Does Toronto actually have a plan? | Page 2 | GTAMotorcycle.com

Does Toronto actually have a plan?

Baggsy said:
Apparently, the former mayor was doing some planning for seniors, the homeless, and daycares in Toronto, without consulting anyone, before he suddenly quit:
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Depends if he setup the committee or not. Usually they are suppose to be setup by the public to help influence policy at city hall.
The only thing I got from this was the one guy should have made his point clear instead of dancing around the bush. On the other hand this initiative could be a rouse (just llike carbon taxes) to actually reduce meal costs by disguising it as a environmental benefit.
 
sburns said:
Depends if he setup the committee or not. Usually they are suppose to be setup by the public to help influence policy at city hall.
The only thing I got from this was the one guy should have made his point clear instead of dancing around the bush. On the other hand this initiative could be a rouse (just llike carbon taxes) to actually reduce meal costs by disguising it as a environmental benefit.
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"At the C40 world Mayors Summit on October 10th, 2019, in Copenhagen, Denmark, the Mayor of Toronto signed the Good Food Cities Declaration, along with mayors from 14 cities across the world." Not sure if a committee was set up before or after the summit.
 
Baggsy said:
"At the C40 world Mayors Summit on October 10th, 2019, in Copenhagen, Denmark, the Mayor of Toronto signed the Good Food Cities Declaration, along with mayors from 14 cities across the world."
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Which head was he thinking with at the time he put pen to paper?
 
Normally Toronto does pretty good with snow plowing, but man they must have hired a bunch of new drivers. Most of the roads around here haven't pushed the snow even close to the where the curb is. It's very strange. There are even piles of snow blocking lanes on main roads.
 
Here, I think they must have run out of budget a month ago.
 
Nerco'ing this thread.

Toronto doesn't have a plan. Yes ranting a bit.

Had to do some work downtown last night.
Richmond west at University, reduced down to 1 lane. Just for a bit, but bad. Back up everything on both roads
Of course Adelaide going East Closed at University WTF!
So go down to Lakeshore East at lower Sherboure, also closed lanes,
Further East on Lakeshore, at the bottom of DVP reduces to 1 lane.

What a F'ing chitshow. The city is clueless on how to manage construction and roads.
 
sburns said:
Nerco'ing this thread.

Toronto doesn't have a plan. Yes ranting a bit.

Had to do some work downtown last night.
Richmond west at University, reduced down to 1 lane. Just for a bit, but bad. Back up everything on both roads
Of course Adelaide going East Closed at University WTF!
So go down to Lakeshore East at lower Sherboure, also closed lanes,
Further East on Lakeshore, at the bottom of DVP reduces to 1 lane.

What a F'ing chitshow. The city is clueless on how to manage construction and roads.
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The city is $1.5 billion short on it's current budget. Some might suggest that's because of financial mismanagement over the last couple of decades but I prefer to think of it as spinelessness on the part of local politicians to raise property taxes and user fees, while at the same time not getting the support of the province or the feds. T.O. is the economic driver of this country but also the whipping boy.
I'm not a huge fan of Olivia Chow, but it's a pretty deep hole - I wish her luck.
 
GP_RZ said:
Toronto has gone down the same path as any other liberal led city. A weak husband will produce a ****** off wife...weak politician will piss off the public. No common sense is used and no one has a spine.
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Step back and look at who's run the city for the last 20 years , spineless conservative politicos - RoFo and Tory.
Spinelessness is not exclusive to any one political party.
Arguably, the last good mayor we had was Mel - love him or hate him he got things done.
 
TK4 said:
Step back and look at who's run the city for the last 20 years , spineless conservative politicos - RoFo and Tory.
Spinelessness is not exclusive to any one political party.
Arguably, the last good mayor we had was Mel - love him or hate him he got things done.
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Yes, but look at what they had to work with...the vast majority of council is either Liberal, or NDP and it has been this way for at least 40 years!
 
I think it needs repeating that a lot of projects during COVID were put on pause. As things opened up, projects started coming back on line.

My friends are in granite installations and they said that 3 projects went on hold, then they all fired up at the same time...AND 3 new projects came on at the same time. The only 'steady' and 'growing' market segment for them during COVID was the home renovation / residential market as that went gangbusters.

Another thing is that Ontario Line is now firing up on all cylinders, and that spans majority of the east end of the City...so there's that.

Add in another project downtown for a sewer system replacement, and there's more headaches coming.

It's not just the City of Toronto that is the problem. All the large transit jobs are Metrolinx, with CoT / TTC being nothing more than a major stakeholder (same as Enbridge, Toronto Water, and Toronto Hydro - and good luck dealing with all of them in an efficient manner).

CoT is responsible for not spreading out the building boom, but then you have the added issue of not enough housing being built in a timely manner...so which is it?

You want the development? Or you want to complain about the lack of progress on projects?

Can't have it both ways, and as @nobbie48 likes to say 'can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs'.

Although I do agree that CoT is a mismanaged mess...they're not wholly at fault here.
 
TK4 said:
Step back and look at who's run the city for the last 20 years , spineless conservative politicos - RoFo and Tory.
Spinelessness is not exclusive to any one political party.
Arguably, the last good mayor we had was Mel - love him or hate him he got things done.
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I don't think it's all the Mayor -- Toronto City Council is heavy with social justice warriors, and light on councillors and department heads that are capable business of running a large municipal gov't.

Mayors play a big part, but until they were given Strong Mayor powers their hands were often tied. Chow is the first mayor who can really use those powers. Let's see if she can make things happen.

I'm cautiously optimistic but doubtful. She's 3 months in and had a few small wins, but she hasn't tackled any of the really big issues facing Toronto. Let's see how she handles:

1) Closing a $900mil budget shortfall
2) Sheltering refugees and homeless
3) Raising property taxes to cover the services electors voted for
4) Street crime reduction
5) Getting road and transit projects organized and completed.
 
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TK4 said:
And who voted them in ?
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The 38% of the registered Toronto eligible voters showed up. I'm only guessing, but I'd bet the hundreds of grassroots and special interest groups were able to rally their members to vote.

"The government you elect is the government you deserve." Thomas Jefferson.
 
Mad Mike said:
I don't think it's all the Mayor -- Toronto city council heavy with social justice warriors, and light on councillors and department heads capable business of running a large municipal gov't.

Mayor's play a big part, but until they were given Strong Mayor powers, their hands were often tied. Chow is the first mayor who can really use those powers. Lets see if she can make things happen.

I'm hopeful but doubtful. She's 3 months in and had a few small wins, but she hasn't tackled any of the really big issues facing Toronto. Let's see how she handles:

1) Closing a $900mil budget shortfall
2) Sheltering refugees and homeless
3) Raising property taxes to cover the services electors voted for
4) Street crime reduction
5) Getting road and transit projects organized and completed.
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1) Closing a $900mil budget shortfall
-I thought it was a lot higher. If they're admitting to $.9 Billion it will end up 50% over. Let's rename a bunch of streets over stuff everyone forgot about. Fix the future not the past.

2) Sheltering refugees and homeless
- It should be an Ottawa problem as Ottawa controls who gets in. Send a bunch of people that can't pay their bills to the Royal York Hotel and see how many are allowed in.

3) Raising property taxes to cover the services electors voted for
-Education problem going back at least a half century. Nothing is free or maintenance free. Cars and fridges don't last forever neither do sewers, waterlines, telephone poles, sidewalks, roads etc. The development fee Ponzi scheme.
Park staff aren't volunteers. Neither are daycare workers or personal care workers.

4) Street crime reduction
-A federal problem. -Political and corporate corruption is so overt it is spilling over onto Main Street. If the millions the federals have wasted on bridges to nowhere were spent on border services instead, we wouldn't have as many guns on the streets. There would be more stabbings though. A massive change in our judicial system is needed. Too many obstacles to legal change are controlled by those profiting from the present system.

5) Getting road and transit projects organized and completed.
-The profit margins are greater in extras and changes. What contractor wants to kill that golden goose?
 
Mad Mike said:
The 38% of the registered Toronto eligible voters showed up. I'm only guessing, but I'd bet the hundreds of grassroots and special interest groups were able to rally their members to vote.

"The government you elect is the government you deserve." Thomas Jefferson.
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How do we implement a quorum system so nothing gets changed without an over 50% total vote?

We had the problem when running an annual general meeting at our condo. Certain changes needed more votes than were present.

How do we implement mandatory voting? Fines or rewards?

Does it help?

The disgusting abuse of power we see at all levels of government has too many people disillusioned to the point of apathy. "You can't fight city hall"
 
nobbie48 said:
How do we implement a quorum system so nothing gets changed without an over 50% total vote?

We had the problem when running an annual general meeting at our condo. Certain changes needed more votes than were present.

How do we implement mandatory voting? Fines or rewards?

Does it help?

The disgusting abuse of power we see at all levels of government has too many people disillusioned to the point of apathy. "You can't fight city hall"
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Forcing a vote rarely ends well. I wonder if a system could be implemented to reward voters and/or financially encourage people to vote.

On the positive side, maybe get a code when you vote, enter that code when contacting a councilor or requesting service and you are queued in front of people without a code (one code per person, bot one code for whole city obviously).

On the negative side, add 10% to the property tax bill for people that can't be bothered to vote. Make your choice, lower property tax or vote. The extra revenue covers some of the budgetary shortfall. Not sure how to encourage renters to vote in this scheme. On the upside, this also ties a voter to an address. Keeps a reasonably up to date with a real vacant home registry. Not one based on puppies and unicorns.
 
GreyGhost said:
Forcing a vote rarely ends well. I wonder if a system could be implemented to reward voters and/or financially encourage people to vote.

On the positive side, maybe get a code when you vote, enter that code when contacting a councilor or requesting service and you are queued in front of people without a code (one code per person, bot one code for whole city obviously).

On the negative side, add 10% to the property tax bill for people that can't be bothered to vote. Make your choice, lower property tax or vote. The extra revenue covers some of the budgetary shortfall. Not sure how to encourage renters to vote in this scheme. On the upside, this also ties a voter to an address. Keeps a reasonably up to date with a real vacant home registry. Not one based on puppies and unicorns.
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Voting to land ownership was a long time ago...and it effectively kept the 'poor' people from voting because they didn't own property.

Not sure we want to return to that again.

I don't think there's a good / proper way to 'force' people to vote. Only the governing party can do that by giving out free candy like there's no tomorrow...as people don't want the gravy train to end, so they'll keep voting.
 
mimico_polak said:
Voting to land ownership was a long time ago...and it effectively kept the 'poor' people from voting because they didn't own property.

Not sure we want to return to that again.

I don't think there's a good / proper way to 'force' people to vote. Only the governing party can do that by giving out free candy like there's no tomorrow...as people don't want the gravy train to end, so they'll keep voting.
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To be clear, I am not requiring ownership to vote. The stick approach was letting people choose how they wanted to be involved in local politics. They could contribute time or money, their choice. Like a yacht club. You pay a base rate and if you don't put in some time to help, you pay more to cover the people that did put in the time. The city has no direct financial connection with most renters so that is a harder target to hit with a stick.
 
GreyGhost said:
To be clear, I am not requiring ownership to vote. The stick approach was letting people choose how they wanted to be involved in local politics. They could contribute time or money, their choice. Like a yacht club. You pay a base rate and if you don't put in some time to help, you pay more to cover the people that did put in the time. The city has no direct financial connection with most renters so that is a harder target to hit with a stick.
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'If you vote, we will limit the % amount increase that your landlord can charge you'.

Watch the renters show up in droves. Just make sure that Ontario and each Municipality has a % that they allow.

So 2% provincial, 1% municipal max. Lower it by 0.X% if you vote. If you don't vote, you get the full %.
 
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