Results tagged “denzilminnanwong”

Score one for the cycling community. After an intense and late-breaking campaign, and with a crucial assist from Councillor Kyle Rae, bicycle advocates have successfully introduced bike lanes into a major redevelopment plan for Jarvis Street. Yesterday afternoon the Public Works and Infrastructure Committee (PWIC) voted to remove the centre, reversible-direction lane of traffic, and use the freed-up space to install bicycle lanes in both directions from Bloor to Queen.

Toronto City Council, after debating yesterday evening and all of today, voted earlier tonight to prioritize the building of a so-called Downtown Relief Line—a new subway route meant to alleviate stress on the existing infrastructure—at the expense of expanding the Yonge line north into Richmond Hill. Council's executive committee had already attached substantial conditions to the controversial Yonge North Extension, worried that an influx of suburban transit users will overload subways running into downtown. Today's amendment, introduced by Councillor Michael Thompson, calls for Metrolinx to put the new downtown subway ahead of the Yonge expansion in its fifteen-year plan for the city, and will likely reignite claims of a turf war between Toronto and York Region. In a welcome moment of levity, Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong's motion that the TTC "come up with a more inspiring name for the Downtown Rapid Transit Line" also passed in a 37-7 slam-dunk.

As Torontoist reported recently, City Council has been considering a local food procurement policy, which would mandate increasing the proportion of food that city departments purchase from GTA farmers. Though the proposal that made it to council was substantially more modest than the version first proposed by city staff, it too faced some resistance. Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong seemed rather worried that the policy would lead to children in daycare being denied oranges, for instance. So great was his concern that he felt compelled to introduce a motion (ruled out of order by Mayor Miller) that the city first implement the policy at City Hall rather than in daycare centres, presumably so that councillors could show solidarity with the toddlers as they too went without their oranges at lunch. Interested citizens everywhere will be relieved to learn that the local procurement policy passed easily, and staffers assured the anxious councillor that oranges would remain available nonetheless. In even better news for local food advocates, Councillor Jenkins (possibly acting on the recommendation of the Toronto Environmental Alliance) successfully introduced an amendment calling for the city to investigate the feasibility of setting a target of purchasing 50% of its food locally (the rate is currently at about 20%).

One year ago today, City Council's Executive Committee approved [PDF] the awarding of the street furniture contract—for the purposes of designing, building, owning, and maintaining bus shelters, garbage bins, ad pillars, and more for a period of twenty years in exchange for advertising rights—to Astral Media Outdoor, despite the fact that the company had absolutely no experience with "street furniture" and maintains dozens of illegal billboards in defiance of City Council.