City
Kristyn Wong-Tam plans city-wide pedestrian Sundays
Councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam doesn't want the legacy of Toronto's Pan Am Games, America's biggest celebration of sport and athletics, to be just bricks and mortar. The best way of fostering a healthy legacy, she says, is to organize community and activity building events that continue long after the athletes have left town. Enter the ciclovia.
A Colombian concept adopted by countries across the world, a ciclovia - literally "bike path" - is a temporary closure of regular city streets to non-motorized transportation, not just bikes, like Kensington Market's pedestrian Sundays. Winnipeg, Vancouver, Calgary, and Edmonton all have their own ciclovia-type events. Ottawa has been closing parts of its downtown core to cars on Sunday mornings since 1970.
Wong-Tam envisions Toronto's ciclovia to be a regular weekend event too, probably in the morning, connecting neighbourhoods through a series of clearly marked routes. The cost, she says, of running the event will likely be covered by a mix of city and corporate dollars.
"I don't think it would be too much of a challenge to bring a bicycle sponsor or an athletics sponsor on board, but I do think it would not be reasonable to have them foot the bill exclusively when the government is not participating. We need to leverage both."
The route of the public event could incorporate interested BIAs across the city, not just in the downtown core. Sunday morning is seen as the best time for a large-scale ciclovia because it is traditionally a slow period for businesses.
The plans are still some way from fruition, but councillor Wong-Tam says she's spoken with councillor Mark Grimes, the mayor's Pan Am secretariat, who she says "supports the idea in principle," as well as the city manager's office.
The final proposal, which will be created with input from 8-80 Cities, Share the Road, and other public space advocacy groups, will be presented as a fleshed-out, "turn-key package," something council can simply vote on, in the hopes of getting it passed.
"Will we just be engaged as consumers, observers, people who are sitting in the stands cheering, or will we be active participants," says the Toronto Centre rep. "If you are only interested in building new facilities - the aquatic centre, the velodrome, which are all very important facilities - you're not able to leave behind a legacy of activity participation and recreation."
"Having a ciclovia in Toronto will probably be the greatest legacy impact that the games can have."
A staff report on the feasibility of a pilot version of the event is due before the Community Development and Recreation Committee in April. Would you like to see more pedestrian events in Toronto?
Chris Bateman is a staff writer at blogTO. Follow him on Twitter at @chrisbateman.
Image: "Bells on Bloor" by swampr0se/blogTO Flickr pool.
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Another bridge to nowhere.
Sadly City Councillors get paid way too much when you consider who has the job and not nearly enough to attract real talent. It is like handing over on troll of a billion dollar a year company to a bunch of high school drop outs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ciclovia
Cyclists (even though they think they own the sidewalks) are NOT pedestrians.
We're familiar with the definition of 'pedestrian', or at least this cyclist who, like most, has no interest in riding on sidewalks is.
Think before you come up with crap like that.
Also, cyclist will ignore this pedestrian day anyway - as they always ignore the rules.
Again, this is not a 'pedestrian day' if it is done properly as a ciclovia/car-free day. Besides not all cyclists 'always ignore the rules'. Nice try.
You can't pick and choose when you want to treat special interest groups as *special* and when you don't. Pedestrian Days descriminate against the disabled.
Well that's really interesting. In that case, please compare the number of car drivers to the number of cyclists.
Nice try.
And these events are, and will be, primarily attended by pedestrians, outnumbering cyclists virtually all the time!
The TTC doesn't make things accessible simply out of the goodness of its own corporate heart. Remember that they refused to provide station/stop announcements consistently until a blind guy dragged them to court.
If pedestrian days 'discriminate' against the disabled (except, presumably, the ones able to get around with the aid of a mobility device), then allowing streets to be used by fast-moving dangerous motor vehicles also discriminates against the mobility-challenged who attempt to cross them.
I'm sorry, but you can't ignore the fact that there are people who need motor transportation. You can't exclude them from city life.
What would happen, if someone suggested a cyclist free day or to lower the interval of pedestrians' signal lights? This would greatly reduce the traffic jams and accidents in Toronto.
You don't need to answer, I'm pretty sure I know...
One question though -- would they have to shut down streetcars along the participating streets?
Would it really be discriminatory to the disabled to have one street or a few streets closed to motor vehicles on a Sunday morning?
How is it that no one has sued the organizers of Kensington's pedestrian Sundays yet?
IT'S DISCRIMINATION AGAINST THE WEAKEST AND MOST SYMPATHETIC AMONG US!!!
Nevermind that people on mobility scooters drive in the streets everyday at their own risk, or squeeze onto narrow sidewalks between sandwich boards and pedestrians.
Having a chance to take your electric wheelchair for a nice morning ride, in the summer, with wide streets and neighbors all around... sounds pretty good to me.
... and pretending that this somehow oppresses the mobility-challenged in that they wouldn't be able to use motorized transportation to go ANYWHERE ELSE at all, or indeed use mobility devices, electric or otherwise, at events where motor vehicles are excluded.
No one would seriously suggest a cyclist-free day - the benefits would be questionable and marginal, the drawbacks would be obvious. Pedestrian signals, on the other hand, do get adjusted and not always to the pedestrians' benefit.
Don't you know we lefties LOVE wasting money. Now go think on that awhile...feel the white-hot burn of rage while Toronto wastes money at every turn. YOUR money. Hee! And if we run out of money to spend, we'll just ask the 'burbs to pony up again.
God I love amalgamation! It's the gift that keeps on giving (me the giggles). :)
On another note, I think that the term "street closure" should be avoided because it's purely car-centric. Pedestrianization sounds like you're opening up the street to people who would normally not be able to stroll on the roadway. Hence, Councillor Wong is proposing to open up streets across the city to pedestrians.
Please, tell me more about your no bicycle day idea. It sounds like a winner. Sell me on the benefits to communities, to the health of residents, and to businesses. Dazzle us some more with your logic and insight.
You make it sound as if these said people with disabilities literally can't get around without a car. How do they get to bed, drive to it from the living room? Sometimes people here astound me, and not for the right reasons.
Although there are always people on bicycles who ignore them, we have signage and verbal reminders by volunteers to 'please dismount and walk your bike'. Pedestrian Sundays were created to provide a comfortable space to stroll, stop, dance, shop, watch and enjoy the streets of the market.
It should also be noted that Pedestrian Sundays make Kensington Market even more accessible, in particular when you include the 'Stop Gap' ramps that a number of local businesses have installed which allow people in wheelchairs to more easily enter these stores. Having attended and participated in the coordination of every event since we began Pedestrian Sundays in 2004, one of the things that I appreciate most about our events is the number of wheelchairs that can be seen out and about in the streets.
Toronto does everything half-assed, but even then it takes years of squabbling between war on everybody else factions to reach a result that is unsatisfactory to all.
The better solution is to exempt two-wheelers from the one-way street rule on non-arterial streets in the core and you will have the most epic bike network in the world.
Simple.
Just curious, what route are you imagining this playing out on?
Suck on it 'burbs!