Yonge Street Revitalization (Downtown Yonge BIA/City of Toronto)

[ssiguy2]

^^ Say's who? Have you heard of any concrete plans to do exactly this? These should have concrete plans with the money available right now. Chow has done absolutely NOTHING to improve the public realm and especially upgrading streets to be friendly to pedestrians as opposed to cars. The never-never plan of renewing Yonge near Dundas actually had specific considerations for Uber drivers despite going right over a subway line and a new east-west one coming on line. You couldn't make this stuff up.

Ford sure hates his bike lanes which is why he wanted no car lanes reduced for bike lanes but he NEVER said anything about widening sidewalks. St.Lawrence Market Lane is pedestrianized and I don't recall him saying anything about it when it came to the reduced car lane debate. Not everything that ails Toronto is Ford's fault but he does make for a cheap and easy excuse for a gutless and non-visionary Mayor and Council. London managed to do it downtown on Dundas Street {no, they are not, thank God, changing the name} so what's stopping Toronto?

 

[afransen]

^^ Say's who? Have you heard of any concrete plans to do exactly this? These should have concrete plans with the money available right now. Chow has done absolutely NOTHING to improve the public realm and especially upgrading streets to be friendly to pedestrians as opposed to cars. The never-never plan of renewing Yonge near Dundas actually had specific considerations for Uber drivers despite going right over a subway line and a new east-west one coming on line. You couldn't make this stuff up.

Ford sure hates his bike lanes which is why he wanted no car lanes reduced for bike lanes but he NEVER said anything about widening sidewalks. St.Lawrence Market Lane is pedestrianized and I don't recall him saying anything about it when it came to the reduced car lane debate. Not everything that ails Toronto is Ford's fault but he does make for a cheap and easy excuse for a gutless and non-visionary Mayor and Council. London managed to do it downtown on Dundas Street {no, they are not, thank God, changing the name} so what's stopping Toronto?

Proper treatments for Yonge, Front, Queen, King, etc. would involve fewer parking and vehicular lanes. Ford has mused about removing bus-only lanes as well.

 

[ssiguy2]

So why hasn't Toronto completely closed down these streets on the weekends and holidays? Ford wouldn't give a damn about that so where is the City? Also, the courts struck down his bike lane disaster plan so there's no reason to think they wouldn't do the same for sidewalk expansion/road closures at certain times. London does it all the time with it's new Dundas Place. Even supposedly right-wing car loving Calgary not only closed down 5 blocks of it's main downtown shopping street, Stephen Ave, 24/365 to become Canada's best pedestrian-only street but also right adjacent to it, it has the transit-only road for it's LRT/Buses with light priority. The Calgary Cowboys clearly are more interested in becoming a pedestrian & transit friendly city than Toronto is. Calgary didn't need a Royal Commission to study the impacts of TPL but just did it from the start with COMPLETE transit priority using actual rail gates outside the downtown which is why the CTrain is as fast as ANY subway/metro system.

As for your gutless and two-faced Mayor, she does have the new stronger Mayor's power to get things done if she wanted to but make no mistake, she doesn't want to. Chow, despite all her talk and touchy-feely policies, has turned out to be an SUV's best friend.

 

[Undead]

Toronto's not all bad and no city is perfect. But this place is absolutely a blinkered provincial backwater in some ways. And obviously we have much less heritage architecture because our City is so much newer than the old, historical cities everyone loves to visit.

 

[abovegrade]

While all these concerns about Toronto are valid, I have to remind everyone what we are doing in Downsview which will be absolutely transformative in terms of building pedestrian-only streets. I think when something like this happens in our backyard, it inspires change throughout the city (hopefully). Although the pedestrianization of Toronto won't happen over night.