Mayor John Tory says he wants to move some of the special events that close down city streets away from the downtown core as part of his ongoing effort to reduce gridlock.
Tory made the comment to reporters after chairing the inaugural meeting of the city’s new road closure co-ordination working group at the city’s transportation operations centre on Don Mills Road Friday morning.
“We have to be firm about some of these things and sort of get people to think outside the box a bit. Everything doesn’t have to be downtown,” Tory said. “It would be great for the city to have more events in North York, Scarborough and Etobicoke but the challenge we have had in the past is that we go at the last minute and two months from the event we discover there is a problem and say ‘Would you consider moving your event?’”
During the mayoral campaign, Tory promised to chair the new road closure co-ordination committee for six months so he could personally ensure that road closures aren’t scheduled at the same time as major events or planned TTC service interruptions.
Following the first meeting of the committee on Friday, Tory admitted that it will be hard to find solutions for some of the “problem weekends” in 2015 but he said starting in 2016 he will be asking the organizers of a number of annual events to consider relocating them elsewhere in the city.
“It’s difficult for politicians to say no but as one who believes he got elected on the basis of bringing greater coordination to this kind of thing and making traffic move better I believe people have given me a mandate if necessary to say no sometimes,” he said. “It may not be popular to do that, but our greatest tool may be to say ‘We are just not going to let you have the event downtown. You can have it at a different time or a different place’ and I am prepared to do that.”
Though Tory said he wants city officials be more sensitive to the plight of drivers, he stopped short of declaring a war on events on major arteries as former Mayor Rob Ford did.
Ford drew considerable scorn during the 2010 mayoral campaign when he suggested that marathons be held in city parks instead of on streets.
“People who run in marathons don’t want to run around a park 400 times or whatever. That is ridiculous. However, what I am saying and what we talked about is that when three groups want to have their run down Yonge Street in the same month we may have to say to one of them ‘Sorry, but not until 2016.’ I am prepared to take the heat for that because it is in the public interest,” Tory said.
In addition to discussing the need to reschedule or relocate some events, tory said the working group also brainstormed about how the city could better advertise upcoming road closures.
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