A Road Safety Take on Toronto’s 2024 Budget

Last year’s budget tabled by Mayor John Tory was irresponsible with his refusal to raise property taxes beyond inflation, relied on provincial and federal government funding (which didn’t materialize), and recklessly increased the police budget despite a $1.4 billion shortfall at the time. The budget shortfall situation has worsened for 2024 with the number now pegged at $1.8 billion. However, Mayor Olivia Chow and her budget chief Shelley Carroll have finally shown they are willing to take the challenge seriously.

2024 Budget Shortfall Breakdown (via City of Toronto)

Progress Along Eglinton Avenue

Construction on the Eglinton Crosstown LRT seems to have no end in sight with Metrolinx and the Ontario government not offering any clear timelines on when the new transit line would open. However, most of the road work appears to be completed with the exception of between Avenue Road and Holly Street. Before heading to Canadian Blood Services to donate blood yesterday – it happens to be National Blood Donor Week – I decided to check out the progress between Cedarvale (at Allen Expressway) and Eglinton (at Yonge Street) stations.

Riding Toronto with Mayor John Bauters – Part 2

On Sunday, July 3, about 70 cyclists joined Mayor John Bauters of Emeryville, California for a ride around Toronto including on Yonge Street. After the ride and some ice cream, I had the chance to interview Mayor Bauters to learn more about Emeryville and his thoughts on cycling in Toronto and other cities.

Crossing Toronto's Rubicon - Part 2

Last July, I wrote about the need to look beyond the currently proposed Bloor bike lane extension to which would eventually lead to Toronto’s crossing of the Rubicon (a.k.a. the Humber). Several developments have happened since then which increases the chances of this happening. Instead of High Park, the extension is now planned to go to the existing bike lanes on Runnymede and Bloor West Village. Mississauga’s updated cycling master plan calls for bike lanes on Bloor and Dundas right to the Toronto border. Finally, it’s already happening at Six Points which will see raised cycle tracks on Bloor from Prennan to Resurrection (500 metres) completed by this spring.

The slides from this community meeting can be found here