Well, it looks like Toronto has gone into a by election as of April 3rd, because former Mayor John Tory had an affair. I’m of two minds on this, in that he should have stayed on regardless of what he had done and who he had done anything with. He was elected to a third term as the Mayor of Toronto and he was well-liked, for the most part. Sure, he has his faults, but who doesn’t? He may be a softy, but so am I and I know that I am. For those who don’t like that, fuck off. On the other hand, a lot of what I am talking about has happened on his watch and also, on the watch of at least 1 or more mayoral candidates. One was a chief of police and others were/ are city councillors.
So, now we have to elect a new leader to keep the city of Toronto humming and we have some interesting candidates, who range from the clownish to the quite serious. Among the more dangerous ones is Blake Acton, who wants there to be free public transit in Toronto. So, anyone can hop on and off of the TTC, including anyone who is homeless and who may also have an addiction problem. Hasn’t he learned anything from what has happened on the TTC, with the various stabbings and some of them resulting in the deaths of innocent citizens? Who’s to say that those same people who have no home and may have a drug problem won’t ask anyone, including those who are children or disabled, for money, in order to feed their addiction? Rather than make the TTC safe again, he proposes to have it become a haven for homeless and or, addicts.
Others who are running have other ideas, including raising taxes as a part of their platforms and one, has a proposal I can get behind. Ripping out the bicycle lanes, including the concrete ones. When I had heard Anthony Furey mention this on the radio a few weeks ago, I had thought that this may be the guy I am hoping to become our new leader. However, it is a question of whether he actually will do what he says, or just say that in order to get votes. Now that Olivia Chow is running, this will be an interesting campaign and she may have interest, in most of what I wish for our new mayor. I wonder if George Smitherman will throw his hat into the ring. I hope not because I just don’t like him, because he sounds like an unprepared bad student. He also sounds angry all the time and I don’t want my leader to be filled with rage, or sound like they are when ever they talk, or sound like they are making things up as they go along. I’m liberal, but it doesn’t mean that I will reflexively vote for someone of the same stripe for mayor. It all has to do with how they deliver themselves and whether they are willing to do as I and the rest of Toronto will want. I won’t vote unless I am almost guaranteed, to deliver on their promise to me and the rest of Toronto.
What do I want out of our new mayor? As someone who was born in Toronto, I basically want the city to function well, with all the essentials, including the TTC and if there has to be extra security, I’m all for it unless they could be potentially power hungry and assholes.
I hope that we all get cell phone service in the subway tunnels and in all subway stations, no matter where the hell you are and my provider is helping out with that. However, they have said that they will allow others to jump on and use their cellular infrastructure, which we all should do. I believe that if one service provider goes down, others should allow usage. Besides, I know this all too well as Rogers had gone down on July 8th last year. I am a customer and experienced the outage and I was luckier than others in my position, in that when I went to attempt to pay for groceries, the store wher I shop allowed me to pay for them next time I came in, along with new groceries I would buy that day. It should also be free usage, at least for a day as outages don’t normally last longer than that.
As I had stated above, I hope that the bike lanes are ripped out, especially ones which interfere with the TTC, in that bus stops were removed. I have talked about that before in past posts and if I don’t get my stop back, I will settle for the bike lanes being gone. Those who ride toys will just have to find somewhere else to play and be more adroit add riding their bicycles on the streets, in order to get where they’re going. To me, bikes are vehicles which should be in the same lane as other larger tons of steel and those who choose to ride them on the road, should become more skillful, at riding down the street with everyone else and not have their own designated lanes, especially in areas where public transit vehicles stop.
Otherwise, I am happy with how the city is running and if and when I get the knock on the door, by someone looking for votes, I will be mentioning the bike lanes and how I want them gone. If whom ever wants my vote, that has to happen and also be guaranteed to take place. I know it may not happen right away, but I am hopeful that it will result in the concrete platforms and white lines being removed from my area and as a bonus, I want our bus stop back. I will settle for nothing less than this and if whom ever says that they won’t go that far for me, you won’t get my vote on June 26th.
As for crime, get those who have addiction issues off of the TTC and put them somewhere, they can get off of what ever drugs they are on. Also, let’s keep any homeless people and panhandlers out of the subway stations and put them in a shelter, as well as out of city parks. Let’s do what we can, to stop any criminal activity on TTC property and put anyone who breaks the law, behind bars. Those who have mental issues need to be communicated with, by social workers and this can probably be done, through the police and that is before, it gets to the next level, of charging a person with committing violence, or any other type of crime, including robery.
Also, the issue of Accessibility is another thing which should be looked at, particularly for those of us who are blind and visually impaired and I have talked about some of that in an earlier post. There may have been work done on that, but it’s not good enough, as I will state below and Olivia Chow may also take to heart, as she fights for the underdog and sometimes, the underdogs are those of us who are disabled, in one way or another.
Some of us live in community housing and any and all pieces of paper dropped in our doors has print and not brail on them. I don’t expect brail, but what I do expect is that all building Supers be required to notify any and all residents by email. They should have access to our email addresses on our rental lease, along with our phone numbers and this should go for everyone, no matter whether you are blind or sighted.
The other issue is that any machines we use to do laundry should be more accessible to everyone, especially the blind. Currently, there is no accessible way for anyone who can not see, to use their debit card to load money, onto their laundry card and this can be done, like ATMs have, with a headphone jack and a voice coming out of it as the input, to a persons earbuds or headphones. If it requires Bluetooth, that might be a different issue altogether and I’m not sure that’s possible. However, if Bank machines have the headphone jack why doesn’t machines which load our laundry cards have the same? It would be better for everyone and the only person who will hear the voice is the one doing the transaction. Plus, if there is an option to blank the screen, that’s all the better for me. There are other issues, but they don’t seem to affect me as much.
Like I said, the city is generally doing fine, but let’s get rid of bike lanes where they shouldn’t be and let’s keep potential criminals off of public transit, off of public transit’s property and in a safe place, away from everyone else, who is just trying to get around peacefully. I’m sorry to see John Tory go, but I’m afraid he may have played a part in some of what has happened as of late. Good luck to all candidates and if you promise what I want, you may get my vote in June. If not, you simply won’t.
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