Council Wants Its Parking Lot
Toronto City Councillors seem to be on a roll of bright ideas which in the light of the media become very dim indeed.
The latest, to fund vending carts, recently faded away ignobly. But now they’ve come up with a variation on their failed parking lot idea from the west end. This time, it’s in the east end. An old Speedy Auto Glass outlet, now no more, will become a 19-spot parking lot to serve the area near Coxwell and Danforth. Apparently, this is to stimulate this area into becoming Bloor West Village 2. Aside from the fact that the Danforth between Broadview and Pape attracts all from far and near and so is pretty much Bloor West Village 2 and whereas the area near Coxwell and Danforth serves the local community as opposed to tourists and thus shoppers don’t need cars to shop, how are 19 additional spots near a subway station going to generate the huge increase in traffic needed to turn this into a go-to destination? And when water mains are bursting and rats are flourishing and basic municipal services are soon to be charged for and taxes are being bribed into being, where on earth does Council think it’s going to get $1.4 million? Apparently it’s a long-term investment thing. I don’t see it. When you’re falling down the dark debt hole fast, you do what New Zealand did, tighten the belt hard and reduce the budget down to core spending only.
The thing that really gets me though is that for a Council that likes to hold aloft its lamp of greenness as a beacon for others to follow, they do seem awfully obsessed with parking lots. Building them, that is.
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As a local, I would say build it on one condition - that the existing TPA lot be closed and the Coxwell subway redeveloped with Danforth frontage and 3-5 stories of commercial/retail. But thou shalt not impede the Toronto Parking Authority - after the Matador fiasco they will not want to be denied a second time.
LOL@thou shalt not!
Your idea would make sense. Coxwell seems undersized, and it would make that corner look less empty. Of course, the first subway they need to revamp is the Yonge station. I swear someone’s going to fall off that platform one day!