QUOTED: Rob Ford, on a proposal to make Bloor Street pedestrian-only on four summer Sundays

QUOTED: Rob Ford, on a proposal to make Bloor Street pedestrian-only on four summer Sundays

(Image: Christopher Drost)

“I can’t support that. We have to have traffic flowing in the city. People want to do their yoga, we have tons of parks. Or whatever the purpose was of closing the streets.”

Rob Ford, telling reporters his thoughts on Open Streets TO, an initiative to convince city council to close an 10-kilometre stretch of Bloor Street (as well as part of downtown Yonge) on four consecutive Sundays for a massive, free-form street festival. In these types of situations, Ford always comes down on the side of auto traffic (see: “it’s their own fault at the end of the day”), so his total dismissiveness isn’t surprising, but in this case he isn’t the only one confused about the purpose of the closure. The whole idea is kind of high-concept.