Tag Archives: Spadina Expressway

Shiner Light, Dimly

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I like my magazines like I like my condiments. Just slightly out of date and not bland.

Reading through them a few months, half a year behind, it offers up immediate hindsight. An automatic retrospective that allows for quick judgment as to how well a writer grasped the subject at hand. Instant historical perspective.

So it was as I made my through the Spacing magazine’s Fall 2010 issue. One article in particular caught my attention, Deck the Allen by Jake Schabas. It offered an overview of the Allen Expressway and the various attempts that have been made since the early-70s to integrate what is, essentially, just a false start more fully and functionally into the neighbourhoods it so hideously slices through and divides.

A name jumped out at me as I read the article. Esther Shiner. First elected as North York alderman in 1972, and then the city’s Board of Control in 1976 which earned her a spot on Metro Council where she served until her death in 1987. During the 1980s she also served as Mel Lastman’s Deputy Mayor in North York.An early proponent of amalgamation way back in the 70s, her enduring claim to fame, however, appears to be her ardent support of the Spadina Expressway. So much so, she earned the nickname, ‘Spadiner Shiner’. When the project got bogged down after it made its initial way from the 401 to Lawrence Avenue, she fought successfully to push it further down to Eglinton where it remains today, known as the Allen Expressway. ‘Spadiner Shiner’ continued to press on with the project even after successive provincial governments and city councils had bowed to citizen pressure to halt it. According to Mr. Schabas, Shiner was also very instrumental in the ultimate auto-centric nature of the Expressway, helping to beat back plans (including one proposed by Buckminster Fuller. Buckminister Fuller, people!) that arose to make the Lawrence-Eglinton section part of a broader development that included parkland, public transit hub and residential and retail space.

Esther Shiner can also be credited with being the mother of current councillor, David. A former budget chief of Mel Lastman, Councillor Shiner was recently in the news for his spiking of the proposed Fort York Pedestrian and Cycling Bridge in late April as a member of the Public Works and Infrastructure Committee. ‘Too fancy’, he thought it, and his motion to deny the city giving final approval on the already approved project sent it back to the drawing board for a proper scaling down.The times have changed, it seems, but the results are about the same, laced though they may be with a lethal dose of irony. Esther Shiner was all in favour of plowing money into bulldozing and disfiguring downtown neighbourhoods to make way for a highway. Her son, David, withholds a miniscule amount of money to halt the building of a bridge that would’ve brought together neighbourhoods now divided by a highway.

Two generations of public service to Toronto, dedicated to draining life from the city one bad choice at a time.

— belatedly submitted by Urban Sophisticat

Vision Quest IV

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The Thanksgiving edition.

Up this week: Rocco Rossi For Mayor!

Honestly, I thought this post was going to be more of an obituary than an actual write up of a candidate who had any bearing left on the campaign. As recently as earlier this week, rumours were swirling about major Rossi staffers jumping ship and swimming over to the Rob Ford compound. Polling in the double digits was a distant memory. A sense of inevitable disappointment hung over the whole enterprise, manifesting itself by the forced buoyancy of Rossi supporters throughout the various levels of social media.

But he gathered positive notices upon the release of his policy platform book, Together We Can. (No, Barack Obama’s stump line, Yes We Can, did not immediately spring to mind.) Then, he turned in a solid performance at the CBC mayoral debate on Tuesday night. By Wednesday, there seemed to be a little bounce back in the Rossi campaign step.

If it turns into anything resembling even a modicum of momentum, it might change the dynamics of the race. For the past couple weeks or so, we’ve been told that it’s basically down to two candidates and we better start thinking strategically in terms of voting. A Rossi uptick, however, would probably come at the expense mostly of Rob Ford which would open things up a little wider, possibly making it a very unpredictable, four man campaign for the final three-and-a-half weeks.

Here’s hoping!

Otherwise frankly, I could give a shit about Rocco Rossi. No candidate shoulders more of the blame for the negative tone of this campaign than he does. Lacking a track record since he wasn’t a “career politician” (the openly elected kind at any rate), Rossi came out of the gate determined to smear everyone and anyone who was. How? Start screaming about the mess the city found itself in. Fiscal insolvency! Beholden to unions! Constant road construction! (Every announcement/pronouncement emanating from Rossi camp needs to exclamatized©™®!!! owing to the shrillness of tone.)

And, oh yes, the War on Cars! Thank you very much for that divisive addition to the campaign, Mr. Rossi. Create a rift where none existed, all to give a shine to your uptown appeal.

I guess it made sense in the early days of the campaign, to stake out the right of centre spot on the spectrum, and box George Smitherman in toward the… centre.. ? I guess. Really? Actually no. It makes no sense. Which is why I’ve never been able to fully grasp what the Rocco Rossi campaign’s been all about.

Neither had it, evidently. Having trail blazed the anti-City Hall/anti-incumbent path, Rossi got caught off guard when Rob Ford tore out ahead of him (and who amongst wasn’t), rightfully claiming the issue as his own. Why wouldn’t he? It’s been Ford’s schtick for the past 10 years.

But instead of righting the ship that had been swamped by the Rob Ford rogue wave, and ceding the far right, libertarian ground to it with a sensible move slightly toward the centre, Rossi tried keeping pace in the reactionary race. Who advising him thought he could win that one? Why not take the opportunity to point out what everyone except his most ardent supporters knew – that Ford was little more than a blustery blowhole and most everything he stood for was based on faulty premises, logic and out right lies – and gain some traction as the reasonable right wing candidate?

Nope. What we got was Spadina Expressway II: The Tunnel. (Remember, there’s a War on Cars going on, people.) The Goodfellas ads. The Rocco Rossi-Sue-Ann Levy danse macabre pas de deux.By all rights, the Rocco Rossi campaign deserves to be dead and buried. His performance has been erratic enough that it should scare off Liberal Party organizers sizing him up for a federal run, if that’s what this whole sad farce has been about. And it must’ve been about something other than actually winning the mayoralty of Toronto, right? Because if that was the intent, well, Rocco Rossi certainly had us fooled.

— dutifully submitted by Cityslikr

The Real Fringe Candidates

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Yesterday was a decisive day in the 2010 campaign for mayor of Toronto because September 13th will be seen as the moment we finally achieved critical mass for crazy. In taking the battle for the Spadina Expressway underground, Rocco Rossi firmly confirmed his divisive status, going for broke with a full frontal assault on the downtown core in an effort to endear himself to those dwelling both physically and psychologically in Ford Country. We wish Mr. Rossi well in whatever future endeavours he pursues after the election as long as it never includes holding elected office.

We’d been joking around the office last week about the shape of the collective campaign strategy of the 4 front running candidates chasing Rob Ford. It seemed to consist of nothing more than cuddling up closer and closer to him on the right side of the political spectrum in the hopes of forcing Ford to do or say something really, really nuts. Some big hunk of 100% grade-A red meat to his fanatical base which would be a little too Fordian-tastic for those just sampling where to place their angry vote. Like say, a call for the introduction of public executions by tying people to unused streetcar tracks and running over them with a car.

Who knew with his Toronto Tunnel Rossi would actually attempt to leapfrog Ford into the deep end of batshit insane?

Rossi’s announcement came at the same time I was sitting in the auditorium at the Dovercourt Baptist Church at TOVotes — Guaranteed Change at City Hall, a gathering of registered candidates very few people in the mainstream media were paying much attention to. (The Star’s Katie Daubs, the Globe’s Marcus Gee and Global TV’s Jackson Proskow were in attendance covering the gathering.) They were council candidates from a handful of wards around the city and the event was organized by HiMY SYeD, himself an outsider candidate for mayor. An introduction and orientation, if you will, with Mr. SYeD presenting a couple internet sites that he will launch to assist candidates in getting their names and platforms out to a wider audience. The candidates mingled, took turns talking to the press present and then got a chance to introduce themselves and their platforms to the audience.

I wasn’t there wearing rose coloured glasses. These folks seeking elected office were where they were because they lacked money and resources to run a high profile campaign, they didn’t have big name, backroom boys overseeing their operations and the media (Mssrs. Gee and Proskow and Ms. Daubs aside) had not deemed them worthy of serious consideration. Theirs was an uphill battle, to be sure, despite the fact that as HiMY SYeD pointed out, this was a once in a generation election with 20% of wards wide open with no sitting councillors in the race. “City Hall is bleeding incumbents,” as the event invite stated.

For sure, there were a couple cranks present in the Rob Ford mold, railing about out-of-control spending, over-taxation, corruption. How couldn’t there be? It is all the rage this election season.

But mostly what I saw were people galvanized around a concern for making Toronto a better, more accessible city not wild-eyed, pro-business fundamentalists bound on cutting it down to size. There was anger, for sure. Just not at the usual targets the mainstream press and their mayoral candidates are telling us people are angry at.

I had a conversation with Patrick Smyth, a campaign staffer for Terry Mills, a soft spoken but articulate candidate running to unseat Karen Stintz in Ward 16. Neither Smyth nor Mills seemed driven into the political arena for the reasons we are told that the electorate is angry out there. Both men are aware of the changing nature of Toronto, and the need for intensification and increased density. It’s just that their experience has left them feeling that citizens are being dictated not listened to. They are angry, yes, about the top down, exclusive, ad hoc nature of planning in Toronto.

None of which can possibly be addressed in the Rob Ford (and his increasingly evil-minded doppelganger, Rocco Rossi) slash and burn vision of the city under their rule. Our council is not burdened down with over representation. How cutting the number of councillors in half will increase citizen participation is part of both men’s magical mystery arithmetic. Less representation cannot equal more representation anymore than tunneling under the downtown core can alleviate traffic congestion.

These are the fringe ideas running amok in this campaign, and yet they are emanating from the camps of the so-called serious candidates. While we give time, space and credence to Rossi et al as they run around emptily embracing change and promising to take back City Hall with their increasingly bizarre and dangerous assault on democracy, the real grassroots, mainstream movement is happening in gatherings like that at Dovercourt Baptist Church yesterday. Real people with real concerns and real policies about how to make Toronto more livable, more inclusive and more equitable.

With just 6 weeks to go until we elect a new mayor and council, maybe we should start listening to those corners of the democratic process if we really want to make make Toronto into our own image.

— dutifully submitted by Cityslikr