Dear Mayor Ford,
Ryan
May 27 2011,
I hope you have had the time out of your busy schedule to read my previous letter. This letter contains my next Idea for saving the city some money while at the same time making Toronto a better city. Don't worry it's not all about bicycles.
Once again may I be so bold as to quote you (from the definitive source on everything that is Wikipedia)
“I can’t support bike lanes,” Mr. Ford infamously said in 2007. “Roads are built for buses, cars and trucks. My heart bleeds when someone gets killed, but it’s their own fault at the end of the day.”
I feel your pain as all you wanted to do was to get to work as quickly as possible from your place in the GTA burbs but you had to contend with all those bicycle swarms plus endless plodding streetcars blocking traffic how inconvenient, no wonder....by now after six months in office I suspect you regret your statement and I hope you know it just isn't true as most accidents are caused by the the inattention of automobile drivers. If you don't know this I respectably suggest you have one of your over educated assistants compile and read to you an executive summary of all road accidents and their causes on Toronto roads (not just cars versus bicycle).
Now on to the quality of life and saving money. Please pay careful attention as both you and I come from an age where the car was king and driving into the city to work and back again from the burbs was not only our right but also the norm.
Things have changed: Gas while you can still get some is edging towards $2 per litre ($7.57 per gal.) Ontario and Toronto have gone from an economic power house to second place mainly due to the mid west with their natural gas reserves and their tar sands and "let those easterners freeze in the dark" attitude. The Ontario automobile manufacturing output is a pitiful remnant of what it was in the past. Climate change and pollution we can all see for ourselves they are no longer just subjects for activists and scientists that only use the information to create and then point to some hard to read chart. What we should know by now and every world class city around the globe has already found out is that cars are a big part of the problem.
Now straight to the good stuff: While many American city went through or are still in a period where the city core is empty and the housing has decayed into slums the City of Toronto has always had a vibrant centre with people living, working and playing within the city boundary . Places like Mississauga once only a bedroom city has developed their own identity to the point that they stealing head offices from Toronto. With the Condo boom more and more people have become full time happy Torontonians. This is great for the city and great for your tax base.
The idea: Bring Toronto into the new age remove the automobile from centre stage. Instead of taxing cars that live in Toronto garages start heavily taxing cars that drive into the city. Replace the use of the car with better public transportation. Bring back free parking at the outlying TTC stations even subsidize and increase public transportation make it a critical service. Mr. Mayor I wish I could see the look on your face as you read this. Even the thought of taking public transportation to work everyday must be frightening! Yet this has to be the way of the future and is already the norm of many world class cities that realized that they were dying in their own traffic congestion and pollution.
Benefits are many fold: Less pollution, less dependency on oil, less road maintenance, faster transportation, safer, more space for greenery, sidewalk cafes, transit, pedestrian and bike right of ways, increased health and quality of life, attractive to new business....instead of pretending we would actually become a real "World Class City".
Yours truly,
Metrix X
More of my helpful suggestions to Mayor Ford
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