All grown up

Toronto’s all grown up.

The news came out last week that Toronto has officially surpassed Chicago as the fourth-largest city in North America. While the same media outlets that were quick to tout this growth as an indication of Toronto’s continuing success as a city also cautioned that the difference by which Toronto has surpassed Chicago is effectively only that of a statistical margin of error, Torontonians―each of us born with an innate inferiority complex―nevertheless quickly pounced on the news and declared with pride that we’re one of the big guys. When we were out for dinner a few nights after the news came out, a friend said to me that if Toronto is now the fourth-largest city in North America, it’s time for us to start acting like it.

Acknowledging that this increase in rank has as much to do with Toronto’s growth as it does with Chicago’s decline (Chicago’s population shrank by 6.9% during the 2000s), and that the metro Chicago area is still much larger than Toronto’s (something like 9.5 to 5.5 million) and significantly denser, Toronto still does have reason to feel proud. I’ve spoken with multiple visitors from other countries over the past year who have pointed out the seeming endless construction in Toronto, and compared this to the noticeably slower growth in their own countries. All that construction, tedious (and shoddy) as it can be, points to the fact that people, from across this country and abroad, want to live here. Experts have been predicting a housing bubble seemingly forever, yet prices just keep increasing. That and skyrocketing rents are clear indicators that housing demand is quickly outpacing supply.

We have more to be proud of than just the fact that people want to come here, though. There’s a reason why people are coming to this city. In Toronto you can see just about any kind of music you want to just about any night of the week, provided you know where to go. We have one of the world’s biggest film festivals, and a number of indie and art-house cinemas. The city is extremely green and walkable, and it is easily one of the safest large cities you could ever hope to be in (to put it into perspective, the murder rate in Chicago is more than eleven times that of Toronto, and Toronto consistently ranks low in comparison to other Canadian cities in all categories of crime). We have theatre big and small, more independent cafés than you could visit if you wanted to and two Starbucks for each of those, excellent restaurants of countless styles and nationalities and price categories, and a thriving (if pricey) bar scene. So what’s to complain about?

To start with, we need a real transportation system.

The TTC is a well-functioning mix of subways, streetcars, and buses. But we need more―more subways in high-density areas, more buses connecting those subways to the lower-density suburbs, and LRT operating either underground or in a dedicated right-of-way in developing middle-density neighbourhoods. This will involve a lot of pain―roads torn up, seemingly endless construction, higher taxes to bankroll the operation, and adapting to using our streets in different ways as new transportation systems and networks transform our streetscapes. Whether it is light rail, bus rapid transit, or subways, it is going to involve a lot of construction, for a long time. The Yonge subway was not magically built underground with no disruption to the surface streetscape. It looked like this when it was being built. People had to put up with it for a few years―and I’m sure they complained―but in the long run it was worth it. The line is now so popular it routinely runs well over capacity. We need more of this, but it will cost money, take time, and disrupt traffic while it is being built. We must keep our minds on the long-term benefits and not the short-term pain.

Additionally, the light rail that city council approved for Eglinton, Finch West, Sheppard East and the Scarborough RT  is not the enemy, nor is it the same thing as the streetcars you are used to getting stuck behind on downtown streets. The green line of the Boston T is an example of what is planned for Eglinton―a light rail line running partially underground in the city centre, and partially on a dedicated right of way down the median of wide streets like Commonwealth Avenue. There are numerous examples of this kind of light rail built or being built around the world: in Paris, Los Angeles, Sydney, Amsterdam, or Hoboken. It functions extremely well, costs a fraction of what subways do, and is ideally suited to areas with wide streets and relatively low density, like much of Toronto outside of the core. Why waste money hard-come-by on a couple of subway stops in the suburbs when an extensive light rail network could be built to service these areas? Meanwhile any funding we can come by for a subway could be used for the expansion of well-conceived and well-placed downtown subway lines like the Downtown Relief Line. Bearing in mind that building anything like this will involve there being a lot of construction for a long time. But the results will be highly worthwhile, and make Toronto feel a lot more like the other large cities of the world with which we continually compare ourselves. The prevailing trend towards doing nothing, on the other hand, will almost definitely lead to an eventual stagnation of growth, followed by a decline when large numbers of our residents decide to up and move to places that are more with it. Like just about everywhere else.

We need real street life.

It kills me when I see places in the United States where bars and restaurants have been allowed to just put tables and chairs out on the street, seemingly without any of our draconian and archaic patio rules and regulations. People sit outside, enjoying their cities and streets and each other’s company. They are smiling, laughing, happy. This is commonplace in Europe as well, but at least Europe is exotic and expected to be different. We are supposed to be more with it than the the Americans.

There’s a café next to the back exit to the subway station near where I live, on a quiet residential street around the corner from a main thoroughfare, where the sidewalk is beyond sufficiently wide to accommodate the pedestrian traffic the street sees―probably more than twice as wide as the sidewalks on the main shopping street around the corner. The café has a small, unobtrusive and fenced-off patio. In the window I recently saw their yellow City of Toronto patio permit posted with a sign that says “This is our patio permit” and an arrow pointing to the yellow permit. Clearly they need to point out the a neighbourhood NIMBY who regularly lodges complaints that their completely unoffensive outdoor seating area is perfectly legal. It’s mind-boggling.

We need more places to sit and enjoy our streets. We need pedestrian zones. Every major city I can think of that I have ever been in has a pedestrian zone of some sort―often many. The historic city centre in Leeds, a comparatively small English city, is almost entirely pedestrianized. The former city market at Les Halles in Paris has been turned into an expansive pedestrian zone, which extends down the Rue St-Denis, allowing one to stroll at a leisurely pace between brothels and sex shops. Sydney is peppered with streets like the Pitt Street Mall―where a portion of the street has been converted to a pedestrian-only outdoor shopping area―and a two-block section of Queen Street in Brisbane is car-free as well. There’s a small pedestrian zone on Prince Arthur Street in Montreal. The Plaza de San Diego in Cartagena is a large outdoor dining area with tables spilling out from the restaurants that line the square and nightly entertainment. Times Square is now car-free year-round. The great thing about these areas is most of them used to be open to vehicular traffic. Then some brilliant folks decided it would be much more pleasant for everyone who frequents them if they could stroll freely down the street―if they put in planters and cobblestones and street art and allowed local businesses to install outdoor seating.

Toronto is not too cold for outdoor shopping or eating. New York is not that much warmer, and Montreal is colder and they’re doing it just fine. There is even a pedestrian shopping area in Copenhagen―not known for its balmy weather―and it’s thriving by all accounts.

The other argument against pedestrian-only shopping areas I hear people making is that not allowing traffic will stop delivery trucks from being able to access the area, to which I say when was the last time you saw a delivery truck parked outside of a store on Queen West? They use the alleys behind the stores to make deliveries. That’s what those are there for in case you were wondering―not just for the tipsy release of too many pints at the Horseshoe, or getting mugged. Most pedestrian areas around the world that I have seen have signage indicating the roads are open to delivery and service vehicles before regular business hours, when they would otherwise be empty. If emergency services need to enter the area they can simply put on their sirens and people, if they have a handful of brain cells knocking around their skulls, will clear the way and let them pass. Where will you park? The same place you probably already park when you drive down to a busy shopping street: in a large underground or out of the way mutli-level lot where you will be far more likely to find a spot than on the street directly in front of the store you were going to. I can’t tell you how many times I have circled the street in front of a place I was driving to in Toronto looking for parking before resolving that from then onwards I would remember to always take the TTC when going downtown and avoid the problem entirely.

The attempt at pedestrianizing Yonge Street that the local BIA made last summer was a joke. It doesn’t work if you leave two lanes open for traffic. That makes it unpleasant to sit outside―surrounded by honking and exhaust―nor does it open enough additional sidewalk to accommodate the increased foot traffic. It’s even worse if what additional space there is is then filled with landscaping with nowhere to sit. It makes it worse for the cars, too, and drivers will then go on to complain about how aggravating the pedestrian area was for slowing them down, and halt further progress in the direction we need to be going. Pedestrianize Yonge―permanently―between at least Dundas Square and Queen, and force the traffic to reroute to either Bay or Church on either side―drivers will find these streets much more pleasant to drive on anyway, and tourists will love the vibrant scene created on Yonge, and eating on the expansive outdoor terraces the restaurants will be allowed to install. Locals will also learn to love it, eventually, once they get over their knee-jerk resistance to any sort of change of even the slightest nature and realize that Yonge Street doesn’t suck anymore. I don’t imagine visitors to cities with a lot of pedestrian areas come back complaining about how there was nowhere for the cars to go. More likely than anything they value the vibrancy those areas bring to the city. We can have that here.

Permanently pedestrianize Kensington Market. They are already making great progress with the Market Sundays concept introduced last year, expanding from a festival the last Sunday of the month to pedestrian-friendly shopping every Sunday last August and September. What about Queen Street West between John and Spadina (leave the streetcar right-of-way), or Baldwin Village? Get creative. Look to the other cities of the world and see what works. This is the kind of thing that separates cities that are simply Big Cities from Great Cities. Don’t let us be left behind. Which brings us to our next problem.

We need a real mayor.

A great deal of our problems could be solved if we had a mayor who was capable of understanding simple concepts of urbanism―of providing leadership and not just alienating city council and stonewalling progress. Our last mayor was making good progress on improving the transit issue. His plan wasn’t perfect, but it was something and it was long overdue. Rob Ford cancelled that plan, at great expense to the “taxpayers,” only to have a slightly modified (and significantly delayed) version of it resurface about a year later. This is the legacy of Rob Ford’s leadership.

Rob Ford dropped out of university after a year, worked for his father’s label business, and really likes football―although he isn’t very good at playing the sport himself. Normally I would try not to be so elitist, but in this case I just can’t. Football is fine, many people enjoy it, but it’s important to not let football get in the way of being the mayor. Since entering politics, which his father―a relatively normal politician, actually―no doubt helped him into, he has run into a raft of scandals: such as getting drunk at a hockey game and getting thrown out for being aggressive and belligerent towards his fellow audience members; a DUI and marijuana possession charge in Florida, for which he tried to bribe the arresting officer to let him off; highly questionable comments about “Orientals” who “work like dogs” (I think that was supposed to be some sort of compliment) and gay people and people who “do needles” being the only people who get AIDS (therefore the government shouldn’t subsidize their treatment). He was involved in a high-profile conflict of interest trial which almost saw him removed from office, all over soliciting donations to his football charity on city letterhead (it was his blatant refusal to attempt to understand the law or why it is in place that originally had the judge rule to have him removed from office; this ruling was overturned on appeal). He blatantly violated campaign finance laws. And most recently, in honour of International Women’s Day, he allegedly got drunk at an event intended as an opportunity for youth to meet and greet political and other important figures, made a pass at a former mayoral candidate and possibly sexually assaulted her. It took him almost a full day to deny the allegations (something which should have been simple if he really didn’t do it), and even then the best defence he could muster was that she had come up to him to discuss the very intelligent concept of raising taxes to generate more revenue and thereby be able to pay for more things, like subways, to which he responded, “No you’re crazy. Get out of here.” That’s actually a quote. See, no ass grabbin’ here!

That last controversy has proceeded to get more than a little ridiculous, so I will refrain from commenting too much on the ins and outs (for the record, cocaine use is not an illness―it does not have “symptoms”). The simple fact that our mayor was accused of this is embarrassing. Our mayor is essentially Peter Griffin. While my political leanings might not be that veiled to anyone who reads my writing, with Rob Ford this is beside the point. He isn’t even good at being a conservative. He wasted money cancelling Transit City, only to have essentially the same plan be revived a year later. Then he arranged to have TTC general manager Gary Webster fired because he supported the very logical and already approved plan to build light rail. He wasted money removing existing cycling infrastructure on Jarvis and moving it one major street over, for no legitimate reason. I have yet to see any proof of how he has saved the city any money. The only thing he has succeeded in doing is reducing revenue, thereby necessitating cuts in important services that people use every day, and likely hindering our ability to fund much-needed infrastructure improvements in the future. Oh, and he called social programs and government housing “crazy” and “stupid”. He uses his talk radio show to dismiss and belittle his colleagues on city council, and he sometimes votes against motions that would otherwise be passed unanimously because of some warped conviction to never allow the government to spend any money. He is an embarrassment and if Toronto is truly going to become the Great City people love to claim it is then we will need a Great Mayor, who is not afraid of progress, of taking risks, of spending the money that needs to be spent and saving the money we don’t need to spend.

Toronto has changed a lot in recent years. Our population may now be slightly higher than Chicago’s, but we will never reach the status of a city like it if our politicians and citizens continue to promote the regressive ideas that are holding us back. Progress involves time, expense, adaptation, and patience. We need to look to the world, to see what the places we strive to be like are doing, and to think about what makes them great, in order to set this town back on course to being the great city it deserves to be. Until we do this, our population is only a statistic. Size doesn’t matter, it’s what you do with it that counts.

-K. C. Smith