City Council — June 2015
June 10–12, 2015
83 posts
Sure, sell the Gardiner, whatever. Maybe Captain John is interested in turning it into a seafood restaurant. http://metronews.ca/news/toronto/1392722/gardiner-should-be-sold-or-leased-to-pay-for-transit-ttc-chair/
With all his rhetoric, seems strange that Tory supports the three-minute modelled delay caused by Hybrid design. http://t.co/X0LbZPI8RR
If automobile travel times are the only priority, maintain with no modifications is clearly the best option.
From the Gardiner pres: "Earliest start of implementation 2019." Think this issue might come up in the 2018 election? http://t.co/7P5zd8Ilf5
This Gardiner East debate could get real ugly if councillors start moving amendments on ramp locations. Designing a highway on-the-fly.
Councillors are going in camera. Nothing of note is likely to happen in this debate until after the lunch break. Go take a nap.
The longer council spends in closed session on the Gardiner the more I think we might be looking at a deferral.
Gardiner debate resumes. Coun. McConnell starts off with a question to chief planner Jennifer Keesmaat.
And Coun. Cho asks staff about a tunnel. Staff explain they did look at a tunnel. It'd cost $2.5 billion.
Karygiannis asks Keesmaat which Gardiner East choice she supports. Keesmaat says she recommends proceeding with the Boulevard option.
Boulevard option is "consistent with the larger vision of the city", bringing employment/residents to the waterfront, says Keesmaat.
Acting City Manager says the time for looking at a Gardiner tunnel is long past, cites cost of Boston's Big Dig.
Karygiannis offers to give the city manager the phone number of some dude who wrote a study on the Gardiner tunnel in the 1980s.
Mammoliti is also asking about a tunnel. We are going to hear a lot about this damn tunnel.
Based on past statements, Mammoliti's ideal waterfront has a highway tunnel, a Toronto Island red light district and a casino boat.
Pasternak, with great skepticism, asks if it'd really be possible to route truck traffic to an at-grade boulevard. "Absolutely," says staff.
Pasternak says he is only aware of one outdoor cafe on University Avenue. Keesmaat says there are nine cafes on that street with patios.
Take a drink every time a self-described "fiscally conservative" city councillor acts like $100 million is an irrelevant sum of money.
Smart of so many pro-hybrid councillors to carefully write down their questions to staff before asking them.
Staff point out they use the same traffic modelling for all planning and transportation decisions.
Jennifer Keesmaat says 95% of new trips into downtown today are on transit, which is why city needs a transit funding strategy.
Coun. John Campbell just claimed developer First Gulf doesn't care if there's transit built to their site. Staff strenuously disagreed.
Coun. Berardinetti is asking questions now. She's got visuals. She puts up a photo of Lake Shore east of the Gardiner.
Norm Kelly asks the consultant if his report says Boulevard presents the highest risk to pedestrian. Consultant says he doesn't recall that.
Minnan-Wong now asking about how pedestrians will deal with a two-stage crossing on the Boulevard. Making a big deal about it.
...but the current pedestrian crossings under the Gardiner at Jarvis and Sherbourne are two stage crossings.
Minnan-Wong says there are videos of people slipping and falling as they rush to cross University Avenue. All right then.
Mayor John Tory rises to move some motions. Ah, he's moving motions for all three options: maintain, then remove, then hybrid. Smart.
By moving all three motions, in that order, Tory is best setting up Hybrid to win, even if Ford shows up and starts agitating for Maintain.
Tory quotes Philip Preville and the Toronto Sun while making his case for the "hybrid."
Tory: "Let's not break the ring road around the city." This is like a high-speed mash-up of all his previous pro-hybrid speeches.
Perks asks for a 5 min recess so councillors can read Tory's motions. Karygiannis says he doesn't need the recess, he's ready to ask Qs now.
Nunziata grants the recess.
Tory's motions are posted here. You'll see that he brought motions for all three options to the floor. http://app.toronto.ca/tmmis/viewAgendaItemHistory.do?item=2015.PW4.1&utm_source=&utm_medium=&utm_campaign=
Prior to today, there was speculation about order of votes. e.g., if council had to vote on hybrid before maintain, would Ford kill hybrid?
So Tory was smart to take that possibility out of play. He's Ford-proofed the proceedings.
I think Section 27-67 of council procedures is relevant to Tory's strategy. Wants council on record. http://t.co/1k7KIKZF4J
Perks tries to get Nunziata to rule tunnel motion out-of-order. Nunziata refuses. Perks challenges. Upheld, 26-16. http://t.co/PU6j2pQseM
Karygiannis moves referral of the Gardiner East item to the September council meeting. Because tunnel. http://t.co/L4y8tN1nQT
There may very well be enough votes for referral. It might be the boulevard-supporters' best shot.
Mammoliti says he'll support referring the item until September. His vote + Karygiannis + Boulevard supporters might eke out a win. Hm.
The larger debate stops now to focus on the referral motion. If it passes, everything gets pushed to September.
Tunnel the Gardiner!
RT @TTCnotices
Trains are bypassing Museum Station both ways due to flooding.#TTC
Coun. Fletcher moves an amendment to Karygiannis' referral motion, tacking on a study of the hybrid alignment. http://t.co/YAuEzf0OzV
"There is a whole bunch of people in this room that are like emperors with no clothes," says Coun. Shelley Carroll, to applause.
Coun. Perruzza, a wildcard vote, says he will support deferral. That's significant.
After a quick tally, I'm counting 21 potential votes for deferral, 19 against. Pay attention to Moeser, Campbell, De Baeremaeker & Lee.
Minor McConnell amendment to referral motion passes 25-19. Might be telling. http://t.co/5JVttCprVY
Fletcher's amendment to referral motion passes 26-18. Maybe also telling? http://t.co/Wi6ow49pUv
Perks' amendment to referral motion fails 21-23. Nail-biter. http://t.co/1Ssw4ZuMCW
Motion to refer Gardiner East item to September meeting FAILS 15-29. http://t.co/O0pIfsXCok
Stephen Holyday says the rail corridor is the real barrier to the waterfront. I very much disagree with that east of Jarvis.
Holyday has prepared a powerpoint presentation where he compares renders that aren't meant to be super detailed. http://t.co/qCA8GFDF7m
Here's an image Holyday made where he drew in extra cars to an intersection diagram. http://t.co/gN4O8mthkD
Holyday gives a shout-out to today's @metrotoronto front page. But he thinks Toronto will be a laughingstock if we take down the Gardiner.
Now Coun. Pasternak moves a motion to look at uploading the Gardiner to the province. Predicted response from the province: nah.
McConnell: "We will end up litigation and the OMB ... because it doesn't fit what our community has needed and so desperately worked for!"
It looks like council will wrap up tonight and finish their Gardiner debate tomorrow, unless someone has a motion to extend.
Before we go, Coun. Perruzza has a motion asking Rogers to reinstate OMNI news programming. Tory declares a conflict. http://t.co/7x6PSAqD3n
And we're done until 9:30 a.m. tomorrow. There will be a few more speeches, then council will very likely vote to support the hybrid.
Back at the Gardiner debate, Coun. Cho throws up this chart, comparing Toronto to Seoul. http://t.co/6yeJHG2K7C
Seoul has 96 elevated highways, according to Cho. That feels like too many.
Coun. Crawford says those who say the Gardiner East is underused "turn a blind eye to the future of this city."
Crawford says removing the Gardiner East would create a "nightmare down there." Says it would be 10 times worse than the Allan Expressway.
Coun. Chin Lee says he'll support the hybrid. That pretty well seals it, if there was any lingering doubt. Hybrid will win.
I am not saying removing the Gardiner East will spark the zombie apocalypse but I did find this photo. http://t.co/0WltTO42dv
Councillor Lee explains he googled photos of Chicago and San Francisco while making his decision. All right.
Janet Davis' moves a motion to build a "Keenan Causeway" after @thekeenanwire. Here's her very serious map. http://t.co/xg9cXyGEsj
Coun. Davis says the hybrid option will cause "mega-million dollar lawsuits." They're coming, she says.
Coun. Colle moves a motion calling for a report on the East Bayfront LRT. And another motion that'd look at selling or leasing the Gardiner.
Mammoliti suggests the Gardiner East debate is some sort of conspiracy to build a Lakefront LRT and then get cafes. (Cafes serving lattes.)
"Leadership! Be bold! Be Brave! Erase the 1950s thinking! Build a better city!" concludes Councillor McMahon.
"If you are supporting the hybrid, I want to tell you you are profoundly, dangerously wrong," says Coun. Gord Perks, unminced.
Norm Kelly calls the Gardiner an important artery, the heart of the city, and the heartbeat of the city. It's a lot of things.
Coun. Shiner moves for a study on tolls on the Gardiner and DVP, but only for non-residents. I am not a fan of this idea.
Here's a 1972 Getty photo of David Shiner protesting in favour of completing the Spadina Expressway. http://www.gettyimages.ca/detail/news-photo/carrying-a-placard-and-4-year-old-lowell-greenspoon-david-news-photo/499294155?Language=en-GB
(Pretty terrible drawing of Mickey Mouse, to be honest.)
Coun. Mammoliti now asks Shelley Carroll to apologize for"all the tweets." Mammoliti knows a lot about Twitter for a guy without an account.
Some councillors keep pointing to the transit assumptions in the traffic model like they're the Scooby Doo gang and just cracked the case.
Gotta step away from this debate for a bit - follow @dmrider, @reporterdonpeat & the usual suspects for detail on inevitable Hybrid win.
Today at @TorysToronto: John Tory traded his credibility for a concrete highway. http://metronews.ca/voices/torys-toronto/1394488/mayor-john-tory-trades-credibility-for-concrete-with-gardiner-decision/ #TOpoli #GardinerEast