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Yonge Street, North York Streetscape Improvements

If they had any real stones they'd find a way to shunt more traffic on to Doris and Beecroft but instead they're too busy patting themselves on the back for baby steps that should have been done a decade ago, like the King pilot and Bloor bike lanes.
A lot of the institutions in NYCC front onto the ring roads, and not Yonge. They will have parents and seniors to answer to if they are to divert chunk of Yonge's traffic onto Beecroft and Doris. That's why they wouldn't dare to do so.
 
Comments on today's vote:

LEVY: Councillors backpedal on Yonge St. bike lanes — for now

Jess Spieker, of Friends and Families for Safe Streets, informed the members of public works committee Tuesday that “road safety” is their job and continuing to allow people to cross a six-lane highway (her depiction Yonge St., north of Hwy 401) is “dangerous and unsafe.”
The personal trainer — who according to her own bio serves clients mostly in the downtown core — warned councillors, in a voice dripping with self-righteousness, that turning down bike lanes on Yonge St. — all to “save 1,600 York Region drivers” — is “perverse.”
That theme — that 905ers have no right to use Yonge St. to commute from York Region into the city — was reiterated a number of times by the sanctimonious and assorted friends of John Filion, the well-past-his-best-before date councillor behind the $51-million REimagining Yonge St. scheme. Besides prettying up Yonge St.,
Councillor John Filion (Toronto Sun files)
the plan calls for taking out two lanes of traffic in one of the most congested corridors of Toronto (Sheppard up to Finch Aves.) for dedicated cycle tracks.
Two members of the Filion fan club — Bill Keenan and Kaye Rickatson — snorted derisively at commuters who dare to use Yonge St. and at Councillor Stephen Holyday for making it clear he didn’t support putting cycling tracks on Yonge St.
“Our neighbourhood shouldn’t be held hostage by commuters from the 401 … or by businesses who think the sky would fall,” sniffed Keenan.
Rickatson told Holyday she had a “nice car” but didn’t intend to drive it.
Even Filion, the councillor who was also behind the city’s failed A la Carte plan, served up this priceless little insult: “We have to do something to discourage the 905ers from going through the centre of the city.”
But after two hours of this kind of out-of-touch, self-serving nonsense from the cycling lobby, a bare quorum of councillors — led by Holyday and David Shiner — opted 3-1 to approve the alternate plan which proposes sprucing up Yonge St. but without removing any lanes of traffic. The bike lanes would be installed on neighbouring Beecroft Rd. at an extra cost of $9 million (instead of the $22-million originally proposed.)
Holyday said he’s very concerned about introducing more congestion along the proposed section of Yonge St.
“Everyone seems to dump on the 905ers and people in the north end of the city,” he said. “Maybe they’re coming into the city to shop or access their job … It’s extremely important to their quality of life to be able to move around.”
He’s 100% right. But one should never underestimate the ability of the cyclepaths and the ideologically driven damn-the-torpedoes councillors at City Hall — Joe Cressy being at the top of the list — to intimidate council into making dumb decisions.
This still must go to council at the end of next month and that gives the tag team of Cressy and Filion time to encourage councillors to ruin Yonge St.
Cressy — seemingly miffed that he and his cyclepaths lost the vote Tuesday when they’ve been so successful at ramming bike lanes down everyone’s throats up to now — tried to suggest that those who oppose the bike lanes on Yonge St. are still locked in the 1950s instead of wanting to invest in a 21st-century city.
And then he outdid himself with vintage Cressy spin. He suggested that the bike lane vision will create a “vibrant Main St. for business and economic development” where people want to come — just like what he has in the downtown neighbourhoods where he resides.
I wanted to stand up and shout: “Just like King St. where you’ve created a Ghost Town, Mr. Cressy? Or how about Bloor St. where small entrepreneurs are hanging on by their fingernails and are afraid to say how poorly they’re doing for fear of being intimidated by the bike lobby?”
But I bit my tongue and saved my response for this column.



CP24-

The city’s public works and infrastructure committee has opted to ignore a staff-endorsed plan for the revamping of a portion of Yonge Street in favour of a more modest proposal that doesn’t call for the removal of two lanes of traffic in a busy North York strip.
The initial proposal, endorsed by staff and backed by the local councillor, called for Yonge Street to be reduced from six to four lanes between Sheppard and Finch avenues in order to accommodate a bike lane, wider sidewalks and a landscaped median.
In arguing for the plan, staff had said that it “provided the best support for vibrancy” and would help create a Main Street culture along that stretch of Yonge Street.
The plan, however, was opposed by Mayor John Tory and some of his allies, who were concerned about the potential impact on traffic.
They pushed for a scaled-down version of the plan, wherein a bike lane would be put in along a parallel corridor on Beecroft Road, allowing the number of lanes of traffic along Yonge Street to stay the same. Staff had reported that the plan was viable after being asked to study it but did not favour it over the more dramatic proposal that they previously endorsed.
Nonetheless, members of the public works committee voted 4-1 in favour of the scaled-down plan on Tuesday.
The vote came one week after nine community organizations sent Tory an open letter calling on him to “demonstrate leadership” and support the initial proposal, one that they called the “the only way forward for safe streets”
“I want increased cycling infrastructure across the city, make no mistake about that. I just want it done in a sensible and balanced way that takes into account that there are other interests, including the public realm, including car drivers and including transit vehicles that have to move along Yonge Street,” Tory told reporters ahead of the vote on Tuesday morning. “I want to make sure that whatever we improve in the end – and it will come to council – is something that is balanced and takes everyone’s interest into account.”
Staff said impact on commute times would have been minimal
Traffic modelling data that was included in the initial staff report had suggested that commute times along Yonge Street would only be slowed by one or two minutes on average as a result of the removal of the two lanes of traffic.
Opponents of the plan, meanwhile, contended that any increase in commute times along an already traffic-clogged artery would be unacceptable.
In a message posted to Twitter following the vote on Tuesday, former Chief Planner Jennifer called the decision “small-town thinking” and said that the initial plan was “key to attracting growth” for the area and turning it into a “walkable destination.”
“Pathetic! We should be sick and tired of this small-town thinking. This is an urban centre above a subway line. Councillors redrawing years of staff analysis on the back of a napkin. We are better than this, Toronto,” she wrote, using the hashtag #LeadershipNeeded.
The proposal approved by the committee on Tuesday was initially supposed to add $20 million to the $51 million cost of the staff-endorsed plan but it appears as though some savings will be realized by forgoing the acquisition of some property that was required for the installation of the bike lane.
The motion approved by the committee states that shared-lane pavement markings will instead be implemented along a portion of the bike lane until a section of Greenview Avenue is reconstructed and widened.
The proposal still needs to be approved by city council as a whole.
 
Comments on today's vote:

LEVY: Councillors backpedal on Yonge St. bike lanes — for now

Jess Spieker, of Friends and Families for Safe Streets, informed the members of public works committee Tuesday that “road safety” is their job and continuing to allow people to cross a six-lane highway (her depiction Yonge St., north of Hwy 401) is “dangerous and unsafe.”
The personal trainer — who according to her own bio serves clients mostly in the downtown core — warned councillors, in a voice dripping with self-righteousness, that turning down bike lanes on Yonge St. — all to “save 1,600 York Region drivers” — is “perverse.”
That theme — that 905ers have no right to use Yonge St. to commute from York Region into the city — was reiterated a number of times by the sanctimonious and assorted friends of John Filion, the well-past-his-best-before date councillor behind the $51-million REimagining Yonge St. scheme. Besides prettying up Yonge St.,


All those outside special interest groups from downtown/midtown should try advocating to keep all those "illegal" 905-ers out by building a "border wall" along Steeles,... don't worry, they'll "get Mexico to pay for it"!
 
-there was definitely a thing in the news a few years ago about Shiner having an apartment at Yonge/Eglinton but maybe he didn't live there. He's dead weight either way, IMHO.

-I'm not saying local councillor should reign supreme but on a project is basically within the neighbourhood (and also not onerous in terms of cost) they should be properly taken into account. In this case he was onside with staff and it shouldn't be for Shiner to stick his nose in. I understand the process but it's not working when experts are being ignored and more tax dollars wasted

EDIT: Easily found on Google, Shiner living outside the ward (and cheaply, to boot), as of 2013...
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toron...-rent-deals-from-toronto-developers-1.1865022

Maybe he moved back when he got caught?
 
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When you think about it, Councillor Shiner is very good at playing his cards,.... Originally, this REimagining Yonge was a just from Sheppard to Finch and thus just a Councillor Filion project,.... but cycling advocates wanted it extended down to 401 and north of Finch to Finch Hydro Corridor Trail,.... ok and Councillor Shiner supported that and since east-side of Yonge north of Finch is in Councillor Shiner riding, REimagining Yonge is Councillor Shiner's project too! Both Councillor Filion and Councillor Shiner are given the same status on REimagining Yonge since it officially go into both of their wards. So CityStaff has to keep Councillor Shiner in the loop just like Councillor Filion. Then last year, Councillor Shiner used his Executive Committee position to slash $4million funding on the Study to delay it,.... and then yesterday's last minute motion to make the Transform Beecroft - Enhanced Yonge option look more financially attractive. So far, Councillor Shiner have played his cards quite well.
 
Same point i was making above made by the Star's David Rider...
Capture+_2018-02-28-09-08-37.png


So, not comparable to Scarborough pols holding the city hostage at all. Kind of the opposite. I guess he has played his cards well, regardless of whether it's for "the greater good'
 

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Same point i was making above made by the Star's David Rider...
View attachment 135868

So, not comparable to Scarborough pols holding the city hostage at all. Kind of the opposite. I guess he has played his cards well, regardless of whether it's for "the greater good'

There is nothing remotely admirable or redeemable about Shiner's mischief. His behaviour has been underhanded and surreptitious. As I understand it his western ward boundaries are between Finch and Steeles, north of the recommended work. So he has helped cause this truly Toronto style mess by placing ward driven politics above the expressed wishes of residents and city staff in the area that will be affected, and perhaps more importantly, the greater good of the city. The needs of York region commuters are secondary, at best, to be charitable.

Pardon the rant that follows but it needs to be said:

I don't have words to express just how inappropriate Toronto's governance model is for a city its size. This intensely parochial, ward driven approach is the way decisions are made in Timmins and Goderich (and no offence intended to those places), not a large city. As far as I know there are few, if any, cities in the world Toronto's size that have Toronto's governance model. And for good reason. This isn't about democracy being messy; it's just messy because it's a broken and dysfunctional architecture for governing. I don't even really blame Shiner...he is what he is, a career politician and an unprincipled, overreaching hack raised on pre-amalgamation North York politics . The blame for never ending decision making debacles and enabled hubris of city councilors lies with the province for not only allowing this to continue, but for stupidly believing that there is benefit from holding Toronto back. Any benefit would be for provincial MPPs and their self-perceived short term electoral needs, not the province as a whole.
 
I don't have words to express just how inappropriate Toronto's governance model is for a city its size. This intensely parochial, ward driven approach is the way decisions are made in Timmins and Goderich (and no offence intended to those places), not a large city. As far as I know there are few, if any, cities in the world Toronto's size that have Toronto's governance model. And for good reason. This isn't about democracy being messy; it's just messy because it's a broken and dysfunctional architecture for governing. I don't even really blame Shiner...he is what he is, a career politician and an unprincipled, overreaching hack raised on pre-amalgamation North York politics . The blame for never ending decision making debacles and enabled hubris of city councilors lies with the province for not only allowing this to continue, but for stupidly believing that there is benefit from holding Toronto back. Any benefit would be for provincial MPPs and their self-perceived short term electoral needs, not the province as a whole.

What do you think would be a better way of running the city?
 
What do you think would be a better way of running the city?

Personally, I think the answer to that is simple: While Toronto dithers about how many councillors they should have and where ward boundaries should be, they have never done a proper governance review, dating back to amalgamation. Could the mayor have more power? Should s/he? Should there be a mix of ward and regional/citywide/old-suburb councillors? What about no ward councillors at all? Could the executive committee be configured differently? What about the community councils? What about participatory budgeting? What about ranked ballots? Should we have parties?

I could cherry pick what I think the optimal system might be but what's really important here is that, even within the confines of their existing powers under the City of Toronto Act, council has spent ZERO time thinking about this in the past 20 years. A more in-depth discussion would be worthy of another thread but IMHO, the city does need a different system than it has and they don't really care; they just keep stumbling along and muddling through and whether it's this issue or the Gardiner Hybrid or the Scarborough subway or Mammo taking the city to the OMB over ward boundaries or a bunch of lazy incumbents refusing to implement ranked ballots or employ the tax powers the province gave them, after years of begging, I think the worst possible argument is that things by and large function just fine right now.
 
I think most of us can agree that Toronto’s infrastructure planning and maintenance is broken and dysfunctional, which is a direct result of our municipal structure. We need to look at how more successful city regions govern themselves and ask how we can be more like them. The alternative is to continue with this amalgamated mess and to endure the complete misallocation of our limited infrastructure budget as we remain frozen in the 1950’s.
 
I'm not positive the problem is structural -- or at least not solely structural; the most acute problem is personnel (i.e the mopes who occupy at least 2/3 of council).

If we had a better collection of more thoughtful, reasonable councillors who actually cared to consider expert advice, seek out best practices from other jurisdictions, and so on, the current system could work quite well. There are very few structural limitations on the implementation of good ideas in exactly the same way that there are very few structural limitations on the implementation of horrendous ideas, but the real problem is the calibre of the individuals we have operating within that structure.

Now, that sort of does bring one back around to other structural weaknesses -- namely, in the way that we elect those folks -- so maybe I'm talking myself in a circle, but I think I bristle at the notion that the problem is inanimate mostly because it's just truly astonishing how shitty most councillors are and how rarely they're held accountable and I think it's important not to lose sight of that.
 
I'm not positive the problem is structural -- or at least not solely structural; the most acute problem is personnel (i.e the mopes who occupy at least 2/3 of council).

If we had a better collection of more thoughtful, reasonable councillors who actually cared to consider expert advice, seek out best practices from other jurisdictions, and so on, the current system could work quite well. There are very few structural limitations on the implementation of good ideas in exactly the same way that there are very few structural limitations on the implementation of horrendous ideas, but the real problem is the calibre of the individuals we have operating within that structure.

Now, that sort of does bring one back around to other structural weaknesses -- namely, in the way that we elect those folks -- so maybe I'm talking myself in a circle, but I think I bristle at the notion that the problem is inanimate mostly because it's just truly astonishing how shitty most councillors are and how rarely they're held accountable and I think it's important not to lose sight of that.

I agree that Council has a large number of members, including the Mayor, who consistently reject planning advice, data and rational investment analysis, in favour of projects that are entirely driven by accommodating drivers and catering to suburban grievance. They make Toronto worse. And they’re all from the suburbs, accountable, and elected again and again by their suburban constituents. These councillors aren’t an anomaly, they’re a feature of the way we’ve constructed our municipal democracy. Holyday, Shiner, Pasternak, de Baeremaeker, Mammoliti, Ford, Karygiannis and di Ciano aren’t aberrations - they’re continually re-elected. If some beneficent Providence banished them all to Dallas tomorrow, they’d be replaced by equally stupid and destructive councillors, because that’s what a majority of suburban voters want. The only way for Toronto to become anything better is for the Province use its power to remove these suburban morons from any infrastructure decisions, and create a less democratic infrastructure and public realm decision making body with statutory insulation from politics, quantitative decision criteria, and stable funding. The city is entirely a creature of the province, so Queen’s Park would be within its rights. Of course it will never happen, meaning there’s actually no hope Toronto will ever get planning, transit or the public realm right. You want to live in Vienna? Move to Vienna. Because Council’s suburban majority guarantees that Toronto will never be anything better than North York writ large.
 
Comments on today's vote:

CP24-
Traffic modelling data that was included in the initial staff report had suggested that commute times along Yonge Street would only be slowed by one or two minutes on average as a result of the removal of the two lanes of traffic.
Opponents of the plan, meanwhile, contended that any increase in commute times along an already traffic-clogged artery would be unacceptable.

This is why you should always verify CityStaff reports! Their assumptions for their Traffic Modelling is false!
IMG_0840.JPG

Only 3% increase by 2021 and 9% by 2031? REimagining Yonge Street Study project team using assumption that Vehicle Trips increase at only 0.6% annually??? Even the City’s population increases at 0.86% annually from 2,615,060 (2011) to 2,731,571 (2016).
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/toronto-outpaced-national-growth-1.3972073

According to Statistics Canada, the population for federal riding of Willowdale (Bathurst to Bayview, 401 to Steeles) increased from 109,680 (2011) to 118,801 (2016); that’s a population increase of about 1.6% (1,900) per year. Almost all of that population increase is due to intensification within North York Centre Secondary Plan area with a population of about 70,000; thus, that urban growth area along Yonge corridor is seeing about 2.7% population increase annually.
http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-r...llowdale&SearchType=Begins&SearchPR=01&B1=All

In addition, these percentage breakdown number are manipulative and utterly useless for this urban growth area since population is increasing and traffic congestion deals with traffic volume (which is actually increasing as opposed to the percentage decrease shown). North York Centre is an urban growth area undergoing extreme intensification, as expected most high-density development occurs closer to Yonge Street near subway stations, thus transit and walking percentages increases while auto usage decrease percentage-wise. (Note: North York Centre Secondary Plan is now 70% full, the 30% left for high-density development is in-between subway stations where residents will be more likely to drive.) Since amalgamation (1998) Ward 23 Willowdale have doubled in population, so unless vehicular usage decreased by half AND development in all surrounding areas remain stagnant; traffic congestion will continue to worsen!
IMG_2117_50.jpg

https://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2018/pw/bgrd/backgroundfile-110645.pdf

Assuming 50,000 population in 1997 with 64% commuter driver (32,000 commuter driver) and 100,000 population today with 40% commuter driver (very conservative since Fed riding of Willowdale shows 46.1% commuter driver & 4% passenger) low estimate! 40,000); this means 3.2% annual increase in vehicle trips! Yet, REimagining Yonge Street Study project team using assumption that Vehicle Trips increase at only 0.6% annually???
 

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So does Shiner’s ‘hybrid’ proposal really involve widening the sidewalks, and if so by how much relative to the bike lanes on Yonge option? I’d be interested to know if there really could be scope for more generous pedestrian space than with the cycle lanes, as was suggested upthread.

One of my pet peeves about these Toronto debates is that they tend to devolve into simply “bikes vs cars,” with pedestrian improvements an afterthought. This is of course pretty crazy in light of the relative numbers; bike lanes in a Canadian climate are always going to be an amenity for a (potentially substantial) minority, whereas everyone is a pedestrian at least some of the time. Where road geometry is constrained (nb: not really an issue on North Yonge) I’d far prefer to give the extra space to sidewalks, if there has to be a choice.

The most maddening example of this tendency was of course Jarvis, where a comprehensive and long-planned reimagining of the street was ultimately reduced to painted bike lanes, and in the end we didn’t even keep those.
 

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