In My Opinion: More affordable housing, and transit lines that carry passengers are on my 2024 wish list

By ALAN SHACKLETON

EDITOR, BEACH METRO COMMUNITY NEWS

Welcome to 2024 and Happy New Year to all our Beach Metro Community News readers.

While I’m not one for making resolutions, there are some things I’d like to see happen (and not happen) this year.

I believe 2024 will be a critical one for the City of Toronto as we determine the direction we are going to take towards hopefully ending the downward path we’ve been on for too long.

Mayor Olivia Chow and her councillors will face a very challenging decision regarding property taxes and the city budget this month and into early February.

During the mayoral byelection campaign, she said she was not opposed to raising those taxes and she was certainly elected quite comfortably. So maybe hiking property taxes is not the career-ending option so many mayors and councillors before her have seemed to think it was. We’ll see.

As for our transit system, where do I begin?

How about an Eglinton Crosstown LRT? Oh wait, you’re telling me one’s been built but it can’t operate.

Why can’t it operate? Apparently there are “technical” issues. But we’re not allowed to know what those issues are or who is responsible for them. And if we ask too many questions we’ll end up buried somewhere in a development site that used to be part of the Greenbelt. Or so it seems to me.

I’m also told there’s something called the Ontario Line. Apparently it’s a subway from the Ontario Science Centre in Don Mills to the Ontario Science Centre at Ontario Place (just south of Exhibition Place).

Seems useful, but I’m confused about the number of science centres and Ontarios connected to this project. And did somebody say something about a spa?

A few months ago some readers took exception to a story we ran referring to the Ontario Line as a “proposed” subway. I take full responsibility for that. It’s a proposed subway until passengers are actually riding trains on it. See Eglinton Crosstown, which is also “proposed” since it isn’t actually operating yet.

Right now the Crosstown is a lot of tunnels and above-ground tracks between Black Creek Drive and Kennedy Road. It would be better used if people could ride their bikes, e-bikes and scooters on it right now because I don’t see any trains arriving at the stations.

In 2024, I’d also like to hear more announcements about the building of rental apartments, townhouses and mulitplexes in our city. There are lots of announcements about and proposals for condos, but not enough about rental buildings. I’m not holding my breath for 2024 to be any different.

Governments at all levels have to do more than hand out money and say the problem’s solved. They must take the lead in all aspects of increasing the amount of affordable rental housing including design, location, and the actual building and management of the new units. That’s a huge change from how we’ve been operating, but clearly strong measures need to be taken and I believe voters will reward those who have the courage to do so.

This needs to be a priority as it will be a huge federal election issue in the near future.

And speaking of a federal election, I sure would like us not to have one this year.

Along with the constant stream of politics and politicians from south of the border that we’re subjected to, we in Toronto are suffering from election fatigue.

In 2021 we had a federal election. In 2022 we had a provincial election and a municipal election. In 2023 we had a mayoral byelection in June, and a Scarborough Southwest byelection in November to select a new councillor.

We need a break from the campaigning, and the politicians need time to work for us in their elected positions as opposed to working for our votes.

The first half of 2025 should be the time for our next federal election. And in Beaches-East York it will be very interesting to see who seeks to replace our Liberal MP Nathaniel Erskine-Smith who has said he won’t be running in the next federal election. That, however, will have to be a conversation for another day.