Mayor Olivia Chow's Toronto

[Northern Light]

The gondolas to Toronto Island is hilarious. Wouldn't that cross a still-in-use shipping corridor to the eastern docks? <facedesk>

Terrible...:-(

And the flight path of the Island Airport. LOL

 

[Richard White]

Iceway - by which the submitter means convert bike lanes, in winter, into ice skating tracks.

Ummm, put aside what cyclists would aside what cyclists would think of this......most cycle tracks are next to the curb and have the catch basins to drain melt water from the roads and sidewalks............to which we apply road salt...... never mind walking across them at intersections, or alternatively the skater has to walk on the un-iced paved road very block or so? Eesh

Perhaps we could turn them into a Bobsled track through Little Jamaica?

 

[doady]

Power to make Toronto its own province lies with the feds, not the province.

 

[picard102]

Power to make Toronto its own province lies with the feds, not the province.

The province needs to agree.

 

[doady]

The province needs to agree.

Oh that makes sense. Personally as non Torontonian I wouldn't mind if the city separated and Doug Ford is no longer my premier.

 

[evandyk]

I drove from Bloor and Dufferin to Stockyards today to buy a Christmas tree, and the number of times one or two parked cars on Dundas W, Keele, etc. were causing traffic chaos was infuriating.

More public bathrooms and banning lefts on streetcar lines are pretty much no-brainers.

Ed Keenan actually understands what makes a city a good place to live in.

 

[picard102]

Oh that makes sense. Personally as non Torontonian I wouldn't mind if the city separated and Doug Ford is no longer my premier.

He would absolutely still be your premier. Ontario would take him and his government with them, while Toronto set up a new Government.

 

[DSCToronto]

Capital Sewer. https://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2025/gg/bgrd/backgroundfile-260581.pdf

Clearly the City Auditors are on top of, at least, some things! A 5-year ban is quite severe (as it should be) and it will be interesting to see if they can find enough othher clients to survive.

 

[Monarch Butterfly]

From https://www.torontotoday.ca/local/city-hall/toronto-20-km-new-bike-lanes-provincial-veto-11554197

Toronto proposes over 20 km of new bike lanes, bypassing provincial veto​

The city plans to skirt the Ford government’s bike lane ban by narrowing the width of roads to squeeze in bike lanes, rather than removing car lanes

See report at. https://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2025/ie/bgrd/backgroundfile-260430.pdf

 

[Northern Light]

From https://www.torontotoday.ca/local/city-hall/toronto-20-km-new-bike-lanes-provincial-veto-11554197

Toronto proposes over 20 km of new bike lanes, bypassing provincial veto​

The city plans to skirt the Ford government’s bike lane ban by narrowing the width of roads to squeeze in bike lanes, rather than removing car lanes

See report at. https://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2025/ie/bgrd/backgroundfile-260430.pdf

Please do not post links to the same report in multiple threads without a compelling reason. You've also posted this is the cycling thread.

It contains no information that I have not already posted, and the headline is misleading, but I digress.

 

[Monarch Butterfly]

Please do not post links to the same report in multiple threads without a compelling reason. You've also posted this is the cycling thread.

It contains no information that I have not already posted, and the headline is misleading, but I digress.

Not everyone reads each and every thread.

 

[zang]

Not everyone reads each and every thread.

And besides which, it's a moderator's job to police things like that.

 

[Northern Light]

Not everyone reads each and every thread.

So you want to post cycling info in every single thread? No.

That's why we have threads, to sort material by subject.

Sometimes a cross-post is warranted, but it is forum etiquette to note that, and it is generally done for subjects without a clear dedicated thread.

 

[txlseries4]

Heading to Executive Committee and being reported in the news is Mayor Chow's proposal for a luxury home property tax increase:

"This motion raises the cost to buy Luxury Homes incrementally - between 0.9% and 1.1% on the graduated rates listed below - to shift the cost of funding our city towards those who can afford it the most."

Value of Consideration	Revised Rate
Over $3,000,000 and up to $4,000,000	4.40 percent
Over $4,000,000 and up to $5,000,000	5.45 percent
Over $5,000,000 and up to $10,000,000	6.50 percent
Over $10,000,000 and up to $20,000,000	7.55 percent
Over $20,000,000	8.60 percent

 

[Northern Light]

Mulling through reports I hadn't yet caught up with...... I found the report listing the size of various obligatory reserve funds at the City.

This is the appendix from the below has been extracted: https://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2025/ex/bgrd/backgroundfile-260558.pdf

Did you blink and miss it?

The Parkland Acquisition Reserve Fund is sitting at over 950 Million Dollars! Now, to be clear, a chunk of that is spoken for, how much was not listed in the report. But this balance is up by several hundred million in the last few years.

Would someone like to take on asking their Councillor or the Mayor how much of that is uncommitted and available to spend; ideally, broken down by Ward?

I think we need to break open this particular piggy bank, and finish some long planned projects.

***

Now below that, you'll see 700M in unspent S.37 funds......... I would like to know how much of that is uncommitted too; again, ideally by ward.

Between the two funds, if they follow historic pattern, between 1/3 to 2/3 i not allocated to a project yet.

That suggests a solid 1/2 billion to play with, and maybe more.

***

That's not the only money I found that caught my attention.

Where is the 5.7M in Habourfont Parkland Reserve supposed to be going? Hmmmm, and there a bunch of footbridges awaiting funding dollars that that sum could pay for? @DSCToronto