Toronto's mayor promised to restore the supremacy of the automobile — but record traffic is getting in the way -
Toronto's populist mayor Rob Ford was apparently wrong when he famously declared that "the war on the car is over."
It's not, and surprisingly, the latest salvos have come from people he would normally count on for support.
Ford swept into the top job in Canada’s largest city last fall on a wave of anti-elitist sentiment. He tapped into anger among voters in the sprawling, postwar suburbs, who resented the leafy, transit-friendly and oh-so-cosmopolitan downtown area.
Ford's first official act was to rescind a car registration tax, leaving a $64 million hole in city revenues. He also torpedoed an extensive, cross-region light-rail transit plan and, just last week, orchestrated the removal of bike lanes along one of Toronto’s main north-south arteries.All this is aimed at restoring the supremacy of the automobile, and rewarding the base that elected him: people who drive to work, usually by themselves.
Unfortunately, these are the very people who are strangling Toronto’s economy and it’s not just bike-riding "pinkos" who are saying it.
Last month, the city’s blue-chip Board of Trade reported that Toronto had, at an average of 80 minutes, the longest commute time among 24 global metropolitan areas (even worse than notoriously congested Los Angeles). It warned bluntly that gridlock was rapidly destroying Toronto’s competitiveness and called for measures aimed squarely at picking the pockets of motorists — including roads tolls and parking fees — to dissuade them from taking their cars.
The board’s report comes on the heels of similar public musings by the man Ford himself appointed to sketch out a new transit plan. Gordon Chong told the Toronto Star that tolls and other congestion charges may be unavoidable.
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