Is Toronto building too many speed bumps? Probably—and it’s council’s fault

Here’s a small example of our favourite type of trouble (that’s the kind city council gets itself into by ignoring staff recommendations): it turns out that Toronto is building tens of thousands of dollars worth of unnecessary speed bumps to calm traffic in neighbourhoods throughout the city. Apparently, city staff recommended against speed bumps in most cases, but councillors that prefer the “better safe than sorry” modus operandi often overruled them. It’s not as juicy as councillors picking up each other’s legal fees or crazy sole-sourced contracts to political donors, but we like to remind councillors that they hire expensive, educated staffers for a reason. They might want to listen them more often. Read the whole story [Toronto Star] »