7 MB - University of Toronto Magazine

ITstarted early, and it started angry. While thereal campaigning is only just beginning,Toronto’s raucous mayoral election (whichwill be decided on October 25) has beenrolling across the city like a twister formonths. In the spring, six front-runningcandidates emerged in the race to succeedDavid Miller, a two-term mayor whose popularity collapseddue to voter frustration over a lengthy garbage strike, budgetoverruns, tax hikes and a contentious light-rail transit program.One of the front-runners dropped out of the race inJuly, and the field will continue to narrow.Whatever else one may think of the city, Toronto’s municipalraces are showstoppers; not just because of their length,but because the mayor is directly elected by more voters thanany other public official in Canada. Toronto’s mayor thenpresides over a $9.2-billion bureaucracy that is larger thanthat of several provincial governments.As of August, the campaign had already featured a sex scandal,a drug scandal, not-so-subtle interference from the provincialLiberals and four pricey subway expansion schemes advancedby candidates who position themselves as cost-cutters.But are these politicians (two longtime city councillors, aformer provincial cabinet minister, a Liberal fundraiser and abusinesswoman) debating the issues that will genuinely affectthe city’s future prosperity and its quality of life? Last fall,U of T’s Cities Centre, a multidisciplinary urban research unitfounded in 2007, put this very question to a group of prominenturban thinkers, with an eye to framing the issues andproviding solid, non-partisan policy research to both the candidatesand the voters. Among the priorities they identified:transit planning, infrastructure financing, governance, urbandesign, economic development and sustainability in urbansettings. Here, six of U of T’s top urbanists talk about the challengesfacing Canada’s largest municipality.new light rail transit (LRT) lines. Comprehensive research isneeded to assess Toronto’s long-term transit requirements, headds. “No one at City Hall knows how many buses, LRTs andsubways we need.” Professor Miller points to transportationsystems in cities such as Berlin and Stockholm as examplesof how Toronto should be linking various types of transitservices to smart fare cards and land-use planning decisions.“This isn’t rocket science,” he says.The spectacle of several candidates touting their own subway-buildingschemes isn’t helping because these variousplans are just lines on a map; they’re not based on properresearch. Three candidates – Women’s Post publisher SarahThomson, fundraiser Rocco Rossi and former Ontario healthminister George Smitherman – are all promising specific subwayprojects, and have advanced various approaches tofunding them, from road tolls to asset sales and public-privatepartnerships. A fourth candidate, fiscal conservative Rob Ford,also talks about building subways but hasn’t offered detailsabout how he would pay for them.While Miller agrees that it’s important that Torontoniansdebate transit expansion, he argues that the next mayor shouldmove swiftly to commission a comprehensive transportationstudy with an eye to developing a meaningful long-term transitplan that connects land use, transportation patterns andthe appropriate level of infrastructure investment.He also wants the next mayor to find a way of makingpeace with Metrolinx, the Greater Toronto regional transitagency established by Queen’s Park to operate the GTA’s commuterrail service and oversee system expansion. “I wouldstop fighting with Metrolinx…because that’s how the provincialfunding will come into the city,” he says.Lastly, Miller, like many other transportation experts,believes decision-makers have no choice but to consider newapproaches to funding transit, including tolls and other formsof “road pricing.” “That’s a discussion we have to have.” Thekey, he says, is to understand the cost of inaction. “We’re verygood at opposing things. What we don’t see are the costs ofdoing nothing.”Get a move onFor all the rhetoric about improving transit and counteringgridlock, Toronto hasn’t had a properly thought-out transportationstrategy since the mid-1970s, observes Eric Miller,Cities Centre director and a professor of civil engineering.The consequence, he says, is a legacy of ad hoc planning thatstretches from a 1970s scheme to build magnetic trains toDavid Miller’s Transit City strategy, which proposes severalPower to the peopleSince the 1998 amalgamation of the six municipalities in theformer Metro Toronto, many residents have viewed their44-member city council as unwieldy and inefficient. One candidate,Councillor Rob Ford, is looking to capitalize on that26 WWW.MAGAZINE.UTORONTO.CA