Rather than stumble back into car dependency, cities can begin to undo their worst mistake: giving up so much of their land to the automobile.
The pandemic should not stop us. There is little evidence that public transit is responsible for the spread of the coronavirus in New York or elsewhere; some cities with heavily used transit systems, including Hong Kong, were able to avoid terrible tolls from the virus.
“Overall what we have to do is get our minds around the fact that it’s not the ‘things’ that matter anymore, it’s the people,” says James McKellar, a real estate and infrastructure expert at York University’s Schulich School of Business.
“And we have to begin to understand that cities are for people and that we have done a terrible job in accommodating certain people,” McKellar says.
These road closures are just one part of the city's ActiveTO plan, which also includes a quick expansion of Toronto's cycling network and 65 kilometres of "quiet streets": small neighbourhood streets with signage to encourage slow, local vehicle access only.
"There are 150 groups that support bike lanes on Yonge. If the bike lanes are intended to provide transit relief, then there is no better place for the lanes."
"Physical distancing will be part of our lives for months, and possibly far longer. Telling people to never go out makes no sense, and won’t work. Instead, we need to think about how to make more space for walkers, joggers and cyclists."
The survey also found high levels of support for two transformative Yonge Street initiatives which will be hot topics this year at city hall: the polarizing Transform Yonge project in North York and the Yonge Tomorrow project downtown.
"We have an opportunity to rethink, re-imagine, and ultimately redesign and reconstruct Yonge Street for the next 100 years," Wong-Tam said, "and that includes opportunities to widen the sidewalk to put pedestrian priority emphasis on this downtown portion."
The challenge is ensuring Yonge continues to support a flourishing neighbourhood and business district while addressing the council-declared climate emergency.
When the Toronto Raptors capped off their championship run earlier this year and I was possessed by a strange, powerful need to leave my house and be among people who also just witnessed this incredibly great basketball win, I had no doubt about where I would go.
I went to Yonge Street.
The intense volume of pedestrians that frequent the downtown portion of Yonge Street is growing by the day, so the city is looking to make some serious changes to accommodate the growth.
