With so many serious issues facing the city, it is interesting that the declared candidates for mayor find the status of Toronto’s highways the most pressing.
Former city councillor and mayoral candidate Ana Bailão wants to upload the Don Valley Parkway and the Gardiner Expressway to the province. Other candidates will probably call on those same highways to remain within the city’s remit so that they can be tolled. Since neither scenario is going to happen, both are equally safe bets. The reason that these two are non-starters is because each initiative would need the blessing of the province.
Minister of Transportation Caroline Mulroney has already stated emphatically that the province does not want the highways that we have to offer and it would, indeed, be a very strange day if the current government agreed to the city implementing tolls. Bailão’s claim that the provincial government will buckle under a mayoral mandate would be laughable if it wasn’t for its disingenuity.
Then there is current city councillor and mayoral candidate Josh Matlow who wants to tear down the Gardiner. This position is completely consistent with his entire career of fighting decisions that he doesn’t agree with and didn’t support. The fact that a decision has been made has never been a consideration for Matlow. For some reason, he believes that he, and he alone, holds the key to the “right” decision.
What is crystal clear is that Matlow has not recently driven on the Lakeshore between Parliament and Parkside, because one journey on that stretch during the afternoon hours would make him realize that the Lakeshore is so gridlocked it robs people of their humanity.
Tearing down the Gardiner would not add a few minutes to people’s commutes, it would paralyze Lakeshore and cost millions in daily lost productivity. Of course, Coun. Matlow’s solution to the nightmare on Lakeshore is a magical LRT that has no funding.
Hopefully there is a mayoral candidate that emerges with the wisdom to understand the issues they can impact and those they cannot.
