Candidly, this page is going to raise the most opposition to any of my website, because it contains the elements of immediate change I think might help the city progress.


Here is my preface apology. The ideas contained here are only my own thoughts about how to fix things up. Maybe you have your own ideas that don't coincide with these. OK. These are mine. I think they're pretty good ideas, and thought has gone into them as they were put in writing. Remember you saw them here first, and since each contains the situation as it is now and a suggested remedy for it, don't believe that city council "planned it all along", because they will surely adopt some of my ideas --which would be good; and quite possibly claim originality for them for themselves --which would be dishonest. Don't dismiss them out of hand until you've considered them awhile first.

I'm putting them in writing so you can think about them more than at just the knee-jerk level of yelling about how lousy they are because you have not seen what I think are their ultimate good sense. If you have good ideas about how to improve any of them, you are invited to write them into the comments section of this website. I guarantee to read them and incorporate them into this website and modify the following where pertinent if I think they have merit.



1. Beautification -Property Tax Deductions

When one rides through other cities like Vancouver or Philadelphia, one is struck by the beautifully kept lawns and gardens all up and down each street. Vancouverites can do this because their by-laws and the city governing scheme are set up to support it.

Toronto has ambitions to become a "green city". We are supportive of industrial and high-rise green roof projects. But while some of our neighbourhoods who can afford gardener services produce properties lovely to look at, and although the city certainly possesses some notable exceptions produced by motivated home gardeners, Toronto is not set up to support home owners in this regard.

Tangible rewards and incentives might encourage homeowners and businesses to beautify their properties, the adjudication of which would be determined by a committee of referees who will judge the merit of the improvements. An example of how this might work is, someone interested in earning a reward (for example, a "beautification property tax deduction") would contact city hall for a committee referee to photograph the house or business premises, "as-is". The city could supply landscape architectural service to suggest changes for the owner. When the beautification project is completed, the referee is called again, and based upon the second assessment (accompanied by more photography) and a juried decision, the homeowner will (or may not) be granted a beautification property tax deduction.

These kinds of property tax deductions for property beautification could be given initially for home or business frontages, then added-to or expanded:

• if the front of the home or business qualifies, beautified back yards (including side yards), might qualify for additional tax benefits
• then trees (based upon, for example, a 12-inch diameter trunk in good shape) located on the property might qualify it for lowered taxation
• since trees that overhang the roadway tend to make neighbourhoods look richer and more refined and add to the beauty of the city, streets lined with homes having street-overhanging trees might qualify to be first to have their powerlines moved below-ground, or some such other reward.

The same property tax and/or other incentives could apply to homes, apartment buildings and high rise buildings, business frontages, manufacturing buildings, etc.
All potential sources for escalating property enhancement through a program of rewards and incentives.

When the majority of the city's homes are beautified, the rules can be changed by instituting a deadline past which the rewards and incentives programs will become no longer applicable, and require all homes and businesses to follow suit without reward.

Since the city really depends upon property taxes to run its affairs, the beautification results would have to be really really nice to qualify for a tax break. And the tax break would hold only so long as the beautification change lasts.

Have a look at what the rest of the world is doing. Compare it to what we are letting our developers get away with here in Toronto:










Toronto's Dufferin Street/Hwy 410 Overpass




Embarcadero, San Francisco

While these are pretty, they are also extremely practical. The vines climbing the glass and concrete walls of the Embarcadero and Pont Max Juvénal have been chosen to change colours with the seasons. Bird & butterfly habitat is increased, stormwater is pre-treated and/or absorbed, greenery that has been removed by grading to erect the structures is replaced. (Notice the lack of overhead wires and traffic signs? The cut-curb parking? The one-way streets?) Add your own list of benefits and include some social attitude changes. What if the city rewarded the owners that gave some of those treatments to the above Toronto Townhouses?

In Mexican cities, the trees planted along the sidewalks are fruit trees (mostly mangos and oranges).

How about an attempt to replace not only the greenery but the original terrain where the building was erected:

This living roof is atop Renzo Piano’s new Academy of Sciences building in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. At 197,000 square feet and containing 1.7 million native plants, it is the largest green roof in the United States. It’s notable not only for its size but for its undulating form — designed to mimic the site’s original terrain — and the complete absence of grasses.

Roof of the Academy of Sciences, California.

2. Dump The Low-Flush Toilet Rebate And Fluorescent Bulb Support Programs

The city needs to re-evaluate and immediately remove its approval for low-flush toilets and so-called low amperage fluorescent bulbs.

Most toilets approved by the city are 1.6 gallon flush capacity, and most existing plumbing lines for toilets in homes older than 15 years (probably your home) remain of the 4” diameter variety. From the information extrapolated from the codes quoted in the following email, one can calculate the inadequacy of a 1.6 gallon-per-flush for doing the job of moving wet sewage through a 4” horizontal conduit into the sewer lines. The result is lines that will eventually clog and potentially deteriorate due to the inability of the 1.6 gallon flush toilets to adequately flush waste through them.

Add to the following information what I already know from work I have done in people's homes: low-flush toilets often don't work adequately on one, or even two flushes. In order to get the maximum flush out of even one flush, many owners have to hold the flush handle down for a minimum of seven seconds so that all water possible flows from the tank to the bowl. Two flushes use 3.2 gallons, and three flushes use 4.8 gallons of the water that is not being saved with one inadequate flush.

And then at a minimum, it still takes the use of a shower or washing the dishes to move the inadequately flushed sewage through 4" piping to the main sewer lines. Even in new homes where toilet waste pipes are of a 3" diameter, it still takes more than one 1.6 gallon flush for owners to be able to produce clear water in the toilet bowl.

Persons doubting the under-head levels of 1.6 gallon flushes can find information on the internet detailing its inadequacies. The city needs to re-evaluate and remove its backing for this scam that was originated by well-meaning but uninformed politicians, not plumbers, in Massacheusetts.

The following is off my email for Saturday May 3rd 2008, and comes from a professional blog site that deals exclusively with sewers. The blogger is a public works sewage control professional. The question being asked reveals the Code that is thought required to move sewage sediment through a sewage line.

"Report 141, Design of Sewers to Control Sediment Problems by CIRIA [CIRIA is The Construction Industry Research and Information Association, a worldwide standards association based in the UK] states that a minimum full pipe velocity of 3 fps [fps=feet per second of motion] should be maintained in a 48" diameter pipe to transport sediment.

... questions remain. Is the 3 fps adequate if the pipe is not flowing full, which the 48" would of course not be, to establish a flow regime that does not generate odors?"

Let's translate this inquiry to one more relevant to our own situation as homeowners. Is the flow through the horizontal waste pipes below the basement level of our homes, into which all the human waste flows, sufficient at 1.6 gallons per flush "sediment transport" to move it through a 4" horizontal pipe; given that nealry all homes built before 1980 were supplied with 4" pipes to handle flush from 3.5 gallon flush toilets? And, after the waste gets to the sewer line, is the amount of flush water adequate to push it through the sewer systems, or does it require additional floodwater to push it through, thus eliminating all possible good from the reduced flush quantity (which isn't that much reduced because normal flushing with the 1.6 gallon flush toilet requires between one and three flushes to properly empty the toilet bowl of 'brown water' anyway).

The answer is that after c1980, a new variety of flush toilet, operating with 1.6 gallons of water and flushing it through a 3-inch drain pipe, was installed in newer homes as a water-saving device. Most homes in the city have the older, 4-inch drain pipes in their brown water systems; and although the city offers a rebate for people who buy the 1.6 gallon flush toilets, the flush in the newer toilet is not sufficient to move the sediment in the pipes along to the sewer systems through the larger diameter older pipes. Sediment which is not moved through the pipes to the sewers settles in the pipes and hardens as scale in the water leaches into and deposits in it. The same thing begins to happen in sewer lines outside the home below the streets as the 3fps of water is probably no longer applied by the 1.6 gallon flush through the 48" sewage system piping. When that sewage piping requires separate flushing by applying city or rainwater through it to move the sewage efficiently to the treatment plant, any savings made by householders using the low-volume flush toilet is erased. Moreover, householders who have sediment-clogged waste pipes below the basement floor and subsequent damage to the exterior piping to the sewer system will eventually have to incur a plumbing repair bill for them. If your home was built with 4" sewage piping, which is the case with nearly all homes built before 1980 and a great many after that date, installing a 1.6 gallon flush toilet is counter-indicated; and you should be purchasing a 3.5 gallon flush to ensure efficient operation of your sewage system.

"Furthermore, when examining this question is it adequate to assume that peak flow rates occurring once daily will be adequate to prevent odors? I lean toward evaluating this question using average daily flows that would generate velocities (assuming for the moment that these velocities would be adequate to prevent odors, which does seem to make sense) that are consistent with Report 141. Nevertheless Report 141 addresses sediment transport and not odor specifically."

Let's take the $60.00 low-flush rebate and offer to spend it, for example, on people who legitimately enter some kind of proven therapy to quit smoking, like hypnosis or laser therapy, by going to a bonafide practitioner. Cancer patients cost us billions of dollars a year to keep alive and to try to find a cure for. If someone quit smoking by using the $60.00 rebate money, we could save millions of dollars in health costs. Let's get the 3.5 gallon flush toilet back for the homes with a 4" pipe.


3. One-Way Streets & Traffic Flow Improvement

I don’t have a plan that I can proclaim will ‘save the day’ traffic-wise, because there are many competing factions around the question of how to resolve Toronto's traffic ills.

First and foremost, I'd like to condemn traffic planners in this city for not coming up with smooth traffic flow, given that the technology of the day is replete with devices that would run our traffic smoothly. Traffic planners go to school to learn how to make traffic patterns flow smoothly; and then, it seems, hire onto theToronto traffic planning department to determine how to make traffic flow as difficult as possible.

I've observed traffic flow here at home and in other cities that seem to manage theirs better. Personally, I do have some traffic solution ‘druthers’. They will all, of course, meet with a great outcry of opposition. But if any of them is implemented, traffic control will be enhanced. If they all are implemented, it's my opinion that traffic will flow more smoothly, safely and efficiently everywhere throughout the city.

Here are my thoughts and preferences.

Ø Eventually, a new future plan of the city will hopefully recognize that because of the vast nature of Toronto's terrain and demographic makeup and because of the variety of its neighbourhoods’ traffic requirements, the automobile is becoming green sustainable family transportation more quickly than bicycle and mass transit vehicles, and is not “the enemy”. Rather, incompetent current traffic planning based upon an incompetence in civic government with regard to its view on automobile traffic and public transit is the enemy because it does not efficiently amalgamate a smooth flow amongst all three vehicle types or for any one of them, and begin to take decisive steps to rectify the poor traffic flow situation that now exists.

Ø Neither the TTC nor city council seems to realize that there are times when an entire family wishes to set out on a trip involving distances and hilly territory, and where public transit either does not go or takes too long to get there; or where a large load of groceries must accompany the trip back, and a family car is standing by, or that there are areas where public transit does not serve.

Ø In cases like a garbage strike, bicycles can't carry the garbage all the way to specified depots or wait in line in the hot sun until their turn comes to deposit it. In case of a transit strike in the middle of winter, bicycles can't get people to work. When a late-night outing is involved, or out-of-town travel, bicycles are not a viable means of transportation. Many commuters travel both in and out of town from as far away as 100 kilometers each day, and bicycles are not the means of transportation to get them where they want to go.

Ø Every variety of mass transit vehicle lags far behind the automobile industry in limiting and controlling harmful emissions and the size of their carbon footprints, and those that are moving ahead in these areas are doing so by emulating the automobile's technological progress. There is no question in my mind that ignoring the importance of the automobile in the life of Toronto, and/or trying various means to eliminate it is not only wishful, but harmful thinking. What are needed are more streamlined ways to include all three methods of transport in a smooth flow of traffic. The following address that concept and more.

Ø decentralize more attraction resources and business sections to all boroughs;

Ø implement one-way major traffic routes to relieve expressway traffic during the rush hours by allowing it to flow unimpeded through the city;

Ø re-plan city auto traffic to move well, using state-of-the-art electronic traffic light timing, (vehicular flow, advanced pedestrian crossings at busy intersections, and advance traffic greens) and traffic algorithmic monitoring devices to drive the flow control outside of rush hour times;

Ø remove a great many Stop signs in city neighbourhoods and enforce the ones that have not been removed with Stop sign cameras;

Ø monitor vehicular speed through residential neighbourhood using random-placement concealed photo radar;

Ø modify the city’s by-laws to exact large escalating fines against persons owning vehicles caught speeding through neighbourhoods regardless of whether or not they were operating the vehicle at the time, unless the vehicle was a proven stolen vehicle;

Ø allow neighbourhood one-way traffic to flow completely through neighbourhoods without diverting in block-by-block zig zag patterns;

Ø Realizing that they are intended to hinder traffic rather than promote safety, remove Hope’s folly and other nonsensical traffic signs such as ‘no right on red’, 'no left turn', etc., in perfectly clear slow traffic areas and ‘no U turn’ in passenger drop-off zones in front of TTC stations, and replace them where necessary with elctronic traffic controls that eliminate any potential difficulty while promoting easy traffic flow;

Ø implement a “Toronto Drivers Are The Best Drivers” campaign emphasizing safe driving and courtesy as ‘pay it forward’ techniques (you are what you believe: theory of positive thinking);

Ø retain the 40 km/hr speed limit outside schools, hospitals, and retirement homes only;

Ø change all pedestrian safety crossing ‘walk/don’t walk’ lights to thirty-second count-down lights;

Ø institute traffic red light-warning signs at all hidden intersections and high speed traffic flow areas;

Ø require all bicyclists over the age of 10 to be licenced via local learn/licence centers and require all bicycles to be equipped as per Provincial Highway Traffic Act requirements and licenced/registered;

Ø require bicycle traffic to obey all traffic signs & signals and have cyclists with 24-inch wheels or motorized be relegated to the street and be subject to the same penalties as automobiles for traffic violations, and use any fines collected from bicycle traffic enforcement to assist in creating & maintaining bike lanes;

Ø supplant all streetcars with rechargable double decker battery-powered buses except on the Spadina Line, the Milhevc Quagmire (St Clair West Line), and the Long Branch Lakeshore Line to Roncesvalles;

Ø remove all pedestrian crosswalks over the new one-way streets, except at retirement home crossings;

Ø re-institute student crossing guards at school corner crosswalks;

Ø teach crossing safety in the kindergarten, grade one and grade two curricula;

Ø move the new LRT off the streets and into the air (elevated) along with rush-hour route bicycle paths (see the link below); Ø complete the TTC’s subway disabled assist elevator system in all stations to subway and street levels and bus platforms before purchasing new transit vehicles from Bombardier, and then purchase the double-decker rechargable electric buses from them instead of streetcars;

Ø http://feedbacktomark.wordpress.com