A massive fail from an insider in the John Tory/Michael Ignatieff Brain Trust
Yeah, yeah get your head around that header but how often can you find anyone who can claim to be both an insider in John Tory’s failed mayoral candidacy circa 2003 and for being the one to first suggest to Ignatieff needed to come to revive the Liberal party future? Cripes, just what Toronto needs – another fracking liberal slumming as a right of centre conservative. CBC:
As mayor, Rossi would also ensure bicycle lanes would no longer appear on main roads “because common sense and safety tell me that bike lanes and arterial roads do not mix.” He instead favours adding bike lanes on side streets parallel to arterial roads, telling reporters a council-approved plan to add bike lanes on Jarvis Street “has to be stopped.”
This is a completely asinine comment from a candidate who wants to be Mayor of the City of Toronto but who shows an utter lack of familiarity with the physical character of the downtown core. While an anti-bike/public transportation platform and sentiments might make suburbanites driving in from the GTA to Toronto every day stand-up and cheer; it doesn’t sway those people who actually live and work in downtown Toronto. And who have a vote to cast. If anything, it illustrates Rocco Rossi’s general unfitness as a mayoral candidate.
And just as obviously, Rossi knows very little about the character of those side streets which line and intersect major arterials ways downtown – like there isn’t one running north and south tucked between Sherbourne and Jarvis Street for starters. And who is going to tell homeowners on those side streets where Rossi’s imaginary designated bikes lanes will go? I am sure those homeowners will be thrilled, just thrilled and tickled pink; when told to give up all parking in front of their homes to make way for bike lanes on those ‘oh-so-narrow-19th century’ sides streets? Of course, it will dry up another source of revenue for the City Hall when it can no longer charge for issuing a permits for overnight parking on sides streets because the bike lanes have used all available parking space.
And that bike lane on Jarvis – it’s for the protection of both bikers and drivers. It would be completely unnecessary; if automobile drivers would simply learn to ‘share’ the road.
