, this is very nice,” she admits thinking. Ms Ryan is not alone. Polls show more New Yorkers now support the toll than oppose it. A few months ago, it saw staunch opposition.

Congestion pricing came into effect in Manhattan on January 5th, just two weeks before Donald Trump became president. So far it has been almost miraculous in its effects. Traffic is down by about 10%, leading to substantially faster journeys, especially at the pinch-points of bridges and tunnels. Car-noise complaints are down by 70%. Buses are travelling so much faster that their drivers are having to stop and wait to keep to their schedules. The congestion charge is raising around $50m each month to update the subway and other public-transport systems, and ridership is up sharply. Broadway attendance is rising, not falling, as some feared.

New Yorkers may be surprised by how well it is all working. They shouldn’t be. London’s congestion charge, introduced over 20 years ago, had similar effects there. What they should be astonished by is the fact that it took almost half a century to be implemented. The principle of congestion pricing was first outlined by an economist at New York’s Columbia University, William Vickrey, in the 1960s. A version, reintroducing bridge tolls, almost went into effect in the 1970s before Congress killed it.

The current scheme was muscled through the state legislature by Andrew Cuomo, then the governor, in 2019. It took six years to come into force. Last year, with the cameras ready to roll, it was delayed again by Kathy Hochul, Mr Cuomo’s successor. Only after Donald Trump won re-election did it start. New York is thus decades late to an idea it invented, another example of how hard it can be for cities to do the obvious.■

 

[afransen]

This may fit here or in the Doug Ford thread ...

From this week's economist:

MAURA RYAN, a speech therapist in New York City, was dreading the introduction of congestion pricing. To see her patients in Queens and Manhattan she sometimes drives across the East River a couple of times a day. The idea of paying a $9 toll each day infuriated her. Yet since the policy was actually implemented, she has changed her mind. A journey which used to take an hour or more can now be as quick as 15 minutes. “Well, this is very nice,” she admits thinking. Ms Ryan is not alone. Polls show more New Yorkers now support the toll than oppose it. A few months ago, it saw staunch opposition.

Congestion pricing came into effect in Manhattan on January 5th, just two weeks before Donald Trump became president. So far it has been almost miraculous in its effects. Traffic is down by about 10%, leading to substantially faster journeys, especially at the pinch-points of bridges and tunnels. Car-noise complaints are down by 70%. Buses are travelling so much faster that their drivers are having to stop and wait to keep to their schedules. The congestion charge is raising around $50m each month to update the subway and other public-transport systems, and ridership is up sharply. Broadway attendance is rising, not falling, as some feared.

New Yorkers may be surprised by how well it is all working. They shouldn’t be. London’s congestion charge, introduced over 20 years ago, had similar effects there. What they should be astonished by is the fact that it took almost half a century to be implemented. The principle of congestion pricing was first outlined by an economist at New York’s Columbia University, William Vickrey, in the 1960s. A version, reintroducing bridge tolls, almost went into effect in the 1970s before Congress killed it.

The current scheme was muscled through the state legislature by Andrew Cuomo, then the governor, in 2019. It took six years to come into force. Last year, with the cameras ready to roll, it was delayed again by Kathy Hochul, Mr Cuomo’s successor. Only after Donald Trump won re-election did it start. New York is thus decades late to an idea it invented, another example of how hard it can be for cities to do the obvious.■

We can hope that in a few years, after NYC's charge has been widely accepted as successful, we could broach the idea of something like this here. I think it is disheartening when the economically rational thing for me to do when I go downtown on a weekend with my partner is to drive and pay for parking, because it is cheaper, more flexible and usually no slower than GO.

 

[ShonTron]

I can see the the "angry" vote coming out in full force from pro-israel lobby even if she does improve in the polls.
My community facebook group is constantly filled with angry comments about Chow and her not deporting protestors, and Mendicino and Bradford are ready to jump on it.

Bradford and Mendicino can compete to be the biggest goyim Israel lobby candidate, unless, of course Kevin Vuong joins the race.