Do we really need more hockey rinks?

I’ve been following the story of the all-glass, four-level hockey rink being built out in the east-end. 

The one question that comes to my mind when I read this is: Do we really need more hockey rinks? 

I guess this is a very un-Canadian thing of me to say. I happen to think there’s more to being Canadian than worshipping hockey, lining up at Tim Horton’s for a double-double and every other stereotypical Canadian thing, but that’s a debate for another day. 

The City of Toronto boasts it has a multicultural mosaic and welcomes people from all corners of the world to live, work and play here. 

I’m willing to bet a large majority of newcomers and residents not born here have never grown up with snow, know what hockey is or care for it. 

They’ll most likely never use these facilities so why are we building them? I’m sure the proposed price tag of $88 million could go a long way to fixing and upgrading existing facilities.

If it has to be built why not add something to the design everyone can use? How about adding a recreation centre to the existing plan?

Cricket is exploding across the GTA, why not build more cricket fields? Baseball diamonds are starting to disappear, why not build one more? Or soccer pitches.

I’d like the City to take a step back and re-think this hockey rink complex. If they want more rinks maybe they should call MLSE and their corporate sponsors and get them to build rinks for people to use, if, as MLSE claims, it’s so important to reach out to newcomers and visible minorities and get them into hockey.

There’s a fantastic state-of-the-art practice facility near Lake Shore Blvd. and Kipling built by MLSE a few years ago. I’m sure they can spare a dollar or two to build a few facilities to meet the demand. 

For the longest time Maple Leaf Gardens sat empty on purpose because of MLSE’s stubbornness until Ryerson and Loblaws stepped in with a great design for the entire community. 

Put something in the neighbourhood that all residents can use. Don’t put something in that only a small percentage of people will use. 

The City’s focus should be on growing sports like soccer and basketball and others so Canada won’t be, for example, embarrassed internationally when the soccer team is ranked 101st in the world or when the basketball team can’t qualify for the Olympics even with the best point guard in the world in Steve Nash.

There’s more to life in Toronto and Canada than hockey. Hopefully the City will wake up to this realization and build other recreational facilities for residents before it’s too late.

About Robert Kirsic

$40 million on Nathan Philips?

Toronto has a spending problem. You know it, I know it. Even our mayoral candidates know it.

“Toronto doesn’t have a funding problem. It does have a spending problem” - George Smitherman
“Toronto has a spending problem, not a revenue problem”- Rob Ford

It seems as if Smitherman and Ford have been drinking the same Kool-aid.

The biggest challenge for our new mayor is definitely going to be handling that beautiful budget of ours, but that’s a given. How they are going to do it is actually what we should all be worried about.

Ironically enough, today an article on some improvements to Nathan Philips Square caught my eye. I took a closer look and what I thought was just a minor enhancement turned out to be anything but.

Can someone please explain to me why we are spending $40 million to give Nathan Philips a facelift?

Alright, so it’s not the most modern or technologically impressive of places, but it’s not supposed to be either. Apparently the upgrades are going to make it a more inviting place. Well, I walk through it every day and the last thing I’m thinking is that it’s empty and cold.

Once the cold Toronto winter passes, the place is packed. It’s full of tourists taking a break from walking under the sun, kids running around playing and even couples enjoying a quiet romantic moment near the water.

There’s beauty in simplicity sometimes.

How will building yet another restaurant (that we don’t need) and creating a fancier landscape really benefit Torontonians? This multi-million dollar project is coming right out of the city’s capital budget too. Just what we need.

But hey – I’m all for an information and tourist Kiosk on Queen Street.

Let’s hope our new mayor can put this city’s money to good use because this sure isn’t a good way to start.

About Alexandra Orlando

Idle thoughts on red lights, traffic flow and pollution

While I applaud the city for recently making their anti-idling bylaw more stringent (decreased permitted idling time from three minutes to one minute) to help reduce pollution. I wonder if there are other ways that the city could make changes to help reduce pollution from cars.

I was driving down Bathurst St. last week at around 1 a.m. and somehow I had to stop at every traffic light from Steeles Ave.all the way down to south of Lawrence Ave.

As I was sitting there idling my car at each of the red lights I kept thinking about the amount of pollution that I was creating. I could understand having to stop and start if I was driving in rush hour traffic, however, I was coming down Bathurst at one in the morning!

There was no more than a handful of other cars on the road and I waited at a number of lights where no other cars or pedestrians crossed my path. I think if we could figure out some way to reduce the amount of unnecessary stopping and starting on major streets when traveling straight in one direction, we would be able to probably reduce our pollution by even more then the savings in emissions from reducing the amount of time one can idle their car.

I understand that if I'm driving along and making a number of turns and stops it will be inevitable that I will get some red lights, but when traveling down a major road with two lanes of traffic in each direction, there must be some way to set the traffic lights so that once you get a green light you can continue to get green lights after that if driving at a continuous speed.

I think the city, its councillors and civil servants should be looking at every way to reduce the amount of pollution we emit when driving as the way our city and region has developed often makes it necessary to drive places instead of walking or taking public transit, the ideal, less polluting alternatives.

About Adam Zendel

City services: Something's gotta give

Recently I've been chatting with friends about how tax money is spent on city services. Torontonians expect the city to operate smoothly, and when glitches occur, we notice. Whether it's the efficiency of garbage pick-up, the quality of TTC service, the condition of our city streets, the presence of public libraries and public health services, or the cleanliness of our parks and attractions, we expect a lot from our city.

My husband and I own our home and the property taxes we pay are not insignificant. I understand the principles of give and take - living in the city is expensive, but we have beautiful parks, many public services for children, families and the elderly, a world-class public library system, and decent roads. The city water I drink is clean and tastes good. The TTC, for all its recent troubles, gets me to where I need to go. Those of us who commute by bike are fortunate to be able to do so fairly safely.

But of course, there is never enough money for everything. Specifically, not enough tax money is generated to support the wide range of city services we want and expect. You can see at a glance what I mean when you take a look at this chart illustrating city expenses vs. city revenues provided by the City of Toronto web site.

So, what's a city to do? The answer is, we must compromise. But how, and on what?

In upcoming weeks and months, the mayoral candidates will be ramping up their campaigns. When listening to the positions and promises from the candidates, consider framing their arguments through a different lens: rather than focusing on what you want from your city, consider what you'd be willing to give up.

In a world of limited resources, where are you willing to compromise? Would you trade improved TTC service in exchange for reduced health resources for families and seniors? Would you pay more for public child care in exchange for more frequent garbage pick-up? How do you compare the need for affordable housing with the demand for clean water?

I certainly don't have the answers, but it's a different way of thinking about the candidates, and it's a perspective I'm going to try. At the very least, it will provide me with a new way of evaluating the campaigns as we get closer to Election Day on October 25.

About Kimberly Silk

Ontario Place just one part of a revitalized western waterfront

With news breaking that a long overdue makeover for Ontario Place is finally going to happen, it’s time focus shifted to how this fits into the waterfront revitalization plan and how it can change the western end of the waterfront.

The west end doesn’t have the abundant space the east end has but had a fun and unique history with the old Sunnyside Amusement Park. The park was unfortunately torn down to make way for the Gardiner in 1955. 

The parts that remain have seen better days and, in some cases, haven’t seen an upgrade since the 1980s.

It’s time for the city, with help from the province, to do a complete update of the west-end starting with Ontario Place and revive the area’s rich history.

This area has a lot going for it. It has a few beaches and parks, the renovated Palais Royale building, the Humber Bay Arch Bridge and part of the Martin Goodman Trail. Unfortunately, all of these feel cut-off from the rest of the neighbourhood even though the area is busy on weekends. 

Any redevelopment should reintroduce the beach to the neighbourhood. Longer-term planning would probably see the entire neighbourhood around Jameson Avenue redeveloped much like Regent Park has been and Lawrence Heights will be.

It’s a challenge, especially with the Gardiner and Lake Shore Boulevard in between, but I’m sure something can be done to repair this situation. Here are my suggestions on what can be done in the immediate future.

Ontario Place would be the crown jewel in the makeover. It should offer more open spaces and places to sit. There should be more opportunities to get out onto the water. 

Attractions should bring people of all ages to the park to enjoy, not just kids, and get away from some of the Expo ’67 architectural look and design that partly plagues the park today along with high admission prices.

It should also allow for some kind of innovation not seen anywhere else in the city but not become similar to Toronto’s other amusement park, Canada’s Wonderland.

There should be less reliance on driving to get there with beefed-up TTC streetcar services with, at the very least, if it is to be a 365-day-a-year attraction, an extension of the 509 Harbourfront route from the Exhibition to the new park. 

The extension of the 509 should extend from Ontario Place further west connecting the beaches and the condos built in the area and eventually merge into the 508 Lakeshore route to Long Branch.

The beaches in the area are, by the looks of it, well maintained throughout the year but could use an update. 

Toronto has some recent success with beaches. HTO Park and Sugar Beach are a hit and manage to bring back some of that old-time fun to the beach while maintaing its modernity. Could this not be done in the west-end as well?

Walkways connecting neighbourhoods to the beach could be updated and improved by making it easier for people to walk or bike over to the beach. 

The smaller buildings and huts around the area should be redesigned to reflect the past and tie them into the remaining structures to offer visitors, young and old, a pleasant ‘blast from the past’. 

More benches and open areas should be added along with things like bocce and horseshoe lanes.  

Ultimately, there are many possibilities to redeveloping this area of the waterfront. I’m only offering one possibility. I hope a new and improved Ontario Place sparks development west.

The opportunity to do this couldn’t be better as the whole city is undergoing a major makeover. It’s time to bring back the history we lost when the city redesigned the neighbourhood for the sake of 1950s and 1960s modernity.

About Robert Kirsic

A way Hydro can help revitalize communities

 

The excitement inside City Hall’s Committee Room 4 was palpable while I was waiting to speak at the press conference where the Green Jobs for All at Hydro campaign was launched. On June 7, community and union activists came together under the banner of the Good Jobs for All Coalition to announce an innovative green community economic development strategy. If implemented by Toronto Hydro, this strategy is sure to revolutionize the way the City works directly with the people to address pressing economic concerns that incorporate environmental and social justice needs.

 

When I walked in the room, I was impressed with the huge solar panel resting against the wall and the number of banners from participating agencies. The five Green Change Agents from Jane and Finch who came with me added their own displays and signs. The campaign launch was attended by a diversity of community groups, unions, elected officials, and environmental organizations. Groups in attendance included the Toronto & York Region Labour Council, the Council of Agencies Serving South Asians, the Chinese Canadian National Council - Toronto, the Jane/Finch Green Jobs Coalition, the Green Change Collaborative, the Society of Energy Professionals, and the Canadian Tamil Congress, Environmental Defence, Toronto Environmental Alliance, and more.

 

Through this campaign, the Good Jobs for All Coalition is calling on Toronto Hydro to take advantage of the subsidies available in the Green Energy Act and plan for an aggressive expansion of Toronto Hydro’s role in renewable energy generation in partnership with other public institutions. The strategy calls for Toronto Hydro to install solar panels on schools, hospitals and other public buildings across the City. Under the Ontario Green Energy and Green Economy Act 2009, renewable energy companies, utilities and homeowners can receive provincial subsidies – through the feed-in tariff program – provided they meet domestic content rules, which require 40 to 60% of the goods and services used originate from Ontario.

 

As I explained in my speech, not only will this strategy generate profits for the public utility company, but by engaging community organizations and unions as partners at the table, it will also generate dividends for the local communities by engaging residents and youth in the revitalization and economic development of their own community. This strategy has the potential to see thousands of youth trained and new job opportunities for residents and other equity seeking groups created.

 

The Good Jobs for All Coalition is also asking Toronto Hydro to make local procurement of green products a priority in all activities. With its strong buying power, Toronto Hydro would then be able to attract green manufacturers to Toronto. Furthermore, existing manufacturers would be encouraged to retool and work with local training organizations and Toronto’s Social Development Office to ensure equitable access and inclusion of workers of colour and youth from marginalized communities in new job opportunities in the sector.

 

“Creating good green jobs is the lynchpin that will turn our community around,” says Nigel Barriffe. Currently a teacher with the Toronto District School Board in Rexdale, Nigel is Co-Chair of the Green Economy Committee of the Good Jobs for All Coalition. This strategy could be a game changer for priority neighbourhoods like Rexdale and Jane and Finch that continue to struggle with issues of poverty and underemployment. On the other side of the coin is the emerging trend and related opportunities in the green economy.

 

One young man, Chris Williamson, a pre-apprentice electrician, who recently graduated from the Hammer Heads program also shared his story. Chris - who is 18 - spoke about how his placement as a pre-apprentice electrician gave him the opportunity to start saving up money so he can hopefully sponsor his mother – who currently lives in Jamaica – to Canada.  Chris said he supports the campaign because he can see how it will create stable careers for his community and friends, who, unlike him, still work part time and casual minimum wage jobs at restaurants, movie theatres and the like.

 

Other speakers at the press conference included: John Camilleri, president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Local 1, which represents Toronto Hydro workers; and Carolyn Egan, president of the Steelworker Toronto Area Council.

 

The Green Jobs for All at Hydro campaign can be formally endorsed at www.goodjobsforall.ca.

About Rosemarie Powell

No simple, single cure for transportation woes

For our mayoral candidates the "red rocket" seems to have become their "silver bullet" in the endless pursuit to find a solution to our transportation challenges.

The electorate are looking to politicians and decision-makers to ease commuter woes, and no one seems to have the heart to tell them that common wisdom and professional opinion suggest there really isn’t a single answer for something as complex as the way the citizens of Greater Toronto choose to move around the region each day.

Rocco Rossi is the latest mayoral candidate to position himself as a transit "super-hero" by promising to build two kilometres of track every year, over the next decade. Rossi says the city can afford the $4.5 billion price tag if it sells Toronto Hydro and other assets, and then uses that cash to clear the $2.5 billion debt. It seems that once someone dons the Captain Transit cape nothing can get in the way of their mission.

Mr. Rossi’s financial plan to fund his transit quest isn’t entirely apparent to me, however, in his words, The City of Toronto is rich in assets and together we own a lot of stuff’, and it seems that he and the Toronto Board of Trade don’t consider Toronto Hydro to be central to the operation and mission of the city.

That's beginning to sound like the same pretzel logic and voodoo economics the Mike Harris "common-sense revolutionaries" proffered up in the mid-1990s to clear a provincial deficit prior to an election. In that boondoggle we saw a prized public transportation asset sold to the highest bidder. Considering the tolls collected each year by the ETR 407 total a half a billon dollars a year it’s no wonder taxpayers continue to lament that decision.

What’s encouraging is that all of the candidates support transit expansion in some form or another, and some of the financing schemes being offered up are also on the mark. The challenge is that regardless whether we choose subways, buses or light rail transit (LRT) these systems once built require on going operation, maintenance and ultimately replacement. If, as Rossi suggests, we sell assets to pay for capital expansion how will we afford the other on-going (operational) expenses?

People move around the city in a variety of ways, at all times of day and for many different reasons. How we use the transportation system is based on many considerations – where we live and work, our disposable income, our age, our health, our recreational interests, our diet, and more. The notion that a "single fix" approach is out there, if only we could find it, is preposterous, and the search itself stymies creativity, collaboration and partnership. Humans are complex beings and our mobility needs and the transportation challenges they present demand sophisticated solutions.

With the run up to the municipal elections candidates across the GTA will form an opinion regarding "how they would solve the traffic problems in their community." What remains to be seen is whether someone emerges that has the acumen to fully understand the problem, the humility to admit they don’t have all the answers and the courage to deliver solutions they know will be unpopular.

About Lorenzo Mele

Should fit be free in Toronto?

Should health and fitness be something only available to those that can afford to pay?

Contemplating the future of Toronto and the call for ideas, a friend recently pointed me in the direction of the Guardian’s Public Services Awards 2009. The overall winner of last year’s award was the City Council of Birmingham for their Gym for Free project.

It’s so big, so bold… It’s probably not the kind of idea anyone in our now "have not" province or city wants to allow themselves to dream about. But if Birmingham can do it, why not us?

You see, on Valentine’s Day 2008, Birmingham City Council and the public health trust (part of the National Health Service, I gather) partnered up to send an invitation to the residents of the Ladywood District, offering every household free use of civic recreation facilities in return for attending four times a month.

Within seven months, the number of Ladywood residents using public gyms on a regular basis had skyrocketed from just 90 to more than 6,500. The project was so successful, so quickly, that Birmingham has now extended the project to the entire city of 1.1 million residents.

Why does this matter?

Ladywood is one of the most depressed districts in Britain, where most people are too worried about feeding their families to spend precious dollars on gym memberships.

There’s not room here to go into everything to be learned from Gym for Free, but suffice to say that along with the myriad health benefits, the project aims to build social cohesion. It gets people talking, sharing experience. Furthermore, the economic benefits -- particularly in the longer term as they see reduced health costs -- will be significant.

Look, I don’t think that a parks and rec fee increase is the number one issue of this election. But that’s because I live downtown, with lots of access to gyms and recreation centres, and have some disposable income to spend on those things. And when I compare the cost of using city facilities with the cost of private gyms and private lessons, those fee increases still don’t look so bad.

But at the end of the day, shouldn’t all families have access to good facilities and supports? Some families may need an extra hand or incentive to take advantage.

Like Ladywood and Birmingham, there are real health inequalities in our city. In 2008 Toronto’s Medical Officer of Health released a frightening report, “The Unequal City." The report illustrates the impact of Toronto’s health inequalities by showing what would happen if everyone was as healthy as those with the highest income:like, 1,300 fewer low birth weight babies, and nearly 1,600 more children ready to learn at school entry.

It’s pretty clear the City of Toronto needs to think big. We need to reduce poverty, and close the gap on health inequalities.

So along with the Do the Math Campaign, ask the provincial government to immediately introduce a $100/month health food supplement for all adults on social assistance, and set up a process to set rates based on what it actually costs to live a healthy, frugal, dignified life in Ontario -- let’s look at offering more and better services that will help keep residents healthy.

If Birmingham can think big and bold, why can’t we?

About Marit Stiles

Cutting transit can be hazardous to your health

Toronto has the third most heavily used transit system in North America after Mexico City and New York City. Yet we rank the lowest for commuting times compared to other major cities. This points to the fact that we have a long way to go in transit investment for an urban region of our size.

A delay in spending on public transit is not just a delay, it puts the entire system in jeopardy. We’ve seen this before when the Mike Harris government stopped the Eglinton line and here we are so many years later delaying it again. The budget freeze may appear to be saving us money in the short term, but it will end up costing us more later, when new transit lines will become improbable to afford and simply won’t happen.

But this delay is not only a setback for commuters, it is a setback for our economy, environment and even our public health. Ironically, as the province was announcing the cuts to transit in one breath, they were setting off alarm bells on the rising cost in public health in the other. I would suggest that there is a direct correlation between the two.

Delaying transit is like delaying a health initiative. Since transit begins and ends on foot, where there’s transit, there are people walking. Walking and transit use is the easiest way to begin to chip away at our sedentary lifestyles brought about by our car-dependent cities. In the end transit helps makes cities more socially, economically and environmentally viable and healthier places to live. Investing in transit is an investment in our public health.

About Dan Leeming

It's not just about finding room for bikes

It’s wonderful that our mayoral candidates and the electorate have a position on bike lanes, whether pro or con, considering not that many years ago the topic didn’t really register with voters and politicians alike. Today there’s general support for bicycles - they don’t pollute, they save us money, they’re fun to ride and they help keep us fit.

Some of the candidates like bikes but not on arterial roads, and the latest plan for University Avenue is generating lots of debate. The reality is that many arterial roads are already used as main thoroughfares by commuter cyclists, and generally speaking bike lanes installed along strategic stretches of roadway could improve safety and comfort for cyclists and lead to more people cycling.

As a form of transportation the bicycle is ultra efficient, a model of appropriate technology that eclipses the automobile in its ability to transform energy into forward motion. For a machine that is seemingly so perfect it’s sad that it causes so much angst and consternation. Militarizing the debate is hostile and counter productive and I wonder if the vitriol that some people use to explain their distain for all things bicycle is really as pervasive as they would have us believe.

Others suggest that a licensing fee for bicycles, to pay for their use of the road and new bike lanes, would be in order. Like bike lanes that go against the traffic – this suggestion is "contra-flow" to prevailing thinking. If someone chooses to ride a bicycle, their travel behaviour should be rewarded and in many countries (unfortunately not ours) governments are paying their citizens to ride their bikes to work.

The Canadian Automobile Association, a seemingly unlikely cycling advocate, promotes the virtues of the bicycle in their spring 2010 issue of CAA Magazine. A series of articles under the "Pedal Power – helping the planet two wheels at a time" banner, reports on the benefits of cycle tourism and bike sharing schemes that have been in place for years in cities like Paris, Barcelona and Stockholm and that may be coming to our city around this time next year.

There appears to be lots of common ground on the debate and if we tease apart the rhetoric we’ll discover that it’s about real estate – and the amount of space to be shared by those on bicycle, on foot, wheeling and in motor vehicles. The dilemma then is where bicycles should go in the right of way (ROW) – that area of land municipalities take from developers and planners and engineers carve up to accommodate the numerous and competing interests and needs.

If this space isn’t adequately shared – transit slows, cars speed, cyclists don’t feel comfortable or safe and pedestrians are put at risk. When we get it wrong the consequences can be disastrous and tragic. As a first consideration we must apportion space more equitably for all road users and then employ road designs that don’t place the needs of motorists ahead of other road users.

A forum happening in the city April 23, 2010 and hosted by the Toronto Coalition for Active Transportation or TCAT, will examine these challenges under the lens of something called "complete streets." Just as a relationship requires a sense of completeness between partners to make it work, our road network must be designed so that streets work for all road users not just those using a car.

About Lorenzo Mele