Kingston Rd. will be a rush hour nightmare for 18 months

 

One of Toronto’s
worst roads is about to get a facelift, but drivers who use it to get in and
out of the downtown core may yet be sorry.

Pylons went up late last week on Kingston Rd., between Birchmount Rd. and Warden Ave., to funnel four lanes of
traffic into two, in preparation for road rebuilding and water main work.

I’ve had dozens of complaints about craters on Kingston Rd.,
between Birchmount Rd.
and Victoria Park Ave.,
dating back a half-dozen years, from drivers who said the road is intolerably
pockmarked and rough.

It has made the Canadian Automobile Association’s list of
the worst roads in Ontario,
and is long overdue for resurfacing.

The city says the work will be done in two stages, between
Birchmount and Warden at first and then over to Victoria Park, before it wraps
up in November of 2014.

It will reduce traffic capacity by 50 per cent on one of the
busiest rush hour routes into the city for drivers from Scarborough
and Durham Region, which will only add to the stress of the daily commute.

I live along the Scarborough
bluffs and use Kingston Rd.
every day, as does my wife, who works downtown and has already abandoned it as
her regular route to work, saying it was gridlock on Monday and Tuesday
morning.

She tried hopping over to upper Gerrard St. via Danforth Rd., which splits off from Kingston, east of
Birchmount, but said it was almost as bad, because so many other drivers
resorted to it.

For people heading into the city from south of Highway 401,
there is almost no other way to do it, other than trying to zig-zag through
neighbourhood streets to avoid Kingston and upper Gerrard.

Everyone who drives on it will be delighted with the end
result, but getting there will surely be a nightmare.

And there’s no way around it. As it is, road resurfacing and
water main work has been coordinated to reduce the impact on traffic and the
local community.

But 18 months is a long time to be stuck in traffic.

 

 

 

 

A casino will never net Toronto enough money to pay for public transit

Mayor Rob Ford was so sickened by the funding options
trundled out by Metrolinx to pay for public transit expansion that he pretended
to vomit when he heard them.

But Ford’s suggestion for new transit funding - a downtown Toronto casino - is so
deluded and out of touch that it makes me feel unwell.

Unlike some of my colleagues, I have been reluctant to tackle Ford on his many miscues. I’ve known him since he first came to city council in 2000, and I like him.

But from the day he was elected mayor, I thought he was in over
his head. To say a casino will provide Toronto with the cash needed to pay for the expensive
subways Ford wants to build proves it.

Despite clear signals from the OLG that the city’s cut from
a gambling hall will be less than $100 million a year, Ford still cleaves to
the wildly unrealistic numbers floated at the outset of the push to convince us
that we need a casino.

The province has already said that a single formula will be
applied to all municipalities that host a casino. Unless a new formula provides
every host city with a lot more money, Toronto
won’t get anywhere near the $100 million needed to persuade city council to
even consider approving a casino.

And that is unlikely, given Ontario’s own need for money,
the driving force behind the OLG initiative to shore up the declining revenues
it provides the provincial treasury by forcing a casino on Toronto.

The casino was not conceived to help out the city. The OLG
needs it for the sole purpose of relieving what it sees as a huge pool of
untapped suckers in the GTA of their money.

It will not part with a penny more than is absolutely
necessary to buy the acquiescence of Toronto
city council.

If it gives Toronto
more, it must proportionately give more to all other host cities. That means less
for the province, which did not start down this politically bumpy road just to be
nice guys.

Against this bleak backdrop, Ford pretends to puke at the
taxing tools to come up with the $30 billion needed pay for the massive transit
expansion proposed by Metrolinx, and says a casino is the answer.

At even $100 million a year, the city would need 30 years of
revenue to build one subway line. We’d need another dozen casinos to fund a
long-term plan to make public transit a viable alternative to driving across
the entire GTA.

Here’s an idea that is just as realistic: Why don’t we peel
a couple million off the city’s bankroll about once a week, take it to Woodbine
and try our luck on the slots, considered the worst in the North American gaming
industry for miserly payouts.

Who knows, maybe we’ll get lucky and win enough to build a
subway.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fines are only a small part of the cost of speeding tickets

A run of bad luck with radar
speed traps can sideline a driver who can’t afford the extortionate insurance
premium increase that comes with the tickets.

I’ve been writing about the
latest of my many speeding tickets, after I was nailed a week ago by a cop with
a radar gun, who wrote me up for doing 65 k/ph in a 50 zone, coming down a small
hill on northbound Brimley Rd.,
from the overpass above the 401.

It’s a no-points ticket, just
like all but one of at least a half-dozen I’ve got since 2006, but that doesn’t
matter to insurance companies. Neither do all the years of claims free,
ticket-free driving that may have preceded the tickets.

I hardly ever got a ticket
prior to 2006, when police really started to fish in the easiest places to
catch a lot of drivers going just fast enough to qualify for a ticket, like the
bottom of a hill. I became a magnet for a radar gun.

A few tickets can lay the
groundwork for insurers to cancel a policy, forcing drivers to seek high-risk
insurance that can cost $10,000 a year or more for basic liability coverage, or
park their car.

I know this from first-hand
experience, and so does Fernanda Caranfa of Woodbridge, who emailed me about her run of
bad luck with police fishing holes.

Caranfa says she was caught
in speed traps four times in three years, most recently on Shoreham Dr., near York University, last
July. All were for the minimum of 15 k/ph over, with no demerit points.

At the same time, a minor
bump in a mall parking lot resulted in a small claim against her, prompting
Caranfa’s insurer to refuse her a policy renewal.

“I had been with the same
insurance company for close to 30 years and my driving record was very good. I
prevailed upon them to look at my decades-long record, and my age (58 at the
time), but they refused.”

The lowest quote she could
find for high-risk insurance was $9,000, when she’d been paying less than
$2,000.

“Needless to say, I stopped
driving. This is an outrageous rate for anyone to pay and I refused,” she said,
adding she had to return her leased car to the dealer.

Caranfa said her retired
husband “chauffeurs me about,” including driving her back and forth to work in Toronto, “but it is an
added stress to my life.

“I think the insurance
company was extremely unfair with me. When my past driving record favoured me,
it was discounted. What about all the years I was an excellent driver? I did
not reap any benefit from those, but I was harshly rapped on the knuckles over
a few minor infractions.”

Just to be clear, when police
troll in the likeliest places to hand out $50 and $80 speeding tickets, the true cost to drivers is much higher. And it provides insurers with a windfall from people whose past record indicates
they are not a serious claims risk.

Somebody call the cops.

 

 

 

 

 

 

City frets over declining revenue from parking tickets

For a city that claims parking and speeding tickets are all
about smooth traffic movement and public safety, there sure is a lot of concern
about the increasing number of cancelled parking tickets.

My city hall colleague Dave Rider reported Thursday that
633,108 parking tickets – about one-quarter of all tickets issued in 2012 –
were cancelled at the counters of parking tag operations offices, or in court.

The number of cancellations is up almost 140,000, or 5.5 per
cent, from 2011, according to a staff report prepared for city council’s
government management committee.

  If you were to subtract 25 per cent from the
$94 million value of all parking tickets issued in 2012, it adds up to more
than $23 million.

But the city and our police still maintain that the revenue
is incidental to the issuing of tickets.

Then why the hand-wringing about lost revenue? You can bet
that the discussion at the next meeting of the government management committee
will focus on the money, rather than the fairness of the system.

Here’s another bet: Somebody will propose that something
needs to be done to stem the tide of cancelled tickets. After all, people are
being paid to issue a lot of tickets that are not netting money.

One of the, uh, problems is the increase in the grace period
for overtime parking, from five to 10 minutes, which I have written about
several times. The other reason is that the public is now much better informed
about the grounds for cancellation.

It is only fair that people know the rules and use them to
their advantage. It’s among the reasons why we’ve been pushing to have the
grace period extended by parking enforcement officers, instead of making people
jump through hoops to cancel a ticket issued within 10 minutes of the expiry of
paid parking.

As for the reasons why radar speed traps have flourished in
the past half-dozen years or so, check out my Tuesday column and Wednesday
blog. It’s a money grab, and nothing more.

But when the city is always short of dough, taxes by another
name will surely be imposed.

Watch where you park, and keep your foot on the brake when
descending a long hill. 

 

 

Going to bat for drivers, in any form, angers some cyclists

 

I’d like to think otherwise, but some cyclists have a pretty
big chip on their shoulder.

My Tuesday column was about how I was caught yet again by a Toronto police speed
trap, set up in places where they can snare the most drivers in the shortest
time.

They have little to do with safety and everything to do with
revenue. The vast majority of speed trap tickets are for 15 k/ph over the
limit, just below the line for demerit points.

There’s nothing to gain by going to court, unless the
officer who laid the charge doesn’t show up.

They want drivers to plead guilty and pay the fine, but the
cops will always tell you they are writing it down to 15 k/ph over as a favour,
so you don’t get demerit points.

It creates a golden opportunity for insurers to stick it to
people who get caught in a speed trap two or three times in a year; even if a
driver has no demerit points and an excellent prior record, it can be used to
justify an extortionate premium increase.

The response to my column was huge, with virtually everyone
agreeing that speed traps are a predatory form of taxation, except for one guy,
who tried to twist it into something else.

“Just a comment on today’s column,” said Paul Stockton. “Why
is it that when a motorist sees a cyclist breaking the law, they’re a reckless
criminal, but when a motorist gets caught breaking the law, they’re a poor,
innocent victim?”

Here’s the reply I sent: “Answer:  The law is seldom applied to cyclists. And for
the most part, that’s okay with me. Why are you trying to turn this into a cars
vs. cyclists thing? Are you blind to everything but the cyclist’s perspective?”

The substantial enmity between cyclists and drivers is part
of the transportation landscape around here. I see it when I’m driving, a daily
requirement of my job, and in emails I get from both sides.

But this is one area where there is distance between the
interests of cyclists and drivers.

If police laid in wait for cyclists to blow through red
lights without stopping, like they ambush drivers at the bottom of a long hill,
you could argue that the rules of the road are more evenly applied.    

But they’re not. Cyclists almost always get a free ride,
when it comes to enforcement of traffic rules.

Drivers are preyed upon by police (Toronto
was ranked in 2010 as the worst city in North America
for speed traps) who use a radar gun to hold up otherwise law abiding people
for money.

And why ask me about other drivers? I don’t think most
drivers see cyclists as reckless criminals (okay, maybe a few), and I don’t
share that opinion.

I believe in the I Share The Road approach, and have come to
think of James Schwartz, the guy who started that pro-cyclist campaign, as a
friend.

I will gladly go to bat for drivers on this issue, just like
I do for cyclists on so many others.

There’s room for everyone in my tent.

And if some cylists don’t like it, too bad.

 

 

 

 

Radar speed traps have an uncanny knack for finding me

I must be one of the unluckiest guys in the city, when it
comes to speeding tickets.

My Tuesday column is about my latest driving misfortune,
where I bumbled over the crest of a Highway 401 overpasson Brimley Rd. and descended a small hill at
a heart-pounding speed of 65 k/ph, according to the cop who clocked me on his
radar gun.

The speed limit went down from 60 to 50 k/ph on the incline
to the overpass, but I didn’t see the sign and had no idea I was endangering the public until
an officer in a bright green vest began waving at me.

At first I thought he was just saying a friendly hello. I
wasn’t speeding, or so I thought.

He said I was going 69 k/ph, but he’d write it down to the
minimum of 65, so I could avoid demerit points.

What a swell guy, offering me the same deal as a crown
prosecutor, if I go to court.

This steams me because I have been so careful these past few
years, after getting a whole bunch of tickets in the previous five years.

It got so bad that I had to go into the high-risk insurance
pool for two years, where I paid more than $4,000 annually for insurance on one
car, my wife’s elderly Plymouth.

I watch my speed like a hawk and keep an eye out for places
where the speed limit is likely to change, but they still manage to nail me.

It’s not like I am stunt racing. Only one of my tickets was
for more than 15 kilometres over, but the insurance companies don’t care, even
though I have never had an accident claim made against me for as much as two
cents.

Toronto
police are relentless about setting up speed traps near the bottom of hills and
around bends, where they pump up their batting average on people like me, going
15 to 20 k/ph, at most, over the limit.

I had gone nearly two years without a ticket – enough to be
bailed out of the high risk pool – when I was flagged down last summer on a
bend on Lake Shore Blvd.
by a cop who said I was going 75 in a 60 k/ph zone.

I took it to court, even though I had no grounds to fight
it, and got lucky when the officer didn’t show up.

I’ll also go to court on this one, but I’m not so sure
lightning will strike twice. That only happens for cops, at the bottom of a
hill.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Maintenance issues just part of the story at TCHC

A week of Fixer columns on maintenance woes at Toronto
Community Housing only scratches the surface.

Some of the other stories I heard from residents don’t fit
into that category, but speak to the difficulties of life in a public housing
high-rise.

Tenants of 200
  Wellesley St. E., whose troubles I wrote about on
Mar. 16, also told me about three drug dealers in apartments on the same floor
and the parade of sketched-out customers in the hallway.

When they don’t get what they want, they’ve been known to
tear baseboard heaters from the floor and pound at the door of their dealer,
screaming threats that eventually turn to pleas.

Others can’t wait to get high and mix up a hit in the
stairwell, sometimes leaving syringes on the stairs. I was ushered into the
stairwell near the apartment of the couple I wrote about, where I spotted the
plunger from a syringe just inside the door.

One of the dealers is apparently not such a bad guy. He
understands that traffic and noise outside his door draws heat, and is known
for putting up signs asking customers to respect his neighbours and keep it
down.

A woman who lives in the same building provided a link to a
blog where she posted photos of mice in her apartment, including one of a trap
she put on a windowsill overnight, with four mice in it.

“We live with at least 30 mice,” she said. “Every day we
sweep up from them at least twice.”

She also posted photos of food in cupboards that had been
torn apart, and blood on containers in her fridge, which the mice are somehow able
to squeeze into.

“I could write a book. A shooting at our door. Drugs dealt
everywhere. Defecating drug addicts.

“If it’s not bugs crawling in your bed, it’s mice, or fire,
or druggies wanting to rob you. Living in housing is horrific and many of us
have no choice.”

An 86-year-old woman developed breathing problems after
mould set into the walls of her apartment due to a water leak above. It got so
bad her doctor told her she had to leave right away.

She moved out for four months while the problem was fixed,
and was told by TCHC that about $2,000 in rent she paid would be refunded. It
wasn’t, and now she has to fight the housing company at the landlord-tenant
tribunal to get it back.

She took us out onto her balcony, where we could look down
onto the roof of the portico above the main entrance. It was covered with
garbage tossed from the balcony above, including soiled diapers, food
containers, even a carpet.

A lot of people still think public housing residents have
it good. Too bad they didn’t have to try it.

 

 

 

 

Bright lights of a downtown casino are starting to fade

The chickens are coming home to roost on the OLG’s best-laid
plans for a downtown Toronto
casino.

Premier Kathleen Wynn says there will be no special deal
that would give Toronto
more of the take from a casino than any other city, and that a standard formula
will be evenly applied to all municipalities with a casino.

That should come as no surprise, but it has to be
disappointing for the OLG and the posse of casino lobbyists who have been
deliberately – obstructively – vague about exactly how much Toronto’s cut will be.

They have done nothing to disabuse casino boosters on city
council - most prominently the Ford Bros. - of the notion that a card trick of
sorts would be performed, producing a windfall far in excess of what could be
expected under the formula used to pay off cities with casinos.

Before the sobering news from the OLG that Toronto’s end would be in the range of $50 to
$100 million (which is still way too high; $40 million, tops, is more like it),
fantastical numbers as high as $200 million were floated.

It was enough to dilate the pupils of some politicians, who
giddily mused about subways built with loot from the shiny gambling hall, a $60,000-a-year
job for anyone who wants to be a blackjack dealer and free ice cream for all
the kids.

But Wynn’s clarification will take the wind out of the sails
of the peddlers of half-truths and illusion, who must be starting to sweat
about now. The chips aren’t falling their way, when they figured this would be
an easy game to beat.

City councillors on whom they are counting to vote for a
casino are now asking to be dealt out, saying that unless it nets Toronto a lot
more than it will under the formula, they'll keep their hands in their pockets.

And everyone pushing a casino knows the money just isn’t
there, at least for the city.

Here’s all you need to know: The gift of a casino for Toronto, or at least
somewhere in the GTA, is only about shoring up the OLG’s declining revenues, so
it can fatten up the wad (likely wrapped in elastic bands) it hands off to the
province.

It has nothing to do with what is good for Toronto. All this talk of a swell resort and
sushi and jobs, jobs, jobs and suitcases stuffed with cash is
nothing more than a swindle to persuade us that we really need a casino.

So where does it leave the lobbyists who have for months
played the city hall slot machines that were supposed to pay off big, without
ever getting up from their seats?

Ten cents from broke, and with a mess in their pants.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not all residents are critical of TCHC, but they are a rare exception

 

Many people who live in Toronto Community Housing don't have much good to say about it, but there are a few who aren't complaining, and at least one who insists his building is a great place to live.

The focus of my Fixer columns this week is on TCHC maintenance issues, and a walk through just about any building confirms there's a lot to be fixed.

To be fair, TCHC has slowly been starved of cash needed to keep up its buildings, with a state of good repair backlog of about $750 million. By falling so far behind, a lot of things won't be fixed any time soon, if ever.

It explains why so many people have grown indifferent to chronic problems in their building; when management knows, and you know that they know, but it never gets fixed, it furthers the sense that nobody cares.

And if the people in charge don't care, then why should the people who live there? How can they be expected to have pride in their building?

But there are exceptions to the rule, including buildings where residents say there isn't much that needs fixing.

Bonnie Booth emailed us about the recent departure of Chuck Dowdall as a TCHC vice-president, saying it's a shame because he was "phenomenal about responding to email and having issues resolved."

We emailed back to ask her to tell us about any problems in her building, at 20 Sanderling Pl., which prompted a suprising reply: "Actually no, we have no outstanding problems.

"I had a list of 10 problems I tried desperately to have resolved until (Dowdall) was hired by TCHC. Three months later ALL were resolved."

Robert Vinton signed onto SeeClickFix to tell us that TCHC "gets too much bad press. Maybe pass this on to a 'good news' reporter: I've lived in a TCHC seniors building for 15 years. Lovely location, between two parks. Very well served by TTC. Very quiet outside and inside. Multicultural. Always clean. I love it and appreciate it.

"I feel sure there are thousands of TCHC residents who like and look after their apartments. Why not report on them more often."

Vinton has a point. Now, if I could only find a few of those thousands of people.

 

 

 

 

Story about life in TCHC building provokes strong reaction

 No matter how you tell a story, there is no pleasing some people.

The Saturday Fixer kicked off a week of columns about problems in Toronto Community Housing with a story about the abuse that Steven Peacock and his partner, Stephan Premdas, have taken from neighbours in the apartment above them at 200 Wellesley St. E.

Their balcony was showered many time with feces and urine, washed down by bleach, from the balcony of the two-bedroom apartment above, which is occupied by 15 to 20 people, far more than the TCHC allows.

Things that were lit on fire, like rags and toilet paper tubes, were also lobbed onto their balcony  from above, while a stream of verbal abuse was shouted at them and thumping and screaming constantly goes on late into the night.

We offered it as a slice of life in a TCHC building, but some readers responded that they felt  no sympathy for them, or anyone else who lives in community housing.

"What a stupid story to write," said Frederick Moore in an email. "The answer to their problem is called - MOVE.

"What are these two people doing living off taxpayers' money anyway? Move and get a job."

As for the upstairs tenants causing the problem, "well, what do you expect from ignorant immigrants, which I bet is what they are, and I could likely tell you from what country.

"Public housing for the most part in this country is a big joke. Most of the people living there should not be. You cannot expect people used to living in mud huts and filth to all of a sudden know what dirt looks like."

How about that for good 'ol Canadian tolerance?

Carlos A. Coimbra's email said the story "seems to display a xenophobic, racist attitude," because it mentioned "tirades shouted in a foreign tongue," and that a woman in the upstairs apartment "spoke a rapid-fire foreign language to a boy."

"Please note that my comment...concerns itself only with the obvious perception that you,  the writer,  show aversion to any language other than English.

"Shameful words," he said, adding that "There's more than one way to say 'a language not known to the listener,' but here you embarrassed the Star."

By making reference to  foreign language, we were trying to politely convey information about the people in the upstairs apartment without identifying their ethnicity,  but Coimbra sees racism in it.

I wonder what he'd have thought if I been more direct?