Transportation - Car Free Zone

Leadership and Progress in Toronto

October 2007

Leadership? In Toronto, it has been more like a whirling movement in place. We have a fractious council devoid of vision and stagnant in mentality: is it any wonder we are struggling to avoid bankruptcy?

When the person in the leader’s position is divisive, partisan and uncommunicative with the entire team and the public, the end result is a leaderless and rudderless bunch of people trying to govern. Yet, it is the continuous dialogue between public and government that stimulates progress and innovation. If the leader does not embrace opposing views to learn and create new possibilities and alternative sources for improvement, the status quo becomes the norm. A state of mind that does not lead to risk taking or venturing in unmarked territories, eventually leads to socio-economic degradation in ever changing circumstances.

Political timidity and lack of resourcefulness are the barriers to the city’s funding obstacles. Taxation, however an important revenue, will improve the situation moderately, but unless expanded taxation ensues, our quality of life will be jeopardized.

The City must move on beyond the drawing board and endless talks and engage in marketing resolutions to assure long-term self-sufficiency, such as in public/private partnerships. No, this is not privatization, as long as the government implements an effective policy to hold and control public assets. By initiating a competitive tendering for a PPP, the responsibility of efficient management would be transferred to the private sector that has traditionally been better qualified. The engagement of government and civic interaction can be a win-win situation for both, as it will lead to innovation and it will impel job opportunities, infrastructure improvements, and sustainable mobility in the ever impoverished public transportation.

Neither have we seen leadership by example; instead, it has been “do as I say, not as I do”, and discontinuing councillors’ perks, a symbolic gesture of self-sacrifice, is a glaring example of that.

Moreover, if there is no cohesiveness and organizational clarity to define and address goals, governance becomes ineffectual, the council dysfunctional and the city ends up being structurally broken.Lack of honest and consistent adoption of the Official Plan is a case in point. Intensification and environmentally friendly infrastructure in the city’s main arteries close or over subway lines in order to promote public transportation, has been contravened by the mandatory allotment of parking spaces in new buildings.

Toronto has been the host of international summits and conferences to learn and apply what other progressive cities have done, only to end up doing nothing substantial. The rationalization for this timidity is unsuitability for this city. The recent Walk 21 summit, October 1, sponsored by the Toronto City Hall is one example of the ongoing offering of good intentions, rhetoric, and the usual pilot studies to determine if such plans are appropriate for Toronto. Yet, many of these same initiatives for sustainable transportation and alternative modes, such as permanent car-free areas to promote walking, an integrated network of bicycle lanes throughout the city, a bike-Sunday day to encourage family cycling, have been proposed to the council for the past 10 years, but they are endlessly been studied. What has taken place instead, is crumbs tossed to the ever hopeful environmental and transportation activists: a few hours of car-free day, pedestrianized Sundays in one neighbourhood, or the very few disconnected and unsafe bike-lanes. This is a self-defeating process that has impeded progress toward infrastructure change to alleviate air, noise, and visual pollution.

Regrettably, timidity and eagerness for credit runs deep in both politicians and activists. Uninformed and credulous activists would disrupt substantial progress by objecting to permanent car-free areas in the event of gentrification. They do not consider what good planning can accomplish without jeopardizing the character and colour of communities, as in Kensington Market, Chinatown and Yorkville as proposed to the Council by Air Pollution Coalition in 2001-2003. In fact, the opposite would be accomplished; livability and camaraderie would be enhanced.

But we do not take risks. We are satisfied, at best with baby steps in minute changes, and at worst with the comfortable status quo. But we do sound good articulating our ideas, ideas to this date on the road to nowhere.

Let’s hope 2008 will fare better.