Killing me softly.....
20/07/08 11:25 AM
So goes the old song. I can close my eyes, actually,
I can do it without them being closed but I never
miss the chance these days to snatch a few moments of
snooze, and hear Dionne Warwick crooning the words to
Burt Bacharach’s tinkling on the ivories. Great song,
but a scary premise when you take those words and
paste them on almost any news item of the day here in
good old Hogtown.
Killing me softly...... with new bicycle lanes on Eastern Avenue. I know, this seems silly and makes no sense to anyone who doesn’t know or care to know what or where Eastern Avenue is. But just think about this. Toronto Council voted last year to create more bike lanes in the downtown core, this time on Eastern Avenue, a four lane, the last four lane, road into the city centre. This came on the heels of constricting Dundas Street, the other four lane road headed downtown, to two lanes plus bike lanes two years ago.
They waited until the daily rush traffic moved to Eastern Avenue, just a few blocks south of Dundas, and then this week, new paint, and voila, a four lane roadway becomes a two lane roadway and another Snaildarter or rare Salamander is saved from extinction. An enterprising news crew spent a day counting traffic. The count? 12 bicycles and hundreds of cars, backed up, angry drivers, road rage, council rage, cyclist rage and, (if you happen to believe in these sorts of things.) tons and tons of evil carbon emissions floating up into the air from said stuck cars to block the sun and endanger the children.
Killing me softly.... This move comes just days after Toronto Council, yes those same jokers who are always crying poor to the Provincial and Federal Governments, voted to spend $11 Million to study tearing down a large section of the elevated Gardiner Expressway which, I detect a pattern here, is an incredibly efficient transportation corridor bringing cars, trucks, (read employees and essential goods like food, fuel, supplies) into the downtown core.
The study is to come up with a plan to tear down this roadway and replace it with an 8 lane boulevard of some description which is projected to cost $300 Million, have zero affect on traffic flow and of course be revenue neutral or some other such tripe. None of this latter part is even remotely true of course, it is just pap to get people to sign off on the study. The chances of any city ordered study coming up with a plan for an eight lane roadway are pretty remote unless of course, two of the lanes are for bicycles, two for buses, two for pedestrians and two for cars who purchase special passes allowing them into the downtown core.
Killing me softly......Little Davey Miller, Mayor of all the people, hails from England you see, and he has fallen in love with the “Congestion Tax” implemented by his hero and political inspiration, “Red” Ken Livingston, until recently Mayor of the City of London. Miller wants to implement a congestion tax, highway tolls, and if he could get away with it, an immigration entry tax levied at the city’s borders on anyone entering by bus, train, car or horse drawn vehicle.
Every time he floats these ideas, a couple of adults come out of hiding and speak publicly about how stupid they are and he backs off. Then a while later, one of his pet clones on council comes up with a back door way of sneaking up on the same plan couched in terms filled with references to “the children”, “global warming initiative” or that all encompassing, means nothing phrase, “sustainable development”.
Killing me softly......This week also saw the knuckleheads vote to send city staff out on a one year mission to record, catalogue and report on SHADE! That’s right, council has authorized a massive study to find out all we can about shade in the city, how much we have, how to make more, likely how to tax it, and who is going to pay for it. The councillor behind the motion berated skeptics with the appropriate magical, shut your mouth, words. “Because of Global Warming, we have an epidemic of children getting skin cancer” which was of course enough to snuff out all hope of any meaningful debate on the useless, huge waste of millions of dollars.
Even the study sited, which was one of those, 1 out of 4 people has mental health issues, vagaries that mean absolutely nothing, only said that 1 out of 7 children born today will (likely?) develop skin cancer in their lives. So of course, the alarmist faction jumps up with a burning need to DO SOMETHING FOR THE CHILDREN’S SAKE! . And they all fall down and vote to spend money on this outrageous study.
It should come as no surprise to those of you fortunate enough to live in what Torontonians refer to as “Fly over country”, that these city dwellers really cannot understand why the rest of the country either actively hates Toronto, or just wishes that it would slide into Lake Ontario sometime soon.
I can only offer this explanation and fervent wish. They are all NDP’rs who have fallen into power and are trying to do to the City what Mr. Rae did to the Province when he was very briefly Premier.
My wish is that “this too will pass”, and these pinheads will venture too close to the Sun and their wings will melt and they will finally come down to earth with the rest of us.
30
Killing me softly...... with new bicycle lanes on Eastern Avenue. I know, this seems silly and makes no sense to anyone who doesn’t know or care to know what or where Eastern Avenue is. But just think about this. Toronto Council voted last year to create more bike lanes in the downtown core, this time on Eastern Avenue, a four lane, the last four lane, road into the city centre. This came on the heels of constricting Dundas Street, the other four lane road headed downtown, to two lanes plus bike lanes two years ago.
They waited until the daily rush traffic moved to Eastern Avenue, just a few blocks south of Dundas, and then this week, new paint, and voila, a four lane roadway becomes a two lane roadway and another Snaildarter or rare Salamander is saved from extinction. An enterprising news crew spent a day counting traffic. The count? 12 bicycles and hundreds of cars, backed up, angry drivers, road rage, council rage, cyclist rage and, (if you happen to believe in these sorts of things.) tons and tons of evil carbon emissions floating up into the air from said stuck cars to block the sun and endanger the children.
Killing me softly.... This move comes just days after Toronto Council, yes those same jokers who are always crying poor to the Provincial and Federal Governments, voted to spend $11 Million to study tearing down a large section of the elevated Gardiner Expressway which, I detect a pattern here, is an incredibly efficient transportation corridor bringing cars, trucks, (read employees and essential goods like food, fuel, supplies) into the downtown core.
The study is to come up with a plan to tear down this roadway and replace it with an 8 lane boulevard of some description which is projected to cost $300 Million, have zero affect on traffic flow and of course be revenue neutral or some other such tripe. None of this latter part is even remotely true of course, it is just pap to get people to sign off on the study. The chances of any city ordered study coming up with a plan for an eight lane roadway are pretty remote unless of course, two of the lanes are for bicycles, two for buses, two for pedestrians and two for cars who purchase special passes allowing them into the downtown core.
Killing me softly......Little Davey Miller, Mayor of all the people, hails from England you see, and he has fallen in love with the “Congestion Tax” implemented by his hero and political inspiration, “Red” Ken Livingston, until recently Mayor of the City of London. Miller wants to implement a congestion tax, highway tolls, and if he could get away with it, an immigration entry tax levied at the city’s borders on anyone entering by bus, train, car or horse drawn vehicle.
Every time he floats these ideas, a couple of adults come out of hiding and speak publicly about how stupid they are and he backs off. Then a while later, one of his pet clones on council comes up with a back door way of sneaking up on the same plan couched in terms filled with references to “the children”, “global warming initiative” or that all encompassing, means nothing phrase, “sustainable development”.
Killing me softly......This week also saw the knuckleheads vote to send city staff out on a one year mission to record, catalogue and report on SHADE! That’s right, council has authorized a massive study to find out all we can about shade in the city, how much we have, how to make more, likely how to tax it, and who is going to pay for it. The councillor behind the motion berated skeptics with the appropriate magical, shut your mouth, words. “Because of Global Warming, we have an epidemic of children getting skin cancer” which was of course enough to snuff out all hope of any meaningful debate on the useless, huge waste of millions of dollars.
Even the study sited, which was one of those, 1 out of 4 people has mental health issues, vagaries that mean absolutely nothing, only said that 1 out of 7 children born today will (likely?) develop skin cancer in their lives. So of course, the alarmist faction jumps up with a burning need to DO SOMETHING FOR THE CHILDREN’S SAKE! . And they all fall down and vote to spend money on this outrageous study.
It should come as no surprise to those of you fortunate enough to live in what Torontonians refer to as “Fly over country”, that these city dwellers really cannot understand why the rest of the country either actively hates Toronto, or just wishes that it would slide into Lake Ontario sometime soon.
I can only offer this explanation and fervent wish. They are all NDP’rs who have fallen into power and are trying to do to the City what Mr. Rae did to the Province when he was very briefly Premier.
My wish is that “this too will pass”, and these pinheads will venture too close to the Sun and their wings will melt and they will finally come down to earth with the rest of us.
30
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