Despite the fact that the last show in Buddies in Bad Times Theatre’s 2012/2013 season is titled Of a Monstrous Child: A Gaga Musical, Lady Gaga herself takes a secondary role. There are no homages to raw-meat dresses and gold-plated wheelchairs here. Instead, writer and director Alistair Newton uses the House of Gaga as a pathway into the history of the notable performance-art stars that came before her in the pantheon of queer iconography, and how she is and isn’t a construct of all of them put together.

It’s entirely possible that an early work by the next Atom Egoyan or David Cronenberg will screen on Wednesday night at the TIFF Bell Lightbox. With the 2013 Student Film Showcase featuring the best from post-secondary schools around the country and the Jump Cuts Young Filmmakers Showcase kicking off the evening with Toronto-area high-school students’ films, the night will be a coming-out party for a new crop of talent. Judging by the polished creativity of some of the entries, it’s safe to say that young people are more prepared than ever to start telling stories on film from an early age.

Photo by AshtonPal from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.

For months, housing advocates have been asking why many of the homeless people they serve are having such a tough time accessing emergency shelter in Toronto. City officials and Mayor Rob Ford have assured the public that nearly every night, about a hundred emergency shelter beds across Toronto lie empty, available to anyone who asks. Yet, in an open letter to Ford and city council, over 30 church and community groups that work with the homeless are citing “an urgent need to open additional shelter space to reduce the pressure on the system.”

By many accounts, the shelter referral centre at 129 Peter Street is itself regularly over capacity. Patrons regularly sleep on the referral centre’s floor and chairs. Their inability to access dozens of reportedly empty beds might be due, in part, to the fact that men cannot access women’s shelters, and adults cannot use youth facilities. Empty beds that don’t correspond with need—based on gender, age, physical ability, or location—offer no comfort to those who cannot use them.

The squabble over beds is taking place in the context of Toronto’s ongoing affordable housing crisis, which City staff have thoroughly documented and politicians have universally decried. The mayor and some councillors seem reluctant to consider warnings from front-line workers over the reliability and usefulness of official statistics about emergency shelters, but the idea that shelters are under serious pressure isn’t far fetched when we examine what we already know about housing in Toronto.

A sign at a recent Metro Hall sit-in to protest shelter access. Photo by Desmond Cole/Torontoist.

Between November 2012 and January 2013, Toronto’s affordable housing wait list [PDF] shrunk by 620 people. The remaining 161,266 people in line can comfort themselves that at this pace, it will only take about 40 years to clear the backlog, assuming no one else trying to make rent in Toronto applies for assistance.

The public housing we do have is costing us so much in upkeep that, late last year, the Ford administration decided to sell some of it to pay for at least a few repairs. We lost housing, and we’re still in a huge maintenance hole. Toronto Community Housing warns that the housing stock may be threatened further, and “fewer units would mean low-income Torontonians could be denied the housing stability they need,” TCHC’s website states.

Briefing notes prepared for the newly elected city council in 2010 detail countless pressures on the emergency shelter system. The memos blame job losses during the ongoing economic recession for “a sharp increase in the number of residents receiving financial assistance” through Ontario Works, the provincial welfare program [PDF]. Toronto’s OW caseload was 75,000 in 2008; it’s now above 105,000. Staff also raised concerns back in 2010 that the expiration of federal housing allowance programs (including grants that expire at the end of this month) could “lead to a number of evictions, as it is likely that many households will be unable to afford the transition to full market rent.”

Given all this, a 96 per cent shelter capacity rate should get more attention at City Hall than it has to date. A report released on Monday [PDF] suggests that most of the surplus beds are for single men, and that spaces for all other groups are extremely tight. City officials acknowledge that inefficiencies and poor staff training could mean people are wrongly being deprived of shelter. They also admit that occupancy rates for the first months of 2013 have exceeded their initial estimates.

Last week, after protesters created a makeshift shelter at Metro Hall to call attention to the issue, Rob Ford held a press conference to address the situation. In his remarks, he maintained that it was the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty—an organization that many connect with militant ideology and disruptive tactics—that had an issue, but that overall, matters were under control. He seemed to think that by invoking OCAP, he could discredit any criticism of shelter access.

But Social Planning Toronto recently surveyed workers at 15 Toronto shelters, and their accounts seem to confirm observations by OCAP and other community groups. “Generally, we send people away every night,” one worker reported. “Ninety women were turned away [in the past month] due to lack of space, and referred to the Assessment and Referral Centre,” said another. Most of those surveyed think the city should boost its shelter capacity immediately.

Mayor Ford seldom displays any curiosity about the welfare of the homeless. (Recall his language as a councillor in 2002, when he infamously said that the prospect of holding a public meeting to consider opening a shelter in his Etobicoke ward was about as absurd as proposing a public lynching.) The Community Development and Recreation committee will discuss today’s report on shelter access next week. Even before its release, however, the mayor promised that the shelter system “is working great,” as if those occupying the floor at Peter Street are well served by the status quo.

City council would be wise not to dismiss the multiple warning signs as easily. The Out of the Cold program, a church-run shelter initiative during the winter months, will stop offering 88 shelter beds once Easter arrives. Unfortunately, the ongoing pressure on our emergency shelters isn’t going away any time soon.

The gutted remains of a heritage building after a six-alarm fire at the site, formerly the location of the Empress Hotel.

Earlier today, Toronto Police Service announced the arrest of a suspect in two downtown arsons, including one that gutted a heritage building at 335 Yonge Street in January 2011.

Police at 51 Division told media this afternoon that they arrested 53-year-old Stewart Poirier of Toronto after he failed to check in with his probation officer on Friday. A combination of witness statements and what they would only call “other evidence” led them to charge Poirier with both the Yonge Street blaze and another fire last week at 123 Sackville Street, a Toronto Community Housing building where Poirier lived. Poirier was on probation after being convicted of arson in April 2011, for setting a fire at the Inglewood Arms Hotel on Jarvis Street.

In addition to two counts of arson and probation violations, Poirier was also charged with two counts of mischief endangering life and one count of attempted murder in relation to the Sackville Street fire.

Police wouldn’t speculate as to motive, nor would they say whether or not Poirier had any connection to the Lalani Group, who wanted to redevelop the site at Yonge and Gould, once the site of the Empress Hotel.

They did, however, say that both arsons showed evidence of careful planning, and that police and fire marshals were investigating Poirier’s involvement in other incidents around the city.

“We are looking into other previous occurrences in our division and around the downtown core,” said Inspector Gary Meissner. “We do have reason to believe there will be other charges laid.”

Photo by {a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/mr_kevino/3590752330/sizes/z/in/photostream/"}Mr Kevino{/a} from the {a href="http://www.flickr.com/groups/torontoist/"}Torontoist Flickr Pool{/a}.

For Chloe Brown, finding adequate housing in Toronto has been a stressful and anxious experience. The Toronto-based youth has moved 10 times in the past three years, and finding affordable shelter means having to make tough choices.

“It comes down to choosing between paying rent and going to school,” says the Ontario Works recipient who had to stop attending Humber College due to the cost of balancing tuition and rent.

Brown, who has been homeless, lived on the street, and has hit and bounced back from what she describes as rock bottom, says that secure and safe living conditions are a necessity for the livability and sustainability of a city, but feels that all levels of government have failed in making this a priority.

“Affordable housing is not just an investment, but a lifeline.”

Brown has a clear message about potential changes being discussed in regards to the city’s low-income housing: don’t forget to think about the tenants first. That same message was echoed by a collection of politicians, community activists, social-housing tenants, and concerned citizens gathered at the Toronto Reference Library on Tuesday to discuss ideas concerning the future of Toronto Community Housing‘s scattered single-family homes and its repair backlog.

Organized by the Social Housing Working Group, including chair Councillor Ana Bailão (Ward 18, Davenport); members Alan Redway, a former MP and minister of state for housing from 1989 to 1991; Bud Purves, chair of the TCHC; and Jim Pimblett, a partner at strategy consulting firm nD Insight, the group was keen to hear ideas, and according to Councilor Bailão, had no preconceived notions or priorities going in to the meeting.

Earlier this year, Bailão was chosen to lead the task force in the wake of a controversial proposal advanced by the mayor to sell more than single-family homes owned by TCH, and use the proceeds to help put a dent in what’s estimated to be $750 million of needed repairs. About 2,600 residents live in those homes, and with TCH’s long-waiting list, many are concerned about the outcome of Ford’s proposal. Bailão is spearheading consultations this summer; the results of the task force’s findings are expected to come before city council in the fall.

Jamal Binwalee, a young father of a three-year-old and four-year-old child, shares the insecurity of not knowing what will come next when it comes to adequate and affordable housing. Though Binwalee’s home is currently funded by Toronto North Support Services, as of March 2013 he will be back on the hunt for a home that he can afford as his funding expires. A Chicago native, he had high hopes of what life would be like in Toronto, though he feels let down by the reality.

“This is potentially the greatest city in the world, and we are squandering the opportunity,” Binwalee says. “There is a dramatic disconnect between the policy makers and the people who live there [in Toronto Community Housing].”

Twenty-five-year-old Christine Myles, who lives in public housing in the Cataraqui community of Scarborough, agrees.

“People can’t put forth ideas for action if they aren’t in touch with the reality.”

Though six months pregnant, Myles recently spent hours cleaning up in her community, raking and piling up garbage filled with needles, in order to rebuild some pride in her area. It’s a start, though modest, in revitalizing an area she describes as troubled by issues of prostitution, drugs, domestic abuse, people living with mental health issues and not receiving care, and run-down, mold-filled housing.

“Yes, you can house people, but what happens once they are housed?” she asks. “What about the souls of the people?”

“There’s no one idea that’s better than another, we’re here just to listen,” says Bailão. “We want to involve people, we want them to be part of the process, we want our citizens and stakeholders to have a say in what we include in the report.”

By the end of Tuesday’s six-hour session, a few things were clear: those participating do not agree with the sell-off of TCHC housing, though they agree that the repairs need to be dealt with immediately (a sentiment shared by housing experts). There were also cries for more help from the provincial and federal government, something that TCHC chairman Bud Purves isn’t banking on.

“We’ve heard a lot of ideas about getting more money from government, and we would certainly welcome money from the government when and if it comes,” says Purves, with an emphasis on the if and when, but adds that nobody has mentioned anything to him about federal or provincial funding.

Other ideas that were floated at Tuesday’s meeting include introducing progressive, municipal taxation directed at community housing; transferring ownership, management and/or operations of community housing to a co-op or a private corporation; endorsing Bill C-400, a private-member’s bill advanced by NDP MP Marie-Claude Morin that calls for the establishment of a national housing strategy; involving Habit for Humanity in repair work; and starting from the ground up by building new units.

Members of the working group said will take these suggestions into consideration as they prepare the report they’ll be presenting in the fall.

The history, design, and development of building projects, brought to you by Urban Toronto.

Toronto Community Housing is bringing affordable rental living to CityPlace in the form of “Block 32,” a 41-storey tower matched with 9- and 11-storey podium blocks at Fort York Boulevard and Dan Leckie Way. For Toronto Community Housing, this complex, designed by KPMB Architects, represents quite a landmark: it’s their tallest complex, it’s green, and it will be affordable family rental housing. Townhouses are being constructed all around the base of the complex, along with some retail fronting on Fort York Boulevard. Patios and deep planters will also be featured at street level.

Kyle Rooks of Toronto Community Housing explains the rental system: “The development will have 427 units of affordable rental housing. That’s a new kind of rental that means the average rent in the building will be 80% of the CMHC average. For example, if the average cost of a 1-bedroom rental is $1,000, the rent for 1-bedroom units in this building would average $800 and could not exceed $1,000.” TCH expects to start renting units this spring, for fall move-ins.

For a full tour of the building, head over to Urban Toronto.

The Ford brothers will be hosting Newstalk 1010′s radio program The City for two full hours this Sunday. The two have stressed that this will be an opportunity to tell it “like it is” without the media “twisting” it…my hands are tied. But tune in if you like train wrecks! That was inappropriate, I’m sorry.

A year after a shocking report led to the firing of the entire Toronto Community Housing Corporation’s board, three new audits have been released by the auditor-general, demonstrating shady accounting practices at the TCHC. Well, that’s just embarrassing.

It’s unsurprising that yesterday’s pop-up Target store—a promotional gimmick to preview the U.S. chain hitting Canadian soil next year—was flooded with shoppers, selling out all 2,500 items in five hours. It’s surprising—and let’s be honest, vaguely troubling—that a $10 cat scarf was the very first item to sell out. But wait, is that a scarf for your cat, or is it a scarf with a picture of a cat/cats on it? Y’know what, forget it. I don’t even care. You can keep your cat scarf.

At a schmancy event last night (Dalton McGuinty was there), the family of Dr. John Evans, who co-founded the MaRS science complex at College Street and University Avenue, announced they will be donating $10 million to the building of a new experimental lab, which they hope will draw “the next generation of scientists, business leaders and innovators.” Sweet.

If Mayor Rob Ford’s been giving you major schadenfreude, or if he makes you cringe in twisted empathy, like at the sight of a flailing public speaker who kicked you once—either way, really, your feelings will be enhanced by the news that Ford made some uncomfortable-sounding visits to tenants of a social housing high-rise yesterday. Part of a tour of the Toronto Community Housing Corporation–owned properties, the mayor is trying to get a sense of what the $650 million worth of repairs looks like, but also campaign. He did hand out fridge magnets, after all. The house calls came on the eve of a decision that will be made today, as to whether 675 TCHC single family homes should be sold off.

And if being inundated by subway-versus-light-rail-news makes you want to vomit—well, sorry. But you should know that a poll conducted this week and released yesterday shows the extent to which the framing of the transit debate affects how residents weigh in.

As commuter GO train ridership grows, so too have their parking lot fines. Apparently, such fees have doubled since last year. And, though GO officials have previously said their parking lot rates are largely covered by the train fare, part of economist Don Drummond’s provincial report suggests the GO should start charging for parking, à la the TTC. That guy would say that.

People who work for the private Toronto job-search firm Toronto Pathways may, ironically, soon find themselves on the job market. Pathways has been slammed by Canada’s privacy commissioner and the CBC—who went all undercover on them!—for charging unreasonable fees (to the tune of thousands, purportedly) and misleading clients into thinking they had secured jobs for them. Not only has the company accrued a whack of small claims cases and pissed off a whole lot of angry job-seekers (already kind of a tough crowd, no?), apparently they have also changed their name—wait for it—five times in the last seven years. Looks like it’s time to brush up on your resumes, people who work there!

Toronto Hydro is offering buyout packages to over a third of its employees.The utility’s request for a rate hike—one that would add $5 a month to consumer bills—was denied, so buyouts are being touted as the best solution for a budget shortfall.

Inside the Community Centre on Saturday afternoon, representatives of City and community organizations sat behind tables, providing whatever assistance they could. One table was devoted entirely to helping residents obtain their pets, many of which were left behind during the evacuation.
Dorota Romaniuk sat in the Community Centre’s small gymnasium, picking at a plate of chicken and mashed potatoes. Everyone was eating chicken and mashed potatoes, as a matter of fact, because it was being handed out for free, by volunteers. It had come from Swiss Chalet.
“I just want to know what’s going on,” said Romaniuk, a fourteen-year resident of 200 Wellesley Street with long red hair and an accent that was difficult to place. She had arrived home from work last night only to be denied access to her apartment by emergency responders. “At some point I need to get in. I need to go back to work. I have no clothes to go back to work.” She said she’d slept at her cousin’s home, and that she’d do so again tonight, if necessary. For those who had nowhere to go, the Community Centre was filled with cots, draped with Red Cross blankets. Some residents slept at other ad-hoc downtown shelters last night.
We took leave of Romaniuk, and then a pair of Toronto Police officers approached and asked who it was that we were writing for. There was no correct answer to this question. Members of the media were not permitted inside the Community Centre. Neither were politicians (though Glen Murray and George Smitherman had been there the previous night), which accounted for the absence of obscure city council candidates—though at least one was hovering around outside, glad-handing locked-out residents, who were decidedly not glad. Many were elderly, which would have seemed bad enough, had not several residents we spoke to added that some of the building’s population had conditions that required medication, and that this medication had been left behind in the apartments of its owners, and was now inaccessible to them. The Star reports that community workers have been making medication runs on behalf of residents.
Nobody seemed anxious to contemplate the possibility of the lockout lasting longer than the half-life of the average prescription drug.
A Toronto Police Service sergeant didn’t know when residents would be allowed back in, but suggested that Toronto Fire might have information.
Toronto Fire Division Commander Robert O’Hallarn said that fire marshalls were in the process of examining the building’s structural integrity, as well its electrical and fire alarm systems. Residents would not be allowed back in until the marshalls had filed their report, he said.
The fire, which had been confined mostly to the area in which it had started, had only been brought under control as of 5 a.m. O’Hallarn said he expected the rest of the building to be inhabitable.
O’Hallarn added that there had been no reports of fatalities, but that there were “still a lot of pets missing.”

After the exclamation “Let’s build a playground!” was bellowed over a booming PA system, volunteers got down to business. Armed with a selection of tools and equipment, including a hundred rakes, a bunch of wheelbarrows, thirty thousand pounds of concrete, and a mountain of mulch, sledgehammers, and shovels, by 2:30 the same afternoon, they had achieved their goal.
In a unique example of community building, Foresters, an insurance provider, along with KaBoom, a nonprofit organization committed to ensuring children have access to play equipment, have paired up to build playgrounds for communities that lack them. Foresters provides the funding; KaBoom provides the know-how. (Since 1996, KaBoom has constructed over 1,800 playgrounds, skate parks, and ice rinks across North America.)
Volunteers participating in this past Sunday’s build were made up of KaBoom organizers as well as employees from Foresters and the Toronto Community Housing Corporation. Additional volunteers came from the neighbourhood, while a few others had travelled from as far away as British Columbia and San Diego. Even two of Toronto’s finest helped out, shoveling mulch. George Mohacsi, Foresters’ president and CEO, slipped on work gloves, pitching in to mix batches of concrete.
Seka Kokeza, a Foresters employee participating in her second build, said assembling a playground in six hours was like putting together a bookcase from Ikea, only one hundred times more difficult (unless, of course, you have Superman assemble said bookcase). Playground constructing was hard work, Kokeza admitted, but in the end, when the equipment has been assembled and the ribbon-cutting ceremony complete, seeing the excited expressions on the faces of the children made it worthwhile.
To the children’s chagrin, though, there was a delayed reward aspect associated with the entire undertaking. Because the concrete footings take forty-eight hours to harden, the youngsters have to wait until today before actually getting a chance to break in the new play equipment. Drats!
Back in June, children living in the high-rises took part in a community event called Design Day, providing input for the design of their park space. Many of their suggestions, minus (as one child told us) chocolate bar trees, were incorporated into the play space. On construction day, anticipation of the new playground was palpable: a countdown calendar was taped on a wall in the austere lobby of one building. Printed in a child’s handwriting, they had been x-ing out the days until their dream park became reality.
Thanks to the hard work of numerous volunteers this past Sunday, one Toronto neighbourhood received a playground, and it won’t be the last. This year, Foresters and KaBoom will work together building twenty playgrounds across North America and two more in the GTA—one in Mississauga, and the other in Brampton.
Photos by D.A. Cooper/Torontoist.

The Toronto of 2020 will be a different, but recognizable place. Between now and 2020, immigration will have made the world’s most multicultural city even more diverse, new building projects will have altered the city’s landscape, and Transit City will have broken down many of the city’s spatial barriers.

The City’s Urban Development Services Department predicts that by 2020 the GTA’s population will have ballooned to 6.9 million, and that Toronto itself will have grown to approximately 2.9 million [PDF]. Most of this growth will have come from the immigration of visible minorities, who will account for 47.9 to 53.4 per cent of the GTA. Although Toronto will have grown by thirteen per cent, the city is confident that it can add another 187,226 households capable of housing more than 400,000 people [PDF].

Minority demographic statistics are from Statistics Canada.

Over the next decade, Toronto’s population will continue to age. The city’s workforce will be primarily composed of visible minorities. The median age of the city’s visible minority population will be a youthful 35.5, compared to 43.4 for Caucasians. The jobs available to Toronto’s new workforce will have also changed. Toronto’s primary industry, manufacturing, and trade industry jobs will be almost gone, while most of the city’s new jobs will have been created in the business, finance, and retail sectors [PDF].

Income statistics and forecasts are from David Hulchanski’s report: The Three Cities within Toronto: Income Polarization among Toronto neighbourhoods, 1970-2000.

If we believe the predictions in David Hulchanski’s report, The Three Cities within Toronto: Income Polarization among Toronto neighbourhoods, 1970-2000 [PDF], the loss of Toronto’s blue-collar jobs will also bring an end to the city’s mixed income neighbourhoods. According to Hulchanski, in 2020 the city will be divided essentially into high income, predominantly white areas and low income, minority areas. Wealthy Torontonians will have access to the subway and all of the other benefits of the urban environment, while poor Torontonians will be trapped on the city’s fringes in pocket communities. Hulchanksi argues that to avoid this scenario, income support and housing assistance programs have to be expanded in conjunction with innovative zoning policies to rebuild Toronto’s mixed-income neighbourhoods. Service jobs will also need to start providing the wages and benefits that manufacturing and the other now defunct blue collar jobs once provided.
Other researchers have predicted a different, though equally gloomy future. Gordon Pitts, Globe and Mail business editor and the author of Stampede! The Rise of the West and Canada’s New Power Elite, predicts that Toronto’s days on top are numbered. Pitts believes that the West, led by Alberta and its vast oil wealth, will supplant Ontario as the country’s political and economic powerhouse. In Pitts’s scenario, things will have become so bleak that at least one of Canada’s major banks will have moved its headquarters from Toronto to Calgary. When oil was at $147 per barrel, Pitts’s analysis may have seemed plausible, but with oil trading at less than $50 per barrel and the world in the midst of a recession, Pitts’s analysis seems dated. One day Calgary might overtake Toronto, but not in ten years.

Photo by syncros from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.

On the sunnier side of things, the Toronto of 2020 will be a lot greener, as eco-friendly buildings will have become commonplace. Toronto Community Housing will be almost finished its ninety million dollar plan to cut greenhouse gases by forty per cent, or 136,000 tonnes, in its two thousand buildings. We can also count on a more efficient power infrastructure. As part of its Project Rebuild program, Toronto Hydro has already started replacing power lines, transformers, and power stations, and it plans to have upgraded a third of its outdated equipment. Finally, if the Ontario Government continues to pursue its Green Energy Act, Toronto will be far more reliant on wind turbines, solar panels, and other sources of renewable energy for its electricity.

Artist’s conception of the new West Don Lands. Image by the Toronto Waterfront Revitalization Corporation.

On the waterfront, the West Don Lands Precinct Plan will be complete in 2020. In addition to new residential units and shops, the plan also calls for a 19.5 acre park at the mouth of the Don River [PDF]. In the downtown core, Ryerson University should be finishing up the final stages of its expansion program. This expansion might include a new academic building, university residence, or office building on the current site of the Church Street parking lot and the old business school. But we honestly don’t know. Ryerson’s Master Plan, though ambitious, is still up in the air, and probably subject to a few more alterations over the next few years.
In ten years, the TDSB will also have undergone significant changes. As part of the TDSB’s Better Schools, Brighter Futures program, the TDSB wants to eliminate schools where attendance has dropped to below sixty per cent of capacity, so it can concentrate its resources on a smaller number of modernized schools. The goal is to have an average school utilization rate of eighty per cent, with 450 students per elementary school (K-8) and 1,200 per high school. The TDSB also plans to eliminate all primary schools (K-5). Currently, the TDSB wants to shut down ninety-two schools, but considering the difficulties the TDSB has faced in the past when trying to close schools, it’s unlikely that it would manage to close so many in such a short time period.
There aren’t very many specific building projects slated for completion in 2020, but we can assume that condos and office buildings will continue to be built throughout the city and that Ontario’s Smart Growth Plan will continue to reshape Toronto’s suburban landscape. Areas like Mississauga, Brampton, and Oshawa will continue to grow, as their urban cores are transformed into more compact communities. The suburban area that will likely see the most extensive changes is Markham. The Remington Group is already working to develop a three billion dollar project that it claims will transform Markham’s downtown into a “European-style square.” The development, which won’t be finished until 2030, will add new condos, townhouses, office buildings, and retail space to Markham’s downtown.
Although the Ontario government wants to transform these cities into compact urban areas, where people can walk or cycle to work, it seems far more likely that these cities will continue to serve as hubs from which people will commute to Toronto. In fact, by 2020 Metrolinx will be entering the third stage of its Big Move transportation expansion project. In addition to the hundreds of kilometres of highways and railways already built, the project will start to extend express rail service to Cooksville and Richmond Hill and additional rapid transit services to Hamilton, Burlington, Milton, Durham, Toronto, Oshawa, and York. Another two million dollars will also be invested in three thousand kilometres of walking and cycling paths. While some of these projects are still up in the air, if Metrolinx makes Toronto more accessible, it might just undermine the goals of Ontario’s Smart Growth Plan.

Image by Stephen Michalowicz/Torontoist. Adapted from C. Livett’s 2011 Network image.

While Metrolinx will be bringing the GTA together, Transit City will be shrinking Toronto. In 2020, several new lines will open, including the Don Mills, Jane, and Scarborough-Malvern LRTs. Then of course there’s the highly speculative DRL (Downtown Relief Line). We say speculative because the TTC and the various levels of government have a rather poor history of following through on subway extensions (in 1995, the Harris government terminated the Eglinton West subway after construction had begun). The DRL, if completed, might run from Dundas West Station through the downtown core to Union, and then to Pape Station. Estimates suggest that the line would be able to move over eighteen thousand passengers an hour, which would solve some of the congestion problems associated with Bloor/Yonge Station.
By this time, the TTC will have also finished installing ATCs (Automatic Train Controls) along the entire Yonge-University-Spadina line. When complete, computers will be able to run trains ninety seconds apart and allow an additional, albeit smaller, car to be added to each subway train. In 2020, the TTC may also have started to extend the system to the Bloor-Danforth line. When they’re finished, Transit City and the TTC’s other programs will greatly alleviate Toronto’s congested streets and highways, but whether the additional transport capacity will be enough is impossible to tell.
Toronto is an evolving city that, despite its problems, has always continued to endure. While the Toronto of 2020 will have a larger population, it will also have grown in subtler ways. The massive transit projects that the TTC and Metrolinx are undertaking will extend the city’s reach, giving Torontonians and Ontarians greater access. At the same time, however, the city will have to confront its growing inequalities, so that the Toronto of the future is a city for everyone, and not just a playground for the wealthy.
Research compiled by Hamutal Dotan, Jerad Gallinger, Stephen Michalowicz, and Kevin Plummer. “Toronto in 2020″ master map created by Brenda Petroff; all graphs created by Stephen Michalowicz/David Topping.