Cars likely to win yet another battle as Adam Giambrone’s parking legacy on Dundas West comes almost completely undone
One of the last things Adam Giambrone did before events transpired to take him out of the race for mayor was remove parking spaces from a stretch of Dundas West in order to accommodate better streetcar flow. (Technically, Giambrone was voting to end a pilot project that had allowed cars to park on the streetside since 2006.) The Dundas West BIA fought against the end of the pilot project, and after she won Giambrone’s old ward, councillor Ana Bailão moved quickly to bring back the old parking regulations. Last night, Toronto–East York community council approved the changes—something that should make many of the businesses along the burgeoning strip (including the owner of Lula in the video above) pretty happy.
According to the Toronto Sun:
Politicos on the Toronto and East York Community Council unanimously approved Bailao’s request to restore 70 parking spaces along the busy stretch and restore overnight permit parking on surrounding streets.
“It feels like we’ve accomplished something,” Bailao said Wednesday. “It feels good to come to City Hall and a month and half (later) saying we’re accomplishing things, we’re going in the right direction, we’re bringing the voice of Ward 18 to City Hall.”
City council will still have to approve the decision at its next meeting.
This is, of course, just the latest front on the new council’s reversal of anything touched by the Giambrone-Miller years. Given how quickly the council is moving to settle old grudges, we expect the last of Miller’s contributions to this city will be mopped up by, what, mid-May? The only remaining question is, which will be the last bastion of urban leftiness to fall? The Toronto Atmospheric Fund? Waterfront development?
• Motion passes to bring back parking on Dundas West [Toronto Star]
• Amendment to Parking Regulations on Dundas Street West [Toronto-East York Community Council]
what is happening here? if this was a so called ‘pilot project’, what were the objective markers for success of the project? what kind of place are we living in where decisions are based purely on whim and grudges?
“what kind of place are we living in where decisions are based purely on whim and grudges?”
I believe, we’re living in Ford’s Toronto, where its all decided on whims and grudges.
I guess the two posters above didn’t read the article or the links. Dundas West BIA pushed for it. The Councillor Bailao made it one of her campaign promises.
“Local business owners were outraged when former councillor and TTC chair Adam Giambrone moved to strip the area of about 70 pay-and-display parking spots just over a year ago.
Giambrone hoped it would make streetcars move through the neighbourhood faster.
Shop owners said the lack of parking would keep patrons away and kill their livelihoods. They’ve been fighting the decision ever since.”
The Toronto Atmospheric Fund was established at the urging of Councillor Tony O’Donohue in 1989 and has operated under six mayors. Not a Miller initiative and not idealogical.
I’m not against removing street parking… But a decision that restricts streetparking on one stretch does nothing to improve congestion in the city. All it does is make it harder for the merchants who’ve had street parking restricted to compete. Giambrone’s decision was supposed to improve the Dundas streetcar times… but it wasn’t noticeably faster. And the restrictions cost these merchants a lot of business… since they probably lost a lot of customers to the nearby Dufferin mall or to places on College where Giambrone didn’t bother restricting parking. The merchants along this stretch of Dundas where Giambrone conducted his experiment had every right to feel unfairly targeted — because they were.
Why is the title “Streetcar Named Disater”, this is about street parking not streetcars. People in other parts of Canada envy Toronto for keeping their streetcars.
In Montreal we’re trying to get trams back!