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Election Report Card: Transportation

While big ticket transit plans have been the most talked-about aspect of this election, they’re not the only part of the transportation equation. Torontonians get around on foot, by bike and in cars. So which candidate has the best plan to get the city movingy?

John Tory

The platform: Tory supports building separated bike lanes in “sensible locations” (he hasn’t specified where those are) but opposes painted bike lanes, which he says are “unsafe.” He says he will expand the city’s trail network and promote cycling tourism. He proposes more bike parking on streets and at TTC stations, and promises to provide sheltered bike parking at all of his 22 SmartTrack stations.

On the city’s most ambitious complete streets initiative, Eglinton Connects, Tory says that the traffic implications have been “inadequately considered.” He wants the central section of the project, which would reduce the street to three lanes, eliminated.

On Open Streets projects he is agnostic, saying he would have to be convinced they don’t cause traffic congestion.

Like the other two leading candidates, he promises to better manage car traffic by coordinating traffic lights. He’s promising to redeploy parking officers from residential areas to major arteries during rush hour.

Funnily enough, his much-mocked water taxi scheme from the early days of the campaign is still on his website.

The good: After years of delay, progress is finally being made on separated bike lanes, and that needs to continue.

The bad: His lack of support for Eglinton Connects is disappointing, and his platform gives no consideration to pedestrian safety. He foolishly discounts the effectiveness of painted bike lanes, which are suitable for some streets.

The score: Tory is still way too invested in the supremacy of the car. 2/5

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Olivia Chow

The platform: Taking a page from New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, Chow is advocating a “Target Zero” strategy to completely eliminate pedestrian deaths. She would do this by: reconfiguring the 100 most dangerous intersections allowing communities to reduce speed limits across neighbourhoods all at once, instead of on the current street-by-street basis and making curbs square instead of rounded to prevent drivers making turns at high speed. She is the only candidate of the top three proposing adding side guards to all city trucks.

She’s also advocating making permanent the Open Streets initiative, which launched this year on a pilot project basis.

Chow is pledging 200 kilometres of painted and separated bike lanes over four years, and to fast-track bike lane pilot projects downtown. She would also install more secure bike parking at TTC stations.

She supports the Eglinton Connects plan, and says the city should charge hefty fees to developers who shut down traffic lanes for construction.

The good: Pedestrian deaths hit a 10-year high in 2013, and Chow is the only one talking about it.

The bad: Chow’s $4-million bike plan budgets only $20,000 per kilometre of bike lane. But painted lanes cost at least $25,000 per kilometre, while separated lanes can cost up to $1 million per kilometre.

The score: Chow gets high marks for pedestrian safety, but her bike plan is off by orders of magnitude usually associated with a Ford subway plan. 3/5

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Doug Ford

The platform: Ford says that bike paths are much safer than bike lanes and he pledges to continue work already underway to extend a network of trails across the city. He says he would also continue building separated bike lanes downtown.

As a councillor, Ford ridiculed calls to lower speed limits in residential areas and plans to temporarily close off roads to cars, and has outlandlishly claimed that the Eglinton Connects plan is a “war on the car” so heinous it could negatively affect the auto industry.

The good: Not much. Bike trails are an important part of the city’s cycling network, although they do little for commuting cyclists.

The bad: Ford completely neglects pedestrian safety, and his attitude on complete streets is retrograde.

The score: It’s time to ban the phrase “war on the car” from civic discourse. 1/5

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bens@nowtoronto.com | @BenSpurr

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