EDITORIAL: Council’s new priorities include transit and working together
Toronto’s new council begins its work on Dec. 2 with the inauguration of councillors and our new mayor, John Tory. There’s optimism the next four years are going to focus on the needs of the city rather than the circus that was the final two years of Mayor Rob Ford’s administration.
Toronto’s new council begins its work on Dec. 2 with the inauguration of councillors and our new mayor, John Tory. There’s optimism the next four years are going to focus on the needs of the city rather than the circus that was the final two years of Mayor Rob Ford’s administration.
Let’s hope so.
We’re going to be pushing the mayor and councillors to identify their priorities for this term and to achieve results. In today’s edition you can see where Toronto’s longest-serving councillor Maria Augimeri (first elected in 1985) and one of our rookie councillors (Stephen Holyday) think council’s focus should be.
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Earlier this month, we also laid out what we think Tory’s top priorities should be. You can read that story at http://bit.ly/1uUjUNs
A number of the same issues kept popping up for Tory, Augimeri and Holyday. Transportation, with both public transit and traffic on our roads; and working together as one cohesive council topped the lists.
On the traffic/gridlock file, both Augimeri and Holyday suggest looking into better traffic signal co-ordination to keep cars moving. While far from the only solution to our jammed roadways and ridiculously long commutes, it’s a start well worth looking into.
Augimeri, who was chair of the TTC at the end of council’s last term, pulled no punches when evaluating our public transit system. "We are a banana republic," she called Toronto when it comes to updating and expanding public transit. Harsh words, but given the past decade of political football between LRTs and subways, bike lanes and the "war on the car", it’s hard to disagree with her.
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Tory and council’s challenge on this one is to speak with one voice on the public transit improvements Toronto needs, and then get the provincial and federal governments on board as quickly as possible.
Doing that also ties into the need for council and the mayor to work together. It’s one of the priorities we identified for Tory, and it will be the biggest test of his leadership.
He is not alone in making that happen, though, as voters are expecting councillors to work together this term. We’ll be watching to make sure they do.
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