Municipal Election Time, Stand up for a better town or march behind Mr Ford.

 Municipal elections are coming up and councillor and mayoralty candidates are on the hustings talking about local issues. One of the things that has caught my ear lately are some of the common words and catch phrases being bandied about. Words like "walkable" and "affordable housing".

Every candidate and their uncle wants a "thriving" community with "walkable" neighbourhoods. Are they serious? Ask them then if they are willing to advocate for banning cars from some areas, reducing the speed limits to 30 km/h and reducing lane widths until 2 cars can't pass if there is a third parked at the side. Are they really willing to advocate for 13 foot wide bike lanes? That's how it is done in the Netherlands. Are they really willing to ban all cars from school districts and force kids to walk 2 km to school? That's how it is done in Japan where the only school buses are "walking school buses", seniors walking the little ones through safe, clean and monitored districts. 



How do you make a community thrive when it is zoned for just one purpose, the car? We put our single family dwellings in a zone by themselves, we put the shops in a whole other zone. Then we put our employment and offices in yet another zone. It doesn't really make sense but are our candidates talking about "mixed use zoning" which, by the way, was the norm before the automobile came along.

Candidates may also be talking about doing something about the cost of housing. We know that restrictive zoning laws are a contributor to the lack of affordable housing. Therefore the candidate needs to be willing to roll up their sleeves and take on the status quo, and to stare down the neighbour who is fighting the duplex reno going on next door.

The reason I am writing about this here is that all these things I have talked about really hinge on Ontario's Planning Act. If we are ever going to see truly "walkable" neighbourhoods with safe and useful bike lanes and if we want to see a lot more mixed use zoning, car free zones and affordable housing then we need real leadership from our provincial government and we need local politicians that are willing to go nose to nose with our MPPs. We need to see real meaningful changes at the provincial level that will enable or even assist municipalities to achieve these goals. And, at the very least, we need local politicians to "fight", "stand up for" and disagree with the status quo.

Unfortunately Doug Fords plan is antithetical to these ideals. He wants to build more highways, expand the burbs and build, build, build. We like our cars. We like our spacious single family house with a backyard surrounded by similar houses. We seem to be OK with schools being far enough away to require driving the kids to school every morning. Very few seem to mind the "reduction of red tape" so that we can build over our wetlands. We are being pandered to and when local politicians use words like "walkable" and "affordable" they are just falling into step and marching behind Mr Ford.

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