[getsmart-l] 43 Years of History vs 20 Parking Spots

[Janet May]

Every resident of Toronto needs to forward this to their councillor and
express their opposition to this decision!  

 

Toronto Star

43 years of history vs. 20 parking spots TheStar.com - News - 43 years of
history vs. 20 parking spots 

September 26, 2007 

Christopher Hume
URBAN AFFAIRS COLUMNIST



The gap between what the city does and what it says is growing wider.

That became clear recently when we heard that Toronto wants to buy the
legendary Matador Club and tear it down to make way for a parking lot. A
parking lot! A parking lot!

No, we're not making this up.

This is in the city that likes to pass itself off as the greenest on the
continent. As if.

To add insult to injury - or should that be lunacy to idiocy - we also heard
that if the owners of the 43-year-old club aren't prepared to sell their
land to the city for $800,000, it will consider expropriation.

Truly, Toronto has lost its way. Truly, whatever our aspirations may be as a
civic entity, they are fast being undone by a bureaucracy so out of touch
with reality it's frightening. And where are the councillors in all this?
Does their silence signal agreement? Creeping suburbanization is one thing,
but this is neanderthal. 

And as if all this isn't madness enough - expropriating an important site at
the corner of College St. and Dovercourt Rd. - the city's intention is to
create a 20-unit parking lot to service the West End YMCA across the road.

The YMCA, no less, a place where people go to exercise, swim, play and
generally engage in healthy activities.

"We've identified that area as high demand (for parking)," Toronto Parking
Authority president Gwyn Thomas told the Star last week.

Maybe someone ought to tell guileless Gwyn that the 1950s are over. Oh, and
while they're at it perhaps they could let Mr. TPA in on something else he
may not have heard about - a little thing called global warming. Yep, that's
right, Gwyn, and it's a big problem everywhere else, if not here. Around the
world, cities are actually taking steps to get people out of their cars and
onto public transit, bikes, their feet, whatever.

But thanks to people like you, Gwyn, that won't happen here in Toronto. This
is a city that invites you to hop into the family vehicle and drive on
downtown for a workout. God forbid anyone should have to take the streetcar,
which goes to the front door of the YMCA, or the bus, or that they should be
forced to cycle, or, worst of all, walk.

No sir, for us it's the car or nothing.

Some cities, far, far away from Toronto, impose a fee on those who drive in
the city. You and your colleagues may not have heard of them, Gwyn, but they
include London, Stockholm and Singapore. In other cities, parking is viewed
as a means to control car use. These cities set parking rates high enough to
make people think twice about driving downtown.

Not here in Merry Olde Toronto, where we're only too happy to expropriate
and knock down a historic building to oblige the needs of those who must
drive, even if it's only 20 of them. Heritage shmeritage.

As for the development potential of the site, well, there's lots more where
that came from.

Send the wrong message? Who cares about that? Sure this would be considered
outrageous in many cities, but this is Toronto. In some cities, parking lots
are viewed as a lower order of land use than a building. Indeed, some
jurisdictions see parking lots as a way of creating a land inventory for
future development. Here, where the city is willing to demolish buildings to
make way for parking, we do it the other way around.

So welcome to Toronto, a little behind the times, but a great place to park.


 

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