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Hogtown's new hope SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2003 - CHRISTOPHER DEWOLF MONTREAL, 20.11.03 : MILTON STREET IN THE MCGILL GHETTO MONTREAL, 20.11.03 : MCGILL UNIVERSITY, UNIVERSITY STREET MONTREAL, 20.11.03 : JEANNE-MANCE PARK ON THE PLATEAU MONTREAL, 20.11.03 : STAIRCASE ON DULUTH STREET MONTREAL, 20.11.03 : STAIRCASES ON ESPLANADE MONTREAL, 24.11.03 : SHEBROOKE STREET WEST IN NDG MONTREAL, 20.10.03 : STAIRCASE ON ST-URBAIN MONTREAL, 24.10.03 : SHERBROOKE STREET WEST IN NDG Nobody likes Toronto. Well, almost nobody. Okay, maybe some people. Yeah, it has a flourishing arts scene and amazing ethnic diversity. Big-city bustle, too. Fine, maybe it isn't so bad. It would a take a lot to coax this sort of admission out of a Montrealer or, well, just about any Canadian, but in the end, all but the most diehard malcontents are willing to admit that Toronto isn't such a bad place after all. And after this month's mayoral election, it just got even better. Enter David Miller. He's the new mayor of Toronto, a teeming city of 2.5 million, the hub of a metropolitan area with more than six million people, the economic engine of Canada. Toronto receives more than 100,000 immigrants each year, a larger number than even New York. As you might expect, Toronto is bursting at the seams. Its subways and streetcars are packed and its roads are gridlocked, and it is so starved for cash it has led the way for a 'new deal' for Canadian cities -- see the last update for more on that. Coming fresh on the heels of the rather clownish and incompetent Mel Lastman, Miller is nothing short of refreshing. His campaign focused on the need for a clean sweep: an end to the backroom deals and opaque City Hall that plagued Lastman's tenure, along with reinvestment across the board, in public transit, housing and the arts. Most of Miller's promises hinge on raising taxes getting more money from the provincial government, relying heavily on newly-elected premier Dalton McGuinty's promise to give cities two cents per litre of the gas tax. Normally, any mention of raising taxes would absolutely kill a political campaign. But, as the Toronto Star's city columnist Royson James notes, "It seems disgust over eroding infrastructure is greater than fear of government costs. A desire to fix homelessness supersedes demands to choke off spending. And the yearning to improve Toronto's quality of life and urban amenities outweighs the always-present concerns of waste." During the campaign, Miller's only big gaffe was musing about a $2.25 toll on Toronto's major downtown-bound highway, to be invested entirely in public transit, and then brushing off the concerns of motorists. Nonetheless, Miller's platform of reinvestment won over the voters. Still, it's going to be a bumpy ride. The Globe and Mail's John Barber casts a more cynical eye over Miller's pledges: as the TTC unveiled service cuts and a huge deficit last week, Miller was stuck begging for more time to work things out. Already, McGuinty seems hesitant about handing Toronto its promised share of the gas tax. On the other hand, a summit held yesterday by Toronto members of both the provincial and federal government came up with a bold new suggestion to raise the federal and provincial gas taxes, funneling far more money into the Toronto area than the two cents promised by McGuinty and incoming prime minister Paul Martin. At least Miller's head is in the right place. He is one of the most pro-urban mayors in Canada, enthusiastic about and concerned with the quality of Toronto's urban fabric. In today's issue of the Star, he muses about reinforcing Toronto's urban design department and is intrigued by Vancouver's urban design review board, which examines the quality of each development. (An example of the board's power in a recent edition of the Globe: Vancouver has managed to get developers to include facilities for non-profit cultural groups, like a screening space for the city's international film festival, in their condominium developments at no cost to the city.) Jane Jacobs, a virtual semi-deity among urbanists, heads Miller's mayoral transition team. Deep down, despite a somewhat shaky funding situation, Miller seems like a mayor who really cares about his city. Imagine that. ――― I was also planning on writing about Montreal's demerger situation, but I figured that would kill me and most of you, too. Municipal politics can only be had in small doses; after that, people start banging their heads against the wall and pulling out hair. If you're interested the whole demerger debacle -- hell, if you have no idea what it is and would like to find out -- take a look at Kate McDonnell's Montreal City blog. Discuss this post on our discussion forum Head over to the archives for last month's posts New Deal redux MONDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2003 - CHRISTOPHER DEWOLF MONTREAL, 29.10.03 : FAIRMOUNT AT JEANNE-MANCE MONTREAL, 12.11.03 : CINÉMA L'AMOUR ON THE MAIN MONTREAL, 29.10.03 : SHERBROOKE STREET EAST MONTREAL, 29.10.03 : SHERBROOKE AT ST-LAURENT MONTREAL, 13.11.03 : MCTAVISH STREET, MCGILL UNIVERSITY MONTREAL, 12.11.03 : ESPLANADE STREET NEAR MONT-ROYAL MONTREAL, 13.11.03 : WINDOW-DRESSER ON MOUNTAIN STREET MONTREAL, 26.10.03 : MAISONNEUVE FROM MORGAN PARK MONTREAL, 29.10.03 : PARC AVENUE NEAR FAIRMOUNT If Jack Layton gets his way, FDR won't be the only one remembered for a New Deal. Over the past few years, urban politicians and just about all of the Toronto media have been clamouring for more power for Canada's cities. Layton, of course, is the relatively-new federal NDP leader, a former 20-year Toronto city councillor, a political scientist and the president of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. A couple of weeks ago, I sat in on an low-key talk given by Layton -- only a couple dozen people and, thank god, no media -- who outlined his views on a new deal for Canada's cities. But first, it helps explaining what's wrong with Canadian cities to begin with. After all, they work pretty well, they have low crime rates and they aren't half-bad places to live. Increasingly, though, disinvestment combined with rampant growth has pushed them into the red and stripped them of any wiggle room beyond basic maintenance. At the root of the problem is a constitutional question. In 1867, the British North America Act, which united the four founding provinces into the Canada we now know, designated municipalities as a provincial concern, along with things like health care and prisons. It made sense at the time, considering that less than a quarter of all Canadians lived in cities, but now the ratio been reversed: over 80 percent of all Canadians now live in cities and half of all Canadians live in the four biggest cities. Yet municipalities are still the subjects of the provinces, able to be created and destroyed at a whim -- as the Ontario and Quebec governments did in 1996 and 2002 with the amalgamations of Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa and Quebec City. Cities gain all of their revenue from property taxes; anything else is bestowed upon them by the provincial government. This system worked well enough until the mid-1990s, when the federal government slashed spending to pay down a giant deficit. Faced with less cash to work with, provinces downloaded many costs onto cities. This is particularly true of Ontario, where the lack of funds was exacerbated by the fact that Mike Harris' Conservative government did not exactly get along well with Toronto. Elected by a coalition of rural and suburban voters -- the city of Toronto, 2.5 million people strong, elected only a handful of Tories -- the Harris government deprived Toronto of funding for public transit and social services. Led by, among others, Layton and the Toronto Star -- especially dogged city columnist Royson James -- Torontonians cried out for a new deal for cities. The outcry was so great even prime minister-to-be Paul Martin got on board. At various intervals, he promised a formal consultation with cities prior to the budget, five cents per litre of the gas tax to be given to the cities and a new minister for urban affairs. Things are now looking up: in Ontario, the Common Sense Revolution was trampled in the October 2003 election of Dalton McGuinty's Liberals. During the campaign, McGuinty made plenty of overtures to Toronto, promising two cents of the gasoline tax for public transit in Toronto -- that's an extra $130 million per year -- 20,000 new units of affordable housing and tax-deductible transit passes. Last week, Toronto elected a new mayor, David Miller, who looks to be decidedly pro-urban and a strong voice for Toronto. Most strikingly, the mayor of Winnipeg, Glen Murray, came out with his own New Deal to give cities more power. Winnipeg, of course, is that cold, isolated city in the middle of Canada, imbibed with a quirky underground culture -- see the Weakerthans -- and a proud tradition of leftist politics. Unfortunately, it is also one of Canada's most struggling cities, with a stagnant population, decaying infrastructure and a horrendous legacy of poverty in the city's First Nations-dominated North End. If Toronto is falling apart because it has no money to cope with the hundreds of thousands of migrants and immigrants who arrive each year, Winnipeg is falling apartment because it has no money precisely because people aren't coming in droves. "Murray is a complex guy," observes the columnist Pall Wells. "If you ask him a question, you get a rapid-fire answer in 40 parts, and you wind up a little dizzy. Naturally his New Deal serves complex ends." Much of the plan addresses Winnipeg's rampant sprawl -- even though the population isn't growing, new suburbs are being built -- with the aim to get people and businesses to reinvest in its struggling urban neighbourhoods. First, Murray would cut the business tax by 34 percent, then cut to the price of bus passes by 50 percent. Third, and most importantly, impose a "frontage levy" that taxes anything that occupies a large surface area. Build out, like Wal-Mart, and you're going to pay a fortune; build up and you're getting a deal. Property taxes would be cut, too and user fees established on things like garbage pickup and liquor. The plan might go national, too, if Murray decides to run as a Liberal in the upcoming federal election, is elected and becomes the new minister of urban affairs Martin promised in his new deal proposals. Of course, not everyone's so optimistic. During the talk, Layton went through what he sees as weaknesses in Martin's plan. That formal consultation with cities prior to the budget? Sounds nice, but what the cities say wouldn't be binding, so Martin could still do whatever he wants. The five cent gas tax would be given to cities, yes, but without the qualification that it must be used for public transit or affordable housing. The minister for urban affairs, Layton says, would end up being a junior minister, not one of the influential big guys with lots of resources at his or her disposal. Layton insists that, instead of a minister, urban affairs should be dealt with by a cabinet committee. He also thinks that a there must be a concrete plan to build 20,000 new units of affordable housing per year for a decade, coupled with 10,000 renovations of slum housing in decaying cities like Winnipeg. There's definitely reason to be sceptical of Martin's New Deal promises. After all, he has spent the past year promising everything to everyone. Today, at attaboy.ca, local blogger Luke Andrews delivered a bang-on, perfectly hilarious attack on "the concept of Paul": "paulmartin™," he writes, "is everything Canadians want it — er, him, to be. He’s for a strong, united Canada. He’s for strong provinces, an independent voice for the West. He’s for Quebec. He’s for social welfare. He’s for keeping our financial house in good order. Yes, friends, with paulmartin, you can solve even the toughest stains." Layton might have that too-slick politician's charm, but at least he knows his stuff, having devoted the past two decades to the problems of Canada's cities as head of the FCM. He also appears to be moving the NDP towards the centre, where it would actually become a viable contender for government. This is Canada, after all, where the middle-of-the-road rules, hence all those Liberal governments over the past century. Providing that Layton can help the NDP win more seats -- and providing, of course, he can actually win his by-election race against Dennis Mills and get a seat for himself -- Canada's cities could finally have a strong, authentic voice in Parliament. Discuss this post on our discussion forum Head over to the archives for last month's posts Jaywalking WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2003 - CHRISTOPHER DEWOLF MONTREAL, 30.10.03 : DELI AT FAIRMOUNT AND ST-URBAIN MONTREAL, 31.10.03 : ST-PAUL STREET IN OLD MONTREAL MONTREAL, 31.10.03 : SKYLINE FROM POINTE-À-CALLIÈRE MONTREAL, 31.10.03 : GRAIN SILOS AND THE LACHINE CANAL MONTREAL, 31.10.03 : CHINATOWN BOOKSTORE MONTREAL, 31.10.03 : OLD WOMEN IN CHINATOWN MONTREAL, 31.10.03 : TINY MUSIC STORE IN CHINATOWN MONTREAL, 31.10.03 : COSTUME SHOP ON HALLOWEEN I confess. I jaywalked today. In fact, I did it countless times -- maybe every time I crossed the street. I'm not alone. Montrealers jaywalk with reckless abandon, hurling themselves across even the busiest streets at the busiest times of day. Red lights mean nothing to a Montreal pedestrian; if there's a chance of making it across the street with life and limbs intact, it's time to cross. Jaywalking is just as common in cities like Boston and New York, too. Yet jaywalking in particular is often singled out as a primary concern by police, traffic engineers, motorists and overzealous mayors like Rudy Giuliani. Giuliani, of course, is the former New York mayor who equated "quality of life" crimes like jaywalking and graffiti with big fish like murder and robbery, somehow believing that if New Yorkers jaywalked less, they'd kill each other a little bit less, too. Where does this opposition to jaywalking come from? Well, as the conventional logic goes, crossing the street against the light is an obstacle to important things like traffic flow and human life. But in reality, that's only half true. According to a 1995 Transportation Alternatives study, only 18.3 percent of pedestrian accidents in New York occurred when the pedestrian was crossing against the light; 35 percent happened when the pedestrian was crossing legally. A 2001 Transportation Canada study revealed that, between 1988 and 1997, there was an average of 486 annual pedestrian deaths, 70 percent of which were in urban areas. Nearly half of the pedestrians killed in 1997 were drunk, which seems to indicate that the everyday type of sober jaywalking you see on downtown streets is not a leading cause of death. Jaywalking, after all, is a necessarily interactive process. It forces drivers and pedestrians to acknowledge each other, making them more conscious of the other's presence. It's probably pretty safe to say that drivers on streets like Ste-Catherine in Montreal become more cautious when they know there's a high possibility of someone wading out into traffic. On streets with few pedestrians, on the other hand, or one-way roads engineered for maximum traffic flow, drivers speed up and become lazy, making the few who dare to jaywalk far more vulnerable. Jaywalkers, basically, put drivers in their place, reminding them that the city isn't their own personal speedway. Since so many accidents involving pedestrians are caused either by driver error -- that 35 percent in New York where pedestrians crossed legally, for instance -- or pedestrians whose capacities for reason are compromised -- the 45 percent of dead peds who were drunk -- what's the point of crackdowns on harmless, innocent jaywalking? Shouldn't the focus be on making drivers slow down instead of relegating pedestrians to crosswalks encumbered by ill-timed, auto-oriented signals? As it stands, jaywalking laws are only arbitrarily enforced. Occasionally, Montreal police embark on one-week jaywalking-awareness campaigns that are more or less ignored. Sometimes, police cadets just stand at Ste-Catherine and Peel, politely reminding incredulous passers-by that jaywalking is, in fact, illegal. Sometimes those passers-by just tell 'em to go to hell. When jaywalking laws are enforced, it's done in a discriminatory manner: they're a perfect way to nab protesters or, as the Montreal Mirror reported last year, find an excuse to deport an illegal immigrant. If that's the way jaywalking is dealt with, it would be a lot wiser to just scrap the laws. Then again, getting rid of arbitrary laws like this one would deprive municipal governments like New York's Bloomberg administration of a quick-and-easy cash fix. After all, when you're running on empty, it's a lot easier to get your police to ticket people for absurd and arcane infractions than to make any real attempts to balance the books. And maybe it's a little bit fun to know, way back in some dusty corner of your mind, that you're breaking the law each time you cross the street. The minute you step off the curb into the middle of St-Laurent Boulevard or Boylston Street or Sixth Avenue, you become a bit of a rebel, a little David against the evil Goliath of automobilistic hegemony, screwing the system one cross-street dash at a time. Maybe one day you'll even get a ticket, something you can show your friends with a bit of ironic pride -- cause it ain't likely to ever happen again. ――― November's featured photoessay, Street Fair, is online. Street Fair is a collection of photos I took over the summer at Montreal's numerous street parties. Most were shot at the twice-annual St-Laurent Street Main Madness festival, but the St-Jean-Baptiste celebrations on St-Viateur Street, a street sale on St-Hubert and Car Free Day on downtown Ste-Catherine Street are also included. Now that the weather has gone to shit, at least in this part of the world, it might be a good time to crack open a beer, sit back and pretend it's not pouring freezing rain outside.  Discuss this post on our discussion forum Head over to the archives for last month's posts