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Morning Brew: Ford, Blair, and McGuinty meet, a wild weekend on the roads, an SUV for Rob Ford, elephants to stay longer, roundabouts, and Jays sweep Red Sox

Posted by Chris Bateman / July 23, 2012

22 Comments

toronto beach log skyline duskMayor Rob Ford, Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair, and Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty will discuss ways to tackle gun crime when they meet with other members of the provincial government later today. Ford appears to be struggling to make his ideas, which include some kind of deterrent based around citizenship, clear. The mayor called Newstalk 1010 on Friday to explain but ended up making things more confusing. According to the latest stats, more than 20 people have been killed as a result of gun violence this year.

It wasn't a good weekend on the roads or waterways. Downtown, a TTC bus struck a building - home to Little Nicky's coffee - on Peter Street, in Oakville, a boat exploded after refueling and in North York an SUV fell 9 metres into a ravine. Stay safe out there.

If you watched the video in Friday's Morning Brew of Global News reporter Jackson Proskow drilling Rob Ford over his community grant voting record (i.e. always against) you would have seen the mayor getting into a sleek, black Cadillac Escalade instead of his usual Uplander minivan. Turns out the new wheels were a birthday gift from his brothers, Doug and Randy (yep, there's a third one.)

In the latest episode of Toronto Zoo's elephant saga, we've found out the animals won't be heading to California until September because of concerns over the hot weather.

Could more roundabouts be the answer to Toronto's traffic congestion? According to the National Post, the circular junctions remove the need for traffic lights and help keep vehicles moving. Okay, hands up who knows how they actually work. Here's a live feed video from a real life roundabout in Halifax, Nova Scotia, if you're into that sort of thing.

Finally, right on schedule, the intersection of Queen and Spadina is back open for east-west traffic after a two-week closure to replace the streetcar tracks. The catch? There's only one lane in each direction right now, but at least the 501 streetcar is off diversion.

IN OTHER NEWS:

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:

Photo: "Across the Bay" by DdotG in the blogTO Flickr pool.

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JLanky / July 23, 2012 at 08:35 am
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People barely know how to function with the 'roundabout' on Windermere Ave. I'd love to see a city full of brainless drivers crashing into each other.
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MrPotato / July 23, 2012 at 08:46 am
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Randy Ford aka RaFo --- http://scrapetv.com/News/News%20Pages/Business/images-4/randy-trailer-park-boys.jpg
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Ratpick replying to a comment from JLanky / July 23, 2012 at 08:48 am
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Motorists would learn soon enough, just as they (mostly) have learned to deal with on-ramps and off-ramps, which function on a similar principle.
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Spencer / July 23, 2012 at 08:59 am
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Waterloo Region is putting in roundabouts everywhere and haven't seen any major problems. Though the one near my place in Pelmo Park is a roundabout with stop signs, kind of signifying that some people didn't quite get the concept.
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Al / July 23, 2012 at 08:59 am
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There are roundabouts on Brooke Avenue, but they put stop signs there for east/west traffic so they work as two-way intersections. I guess they figured it would be too complicated for people if they put yield signs.
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PigInAPolk / July 23, 2012 at 09:11 am
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European cities have survived quite fine with roundabouts for many, many years.
They are very simple to use and traffic (outside of Clark Griswald slowing everything down) flows perfectly without the need of lights.

Are North Americans this inept that we cannot figure out who to drive around a circle?
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Rob replying to a comment from PigInAPolk / July 23, 2012 at 09:27 am
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When you are not used to something, it does take time to adjust. Relax.
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Alex / July 23, 2012 at 09:32 am
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How do roundabouts work for pedestrians if the traffic is always moving? I personally don't like them, I think lights are better. I know Toronto has terrible light times, but at least with lights you have the option to try to organize traffic flow.

I know he's mayor, but Ford just isn't smart enough to be involved in that conference. Not sure I like the idea of McGuinty or Blair brainstorming solutions either. Wouldn't it make a lot more sense for people from the high risk communities, social workers, and front line cops with a few superiors at TAVIS to do the brainstorming?
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MrPotato / July 23, 2012 at 09:38 am
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Waiting for someone to say..."they need to put a roundabout on RoFo's gut!".
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iSkyscraper / July 23, 2012 at 09:40 am
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Was thinking about roundabouts as I drove around the past week on various routes like Highway 48, Highway 27, Highway 12, etc. These formerly rural highways, some since downloaded, used to work just fine as two-lane roads that went from A to B with no traffic signals inbetween - everything could be handled with non-signalized intersections. Now, however, the sprawling growth patterns of modern development have garnished them with strip malls and such and much heavier traffic, and all sorts of traffic signals have started popping up. These are woefully inefficient, given that traffic is often heaviest in only one direction but signals stop all traffic equally, wasting capacity. (The light at the T-bone of Hwys 12 and 48 is a good example). In these situations, post-rural but pre-full-suburb, a traffic circle roundabout would be ideal.

Once an area more fully develops, traffic circles have to be treated warily as they are very anti-pedestrian.
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steve / July 23, 2012 at 09:44 am
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Whenever talk turns to roundabouts I ask were do pedestrians fit in?
I also have to ask why is it ok to spend $1 million for a round about. Yet so many whine over the cost of transit.
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Chris Bateman replying to a comment from steve / July 23, 2012 at 09:56 am
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Pedestrians cross at markings set back from the roundabout in most cases in the UK. Scroll down in this document for an example: http://www.lags.corep.it/doc/standards_for_roaundabouts_and_mini_raundabouts_uk.pdf
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Stu replying to a comment from JLanky / July 23, 2012 at 09:57 am
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I saw someone reverse on the Windermere roundabout last week! Truly didn't understand the concept and that they could just go around again...

If we had more of them and worked on driver education I think most people would learn quick.
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the lemur / July 23, 2012 at 10:03 am
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If you put stop signs up before a roundabout, it kinda defeats the whole purpose of the roundabout. You're supposed to slow down and yield to traffic that's already on it. With stop signs it just becomes a decorative traffic circle that you have to make more right-angled left turns around.

We could definitely use more roundabouts instead of four-way stops, but they have to be done right.

As for pedestrians, all you need is crosswalks (yield to pedestrians) and small traffic islands:

http://www5.mississauga.ca/marketing/websites/sheridan/downloads/mississauga-roundabouts.pdf
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Arrow / July 23, 2012 at 10:05 am
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Roundabouts take up a fair amount of space. I assume it isn't feasible to convert existing traffic signals into roundabouts downtown. We'd be talking more about the rural development areas.

Also, where does the corner gas station go?
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steve replying to a comment from the lemur / July 23, 2012 at 10:20 am
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Cars do not yield to pedestrians, it is very uncommon to see this happen. Crosswalks without traffic lights are a no go zone. Stop signs are not even safe to cross.
I see roundabouts as a rural or suburban thing, not in a busy urban centre like Toronto were the pedestrians out number vehicles.
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damn / July 23, 2012 at 10:52 am
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It's a bit of a shame that those two SUV stories weren't related.
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the lemur replying to a comment from steve / July 23, 2012 at 10:52 am
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The whole point of the article is that roundabouts should be used more on non-arterial streets in our inner suburbs. The ones that are already there are appropriate because traffic volume is low enough.

Cars do yield to pedestrians - not as much as they should, but it definitely happens.
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the lemur replying to a comment from Arrow / July 23, 2012 at 10:55 am
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It depends on the size of the intersection. I think one could work at the Dupont/Dundas/Annette intersection, which is currently unnecessarily sprawling and features a fairly useless triangular parkette whose only purpose is to be driven around. Maybe Front/University/York as well.
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James / July 23, 2012 at 10:56 am
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Weird, it was a gift from his brothers? A few days ago Ford told the Sun that he bought it and 'saved, and saved for it." These guys can't even get their stories straight about a car? Transparency and accountability my ass.
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Bubba / July 23, 2012 at 02:38 pm
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Rob Ford is no longer relevant to the city of Toronto, every time he opens his pie hole he spews out incoherent statements which he doesn't even understand.
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p / July 23, 2012 at 05:12 pm
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A roundabout could actually improve the Dundas/Annette/Dupont intersection, which is poorly laid out and confusing as it is. It might reduce the risk of crashes.
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