Come and cheer the runners on and support the Cabbagetown Youth Centre!

I checked Parkdale out at the time, loved the great Victorian houses, liked the reasonable prices and saw great potential as a neighbourhood. I showed those houses, sold some of them, and have been waiting for years for the area to really soar. I’m still waiting.

Entry to the Parkdale market has always offered value but reselling a substantially renovated property has always been the challenge.

The Good: Great proximity to High Park , Roncesvalles  shopping and Liberty Village  as well as 24-hour transit and some of the best Victorian homes in the city.

The Bad: The area is still rough along the edges and you may not see the return on investment that you would in other neighbourhoods. Parking is a premium in this area, as in all areas that predate the automobiles; however the large number of rental apartments makes it even worse.

So love it for the housing stock and the proximity to a lot of what is great about Toronto . But as far as a long-term investment is concerned, you will be waiting like I am.

Richard Silver  is a salesperson with Bosley Real Estate Ltd  and blogs at torontoism.com 

Re-posted From: INToronto Magazine .

First….most of the great large cities in the world have excellent Subways and rail lines. Toronto slowed and almost stopped building Subways and rapid transit years ago and we became more and more dependent on highways for transportation.

Second…Toronto is surrounded by bedroom communities filled with people who use the major thoroughfares to come to the City to make their incomes and head back to their suburban properties where they pay the most of their taxes. Some major cities like New York make suburbanites who get paid in the City, pay a special tax to the City of New York.

Third…and most important…even though it is difficult, cars have made it easier to live in one part of the City, work in another part of the City or Province and recreate in yet another part of the City or Province. We think nothing of doing so because the cost  is relatively cheap.

Maybe a toll on the major City owned highways during peak hours will make us think more about living closer to work, telecommuting or travelling the highways at non-peak times:

• The 407 Highway sits at the top of the City and if you’re in a rush and choose to use it, it is a great option.
• Houston, Texas has a circle of freeways surrounding the City that has one lane that is a “Pay-Express” lane.
• It’s cheaper to fly on Porter Airlines on off peak hours…

With all, the consumer can make a decision. If you have to travel the major arteries at peak hours, you pay. I will happily do so if I know that we will start building major Subways again.

I salute Sarah Thompson, candidate for Mayor of  Toronto City Council, for bringing the subject to the political table. Chances are it will never happen because it is a “hot potato” but it is something that we should be thinking about.

Your thoughts?

It is hard to forget the personalities involved, who they were, what they did and what would have lead to this horrible result. Yes, this City was built mostly for cars and we now have a strong movement to make the streets more bicycle friendly.

I don’t cycle anymore because it is dangerous out there on the City streets. I have had too many friends who have been hurt riding bikes when there were no cars around. The roads are in worse shape then they have ever been and the Trolley tracks make cycling in Toronto an event more like the “Tour de France”.

That being said, I have watched the “Bicycle Courier” community and know that they are important part of the business transacted in Downtown Toronto. Their job is to get those documents to their destinations as quickly as possible. They even have races within the community, usually ride Racing Bikes and not the more suitable, Mountain Bikes. Couriers look at the streets of the City as a race track. They have a different agenda than most cyclists and I think we need to look at them apart from more traditional cyclists. We must be aware of the different goals of Bicyclists and Bicycle Couriers but we must also be aware of the similarities:

There are no licensing rules for bicycles. They seldom are held to the same rules of the road that car drivers are: driving on the wrong side of the road, on walk ways, the wrong way in bicycle lanes, through stoplights, through pedestrian walkways, not wearing helmets etc. When was the last time you saw a bicyclist signalling a turn or a lane change?

The bottom line is this: Bikes are vehicles that are on the street in vehicular lanes. Licensing should be universal. Car Drivers have to attach seat belts but only children have to wear head gear on bikes. Everyone must abide by all the rules of the road. Both are responsible but the playing field is not equal and sadly the outcome benefits the car driver because of the size of the car and the protection it provides.

Recently on visits to Vancouver and Quebec City, I noticed that they have put up 2 foot curbs between the car space and the bicycle lanes. They are truly separate spaces not one space with a painted line on it. If we’re really serious about bike lanes, let’s move them away from vehicle lanes, license bicyclists and enforce rules of the road.

Everyone must bear the responsibility of what transpired Monday night but let’s see some leadership on both sides.

The deal that the City has offered the workers looks to be something that they should consider very seriously as they have very little support from the Citizenry, who seem committed to seeing the end of the “banked sick days”. The concept baffles most and seems to be too much of the old “pigs at the trough” philosophy. It is time for the workers to get back to work so that the City can get back to a semblance of normalcy for the rest of the summer.

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Toronto Moves Towards a Strike.

 As we march towards a CUPE strike of City workers, here are my thoughts. It will be interesting to see what transpires as the days pass:

1. I think that what the City workers are asking for and have been getting is unrealistic. Banked sick days, whether the economy is good or bad, is an exceptional BENEFIT, that does not appear in the private sector without bankrupting the Corporation. It is time to let that one go. It is not a RIGHT, it is a BENEFIT.
2. Mayor David Miller is very quite on the subject of his position on the workers demands. He will wait till they go on strike before he speaks out in any way about the Unions as he is their guy and don’t hold your breath waiting for him to show Leadership against the Union.
3. The Unions know that in an election year, Mayor Miller will not speak out against them and is probably working with them behind the scenes on this scenario as he did with the Builders when he proposed the Miller Land Transfer Tax. I think that the fix is already in.
4. The Public, unsupportive of the Unions will be unhappy and ask the Province to step in and legislate the Unions back to work.
5. The Provincial Liberal Party will eventually order the workers back to work. Mayor Miller will smell like roses and the City of Toronto like garbage.

What are your thoughts? Are you as jaded as I am? Feel free to comment below:

Last night the City voted to close one lane of Jarvis Street to Cars and make Jarvis Street more Bike friendly. How about spending that money fixing some of the existing roadways that are potholed? It is all gamesmen-ship at City Hall and the homeowner and car owner are losing…with David Miller as Mayor, get used to more of it! Maybe if we created a Homeowner and Car owner Union we would have more say at City Hall.

When are we going to get angry enough?? Note the photo Mayor Miller and Mr. Rae? It is called WINTER.

First, I have never understood why Toronto stopped building Subways. Weeks ago I was in Chicago, was thrilled to be able to take a subway from Downtown to the Airport (avoiding Traffic jams),  happy to view a labryinth of Subways in a City not much different than Toronto.

So here is what ticks me off. If Toronto is lacking in mass transport, which puts pressure on those of us living in Toronto, then this Mayor and his henchmen making it even more difficult to drive cars in the City only puts pressure on those of us who live here. They think that making it harder to get around by car in the City will deal with a traffic problem that is really created by the lack of infrastructure. The present infrastructure is pushed to the limits because of the major highways that surround the City and by a work force working in the City and paying taxes in the suburbs.

It is time to bite the bullet and have user fees on the Highways that will support their repair and extend the transit in the GTA to World-Class standards. A City growing at the rate of  Metro Toronto should never stop building Subways and extending the Subways may get more day-timers to leave their cars at home.

It may also be time to do what New York has had to do: Everyone working in the New York City pays a tax directly to the City of New York. The idea of making your income in Toronto and then paying taxes in another jurisdiction….when you spend a good part of your day using City of Toronto services must be visited seriously.

Under this Mayor and his followers, if you are a homeowner (ie. Taxpayer) and a car owner you are better served and respected in the 905. Last year’s Miller Taxes (Land Transfer and Car Licensing fees) have not raised the revenue that the City of Toronto promised and only made the 905 Real Estate Market increase at the expense of the 416 Market.

Continuing to re-invent this City as a bicycle and pedestrian haven when most residents avoid the bitter winter weather in their cars or transit for half the year does not make sense to me. To “deal with Cars” by making it more difficult to get around in them will never work but it will make Mr. Miller’s supporter’s happy and get us further and further away from real solutions.