Getting to Work on Transit City

This is the deputation I gave in City Hall on February 2nd regarding bus service cuts. Meeting Room #2 was overflowing -- 160 constituents, 30 above fire code -- waited their turn for over 5 hours for 5 minutes of time to speak to Toronto Transit Commissioners, and City Councillors. Run by Councillor Stintz, the new TTC Chair, the deputations were tightly constrained to five minutes. To her credit, she was unfailingly polite to the deputants, although she showed visible irritation when Transit City was defended.

The diverse face of Toronto was out in full force. York University students asked for late buses so they could attend basketball practice and night classes, the Roller Derby chicks pleaded for safe access to their arena to practice their moves, and a 90 year-old man spoke eloquently about his need to have access to a pharmacy for his medication, and visit his wife in a chronic care facility. His neighbourhood would have bus service cut in half, and isolate even him further. The TV reporters fled with his heartfelt testimony, but I have yet to find it on CTV news.

With no further ado, here is my deputation.

TTC Deputation: Proposed Transit Cuts on Bus Schedules for the Davenport Riding in relation to Lower Income Residents and Support for Transit City

Dear TTC, Mayor Ford and Toronto City Councillors,

I am a constituent of Ward 18, part of the Davenport Riding. I am also a member of the Clean Train Coalition, and have spent the last two years advocating for all-encompassing, sustainable transit policy in Ontario.

I am here today to speak of the correlation between low-income wage earners, transit, and the right of citizens to public transit – transit which should be egalitarian, surface level, consistent and frequent. This right for accessible transit should be a democratic right, not a privilege, which can be revoked or suspended by City Council, to implicitly prioritize cars over public transit. By cutting bus frequency, and routes, the City Council will force people back into cars, or in the case of the Davenport Riding, to take taxis, which they can ill afford.

Cutting bus service in the Davenport Riding flies against equitable treatment of those who provide services upon which we are dependent- the invisible glue of our society. These constituents are night shift workers- nurses, office cleaners, factory employees, minimum wage earners – all of the most vulnerable members of society to transit cuts. And who are these workers? Single mothers, new immigrants, those just entering the workforce, night school students, and the elderly- all of whom need off rush hour transit to go to work, school and church safely.

It is well-known in transit system planning that once bus service is cut back, or becomes intermittent, passenger numbers drop throughout the route, so cutting back on bus frequency at any point in the schedule will reduce passenger numbers on that route. Eventually, the route will be avoided altogether if service frequency is cut back to the bone. In addition, low income constituents also have the least access to ‘just in time’ information for online information regarding schedule changes due to the high cost of Internet service, and are affected most by erratic schedules because they cannot access transit updates.

The residents of Davenport are particularly dependent on transit, as many cannot afford cars. As new immigrants, and service sector employees, they often have the least control over the hours of their employment, thus are the most vulnerable to service cuts during the evening and weekends. Traffic cannot shift into rush hour schedules; these constituents cannot determine the time and need for bus service. Those who work minimum wage jobs cannot afford to take taxis, and often require transit to ensure that they get home safely at night in at risk neighbourhoods. Minimum wage in Ontario is $10.25 an hour, and the cost of a cab from downtown Toronto to west-end Toronto can cost up to $40, more than half the daily rate of a minimum wage employee. Is this fair?

Davenport Riding has twice the number of racial minorities in Canada at 33%, a higher percentage of single people at 41% (as opposed to 33%), and 43% who are completely dependent upon public transit, a statistic much higher than the national average of 10%. Will cutting back services mean that riders will not be able to afford to go to work because of the cost of transit, if they are forced to take taxis at night?

In addition, many immigrants - Portuguese, Italian and Asian - have communities which centre around church. Cutting back Sunday service will restrict their access to their place of worship and right to congregation- cornerstones of society building- and which benefit the multinational city I am proud to call home.

The same principles of consistency and access to transit service apply to the proposed expansion of light rail transit for Transit City. This expansion of service level transit will revitalize and benefit entire neighbourhoods along its 75 km route, enable over three times this same demographic of rider to access and support businesses in their community, and build businesses within a far greater area than the area directly above subway stations. The air rights directly above the few subway stations proposed by Mayor Ford’s ‘Transportation City’ are not his unilateral right to sell to highrise developers. Transit City’s LRT is being implemented in dozens of cities internationally, and is proven to improve the quality of life within neighbourhoods, and provide interconnections to subway stations. Why wait seven years for a few subway stations, when Transit City can be built in three to serve almost four times as many riders, and provide facelifts and multiple transit stops for entire districts?

In summary, by cutting back bus service to Davenport Riding, one of the poorest in Canada, the Toronto City Council will make this community poorer, and may force riders to choose between being able to go to work, or not, based upon transit costs. Those who can afford cars are fortunate, and expect society to pay the cost of road maintenance, traffic control, and highway expansion, why are any cuts even considered in public transit, and car drivers prioritized over citizens’ rights to go to work on public transit? Taxpayers subsidize cars, and I have not heard of any cuts to any services required to maintain the highway system proposed by the current Mayor or City Council.

We need to support current bus routes, and get to work on building Transit City immediately, so that Torontonians in the GTA can go to work- safely, equitably and quickly.

Photo Credit Warren McPherson: Image of Transit Guru Steve Munro, and others, crowded into Meeting Room #2, waiting to deputize with great patience.

Research:

Davenport Riding Statistics at http://www.mothercraft.ca/resource-library/research-data/Davenport-2005.pdf

Marcus Gee, 'Calgary’s C-Train: Light rail that works', Globe and Mail, at http://m.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/toronto/marcus-gee/for-light-rail-that-works-look-no-further-than-calgary/article1887237/?service=mobile

Green belt, tighten our belt: Contesting the Places to Grow Act

People living in vigorous cultures typically treasure those cultures and resist any threat to them. How and why can a people so totally discard a formerly vital culture that it becomes literally lost?
- Jane Jacobs, "Dark Age Ahead", 2004

Toronto has been divided and conquered, its downtown core sold for $60, the cost of the vehicle registration tax, for the right of those in the subdivisions to drive downtown with impunity. Good bye road tolls and bicycle lanes.

There is not a single campaign promise that Rob Ford can keep, but loyalty came cheap from those who live outside the subway system, lured by Ford's promise of extending the Sheppard line, and his campaign to end the “war on cars.” His electoral promises were flimsy and repetitive, but as former Liberal premier Bob Rae noted, Ford’s campaign was supported by the federal Conservative Party, and the hard-sell town hall phone technology developed by the ultra right Tea Party, and used to cull phone numbers from 7,000 would-be voters. Ford had lots of help, and he is paying off his campaign manager, Nick Kouvalis -- the real brains of his outfit -- with the position of mayoral chief of staff at City Hall (see CBC As it Happens’ phone interview for Ford’s first interview as mayor).

Rob Ford is the municipal piece of the Conservative puzzle, Tom Hudak, the provincial, and a majority with Stephen Harper would secure the Conservative trifecta for unregulated, rightwing government. Although Ford's “Stop the Gravy Train” platform seemed simplistic at best, it spoke in a crystal clear voice to those who felt that they have been done a disservice by Toronto City Hall -- you will save money under Ford, and you have been wronged by the downtown lefties, who have wasted money trying to establish sustainable transit systems, such as Transit City, and planting trees.

Stephen Harper partied gleefully at Ford's victory party as the Gravy Train will be helmed by his man now -- still a Gravy Train, but run by Big Business on the tracks of unbridled commerce, without restraint, or censure. The Conservatives are using the same penny-pinching campaign strategy in the TV ads for provincial candidate Tom Hudak, citing McGuinty’s EcoFee as the culprit. The provincial race could be won for even less than $60, for a tax, although badly conceived, which was revised immediately. How quick people are to form allegiances for tiny, temporary savings.

There was a less known campaign behind Ford’s 47 per cent vote win.

Regional developers footed 60 per cent of the bill for Ford's campaign to ensure their future victory in contesting the Places to Grow Act in 2014. The Places to Grow Act was enacted in 2005 by the Liberal government to protect 1.8-million acres that form the Green Belt, including the Oakridge Moraine, and its freshwater aquifers feeding into Lake Ontario, from aggressive subdivision development. This act will become in jeopardy as Conservatives consolidate and contest its growth restrictions to pay back their Ford campaign supporters.

Disastrous environmental policy is not the sole domain of the Conservatives, however. The Liberal’s Legislative Framework for Modernization has also undercut the Places to Grow Act. On Oct. 21, the Open for Business Act was passed by the provincial Liberal Party, which ensures exponential environmental degradation as Big Business is permitted to monitor itself, without full disclosure or recourse to the Environmental Bill of Rights on the part of watchful citizen groups, like Lake Ontario’s Waterkeepers, headed by the extraordinary lawyer, Mark Mattson.

One hundred small amendments were hidden away to guarantee “competitive advantage” over our right to protect our commons, as part of this modernization act. Mattson sent the provincial government a 100-page defense of the citizens’ right to contest major projects through the Environmental Bill of Rights; it was completely ignored. Both parties are culpable for the environmental race to the bottom this electoral year.

What will the new Ontario look like, if Ford and his developer supporters -- which, not coincidentally, include former commissioner for Ontario police, Julian Fantino, as the new Conservative candidate in Vaughan -- have their way?

Developers own thousands of hectares of farm, lakeside and moraine land, protected by the Places to Grow Act, and they are waiting for the full changing of the guard to Conservative so that they can resume building massive tracts of suburban mansions, circumnavigating the act. In the 1980s, my grandfather, who worked in real estate, prophetically called these “the ghettoes of the future.”

As Ontario's subdivisions are given renewed license to sprawl throughout the 905 region, they will add thousands of hectares of asphalt for highways to absorb heat, and enable toxic petroleum water to run off directly into the Great Lakes.

In the last three years, massive algae blooms have been seen from satellites in middle of our Great Lakes, a by-product of nitrogen fertilizer from the increasing number of lawns edging around the lakes from exurban development. Much of this fertilizer is used by golf courses, so that a tiny white ball can be better seen against bright green backdrop.

There has been 8.5 per cent loss in the Great Lakes of water through extraction for suburban development and golf courses, which use a staggering amount of groundwater. The Open for Business Act opens possibilities for water exploitation, even as lake levels go down and our population grows.

The cost of the increased infrastructure for this 905 exurban development for water mains, electricity, and highways will be passed on to the taxpayer in the downtown core, as well as increased commuter traffic, although none of these residents are benefiting from these services.

Good bye tax cuts by Rob Ford; this exurban expansion all but guarantees a higher cost of taxation to guarantee developers’ profit at civil society’s expense, as Ford cuts municipal services. Our streetcars are the envy of municipalities throughout the world, and we are getting rid of them? Why?

When the green belt will no longer be able to naturally cleanse and generate water, its aquifers destroyed by containment, extraction or diversion, development will create a loop in which we are forced to use electricity or gas to do artificially what nature, such as the Great Lakes, or the Green Belt around the Oakridge Moraine, does without human intervention. We have not developed the science or technology more efficient than nature, despite the ridiculous claims of climate engineering scientists. All of these costs to purify water will be passed on to the taxpayer, an additional gift from the developers to the downtown core. And as the Boreal forest in the 905 becomes fractured by expanding highways, it will become prone to disease, just as the Asian pine needle invaded the forests in British Columbia as logging roads cut through their stands.

In 2004, in her last work, “Dark Age Ahead,” Jane Jacobs predicted the newly enacted “Legislative Framework for Modernizing Environmental Approvals” with frightening accuracy describing the undermining of the "five pillars of our culture that we depend on to stand firm":

“Bad science is the elevation of economics as the main ‘science’ to consider in making major political decisions;

bad governments are more interested in deep-pocket interest groups than the welfare of the population;

and bad culture prevents people from understanding the deterioration of fundamental physical resources, which the entire community depends on.”

Any contestation to the Environmental Assessment Act is refuted as a conflict to competitive advantage by the government, and protected by the Freedom of Information Act, and “competitive advantage,” so immune to public scrutiny. Jacobs extrapolated from observing the lobbying tactics of Big Business that we would lose our right to protect future generations from asthma, birth defects and learning deficiencies, such as autism, all of which are on the rise, and directly linked to our environment.

It takes seven generations to judge precautionary measures for major infrastructure developments as recommended by indigenous peoples, but it has only taken one generation to lose our farms, our lakes, and our health through bad policy.

On Oct. 27, C-300, a private members bill by Liberal John McKay, which made mining, oil and gas companies accountable for their abuse of human rights and environmental violations, was defeated 134-140 votes in the House of Commons, a vote which the world watched in horror.

This is the quality of federal legislation which the Conservative Party will try to bring down the rungs through their provincial and municipal candidates. By allowing companies to self regulate, we have lost our international reputation, and a place on the United Nations Security Council. Michael Ignatieff did not appear for the vote, to show support for McKay -- and he wonders why the politically engaged do not consider him as a viable candidate?

We will be faced with the same aggressive tactics as the mining lobbyists from developers pushing for urban expansion, and the selling off Ontario’s green space, as the 100 amendments in the Open to Business Act whittle away our right to protect our commons -- clean water, land and air.

This is Rob Ford’s true Gravy Train, directing profits to his campaign supporters, developers. The rights for self-determination in central Toronto were sold off for $60, and false election promises, to suburban voters in a campaign, which deliberately misrepresented City Hall’s state of finances. As Atom Egoyan said, “This city is the envy of the world and we’re acting like it’s falling apart.” I feel a lot less safe riding my bike in this new Toronto.

Provincially, if voters are not careful, we will sell off even more of our environmental rights to penalize the Liberals for the HST, Green Act, and EcoFees, although by supporting Conservative candidates, we will not profit a penny from the profits of businesses to support education, healthcare or community services.

This is the saddest legacy from this municipal election, an aftershock which will reveal itself slowly to those who voted for Ford to be known as a betrayal, but predicted by those who did not vote for him.

There are dark ages ahead, and I intend to ignore Ford, and support progressive city councillors to enable the City of Toronto to plan itself, and protect the Places to Grow Act, and support the recent United Nations vote for the international right to clean water and sanitation.

No doubt when the recent verdict on the Places to Grow Act in Pickering is eventually contested, we will see if there are any teeth left in it as it goes head to head with the Opportunities for Business Act.

References:
Jacobs, Jane. Dark Age Ahead. New York: Random House, 2004. Print.
CBC As it Happens’ phone interview for Ford’s first interview as mayor at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHJGR4i7fhw
Kelly Grant, "Nick Kouvalis, the man behind the Ford campaign"
at http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/toronto/city-votes/nick-kouvalis-the-man-behind-the-ford-campaign/article1738989/page2/
Places to Grow Act at https://www.placestogrow.ca/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1&Itemid=5
Legislative Framework for Modernizing Environmental Approvals
http://www.ebr.gov.on.ca/ERS-WEB-External/displaynoticecontent.do?noticeId=MTA5MDI3&statusId=MTYzNzE1
Mark Mattson, Waterkeeper.ca Weekly http://www.waterkeeper.ca/2010/10/27/why-did-ontario-kill-public-participation-rights/#more-19106
‘The End of Suburbia’, a documentary directed by Gregory Greene, describes this in detail at
http://www.endofsuburbia.com/
Open For Business Act Passes at
http://news.ontario.ca/medt/en/2010/10/open-for-business-act-passes.html
Bill C-300 – Corporate Accountability for the Activities of Mining, Oil or Gas Corporations in Developing Countries
http://www.miningwatch.ca/en/bill-c-300-corporate-accountability-activities-mining-oil-or-gas-corporations-developing-countries
John McKay's Speech Moving 3rd Reading of C-300 at http://www.johnmckaymp.on.ca/newsshow.asp?int_id=80681
Province rejects proposed Pickering growth:Urban expansion onto valuable agricultural lands out of step with provincial limits on sprawl http://www.thestar.com/iphoneapp/article?assetId=882142

One Toronto, Now: An Election is a Terrible Thing to Waste

Only when humans are again permitted to build authentic urbanism — those cities, towns, and villages that nurture us by their comforts and delights — will we cease the despoiling of Nature by escaping to sprawl.
Andrés Duany, 'Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream'

I think of Rob Ford as a powder keg, masquerading as a beer keg. At first glance, he appears populist, pleasing, inexpensive, and easygoing, and then you realize that he is elitist, divisive, and explosive. (To see Rob Ford's behaviour on City Council, here is the 'Rob Ford's Maturity' youtube video which is going viral.) As former mayoral candidate Sarah Thomson warns, the city risks “handing over the office of greatest local influence on the basis of anger and reaction, not that of responsible, thoughtful and mature policy”. Rob Ford has led a negative campaign against City Hall, and when people have been made afraid of the future, they fall back by default on conservative posturing, blinding them to socially innovative solutions. As George Smitherman seethed, "The City of Toronto’s motto is diversity is our strength. If Rob Ford is elected mayor, the first thing that will need to be done is change the motto".

Transit is by far and away the thorniest, and most important, issue in this mayoral race. Rob Ford's transit plan includes getting rid of streetcars, building suburban bicycle lanes, and extending the Sheppard subway line. By "stopping the war on cars" for his supporters, Ford has created skepticism toward Transit City's European-style Light Rail Transit system, without offering any viable alternatives. As Chris Bilton noted in Eye Weekly:

Ford’s focus on road repairs is admirable, but refuses to acknowledge that the reason we need to repair the Gardiner and the DVP is because they are used daily by 905ers whose taxes do not pay for Toronto’s road maintenance. And then there’s Ford’s totally worthless bike plan, which boasts 100km of off-road biking trails — mainly through the northernmost parts of North York and the far reaches of suburban Toronto — most of which would be completely useless to anyone trying to commute into the downtown core. Ford doesn’t seem to understand that cyclist commuters reduce traffic congestion (and transit congestion for that matter) and will ride on Toronto streets whether or not there are bike lanes. Trying to relegate cycling to a weekend pastime is not only delusional, but would make congestion worse.

Ford's slash and burn spending on transit initiatives will increase traffic congestion, air pollution, and road rage through urban sprawl, and benefit no one, while damaging everyone's health and Toronto's future economic prosperity. In addition, he is attempting to turn back the clock on Mayor Miller's legacy, Transit City, which forms the basis of network for the entire GTA, and democratizes accessibility for those who are underserved to have access to Toronto without relying on cars. Rob Ford's plan to extend the Sheppard Line has not been approved by the federal and provincial governments; Transit City has been, and is already being constructed, so the subway extension is an election promise impossible to meet.

Downtown, Ford will sell off bicycle lanes to SUVs, in a time of peak oil, when the rest of the world, including China, is building electric transit networks to espouse the principles of New Urbanism: Renewable Energy + Electric Transportation + Walkable Urbanism = Livable Cities. China, by the way, has canceled their contract with General Motors for the Hummer, knowing they would clog its arteries. China knows it does not want another 10 day traffic jam; Ford would be encouraging just that in Toronto.

I live in a triangle of three parks, Sorauren, MacGregor and Dufferin Grove, in Ward 18, part of Davenport Riding - recently singled out as 'a riding to watch' in all of the upcoming elections. Friday night suppers in Dufferin Grove are a magnet for first and second generation immigrants, designers, tradespeople, professors, those of many different genders, and priority youth - a neo-urban hippy community. This riding also has the largest growing immigrant population, and some of the greatest poverty, in Canada. We have had our growing pains, but my community believes in a bicycle lanes, farmer’s markets, and a 'Do it Yourself' culture, values which are a throwback to the Depression Era when each purchase was carefully considered, and household items were repurposed, reused, and shared through a network of neighbours. Parks are essential to the Davenport Riding. As Toronto becomes ever more crowded, they ensure equitable access to play for those who live in crowded conditions. Downtown parks are what make my urban life tolerable, and have stopped my flight to the suburbs.

One day, while watching the neighbourhood children make human pyramids in Dufferin Grove, a fridge magnet was thrust under my nose. I looked up and found it attached to Rob Ford. “Vote for me,” he said imperiously. I said “Not a chance, Rob. You know nothing about urban planning and environmentalism, the two things that matter most to this community.” “Call my office”, was his reply, and he stumbled off, with his three younger, identical acolytes in tow, like a lion stalking prey. As he approached a grazing herd of neo-urban hippies, they swiftly fled from his pack, loping like antelopes across the plains. I still wake up in the wee hours of the morning, giggling at this sight, until the seriousness of the upcoming mayoral election kicks in. I am afraid for the park system if Rob Ford is elected, and with very good reason, because the Toronto Islands are at stake as well. I love this park, and their beaches, and they are my most treasured part of Toronto.

The Toronto Islands attract 12 million visitors, including international tourists, a year to the waterfront. Ford’s decision to sit down with Porter Airline's Rob Deluce to discuss how to continue to expand the Toronto City Center Airport will jeopardize the right of those who love to picnic on the Toronto Islands- those who cannot afford to flee the smoggy heat of the city. Aircraft flying directly above the Islands, and Lake Ontario, bring international security risks, noise and air pollution directly into the city center, and by increasing traffic above this park, will detract from this green oasis. This constant air traffic will drop thousands upon thousands of tonnes of jet fuel into the Great Lakes, our drinking water. This water supply is not guaranteed to be our stable resource, as it is losing 1.4 million Olympic swimming pools of water annually. Particulate matter that goes up as smog, comes down as water pollution.

For the first time in Toronto's history, young children, who attend primary school near this airport, are acquiring asthma. Privileging the expansion of a short haul airport over less affluent citizens to enjoy the parks, schools or west end playgrounds, is a really an elitist position by Ford, as it assumes that people he represents own cottages, or do not live downtown. Toronto already has Pearson International Airport, and the TCCA is really only for those who do not live on the waterfront, or in the west end of the city, and do not care about either, for the sake of a couple of minutes' convenience in travel time. An unsustainable transit structure would be in play as proposed by Ford - cars battling bikes, and TCCA short haul flights prioritized over electric rail infrastructure on the Georgetown corridor. An electric, rather than diesel, Air Rail Link to Pearson would put downtown Toronto back into play on the world stage, rather than polluting the waterfront and west end, and every other mayoral candidate has signed a pledge to support the Clean Train Coalition, with the exception of Ford.

To build his Canadian version of the Tea Party, Rob Ford wants to get rid of 22 out of 44 councillors, and is actively canvasing rightwing councillors to support his candidacy. It would be to his benefit to fire those progressive councillors who oppose his bombastic style and supported Mayor Miller, and pad council seats with allies, so that he can impose his decisions without opposition. I think one of the ways to stop this juggernaut race by Rob Ford is to carefully elect a Toronto City Council who will voice our right to environmental protection through New Urban principles, so that Rob Ford's slash and burn transit and social service policies do not gain traction.

A significant number of Torontonians are not decided in their mayoral or councillor votes - I know that I am not - and I think that we have to come together as one Toronto, and start deciding on our mayoral and council candidates together as a united voice that loves this city, and wants it to prosper, rather than to be caught in a stalemate of consensus, and traffic gridlock, over the next four years. We need to elect a Mayor of Toronto, and City Council, who can predict the necessity for change, with enough foresight to ensure that Transit City is in place so that our city is resilient in this age of peak oil. It is not enough to say, as I witnessed Rob Ford say during a CP24 debate, "that we do not want 1 million more people in Toronto…we can barely take care of the people we have already". Population growth is inevitable, and his simple response is not good enough.

Curiously, the majority of Torontonians polled would vote for Mayor Miller once again if he were to run, so who are we going to choose to support Transit City, a green economy, social innovation and arts and culture? Who loves the City of Toronto, beyond personal gain, and who will defend us from unbridled growth, driven by the suburbs? I would say Joe Pantalone, with his 30 years of experience, but is to give Joe Pants a vote to take away a vote from George Smitherman, who appears to be the only real contender against Rob Ford? It gives me profound sadness to think strategically - I saw how quickly Joe Pantalone fought and won the redesign of an underground version of the Strachan Bridge from Metrolinx, and I think that we have spent so much time talking about Ford that we have ignored the magic powers of the feisty Small Wonder. Of all the mayoral candidates, I truly believe Joe Pantalone cares for Toronto the most.

However, in this time of crisis, I think we are forced to carefully band together to ensure that progressive city councillors are in the majority so that Rob Ford will be unable to hold dominion within City Hall. The Mayor is only one vote, and although he sets the tenor of City Hall, Ford will forced to reach consensus if we elect councillors who will contest his environmentally retrogressive bylaws, although as Councillor Ford, negotiating has been nigh impossible for him to do. We need to unite soon so that we have a fighting chance to have our downtown voice heard. It is up to us, as those who want to breathe, live, walk and ride our bikes safely in this city to determine how we are going to vote as a block, for both councillors and mayor, so Ford does not divide the left down the middle to take the far right.

To this end, I ask all those in agreement check out these sites, and join Facebook campaigns, so that we can work together as a unified, downtown vote, and decide what to do:

OneToronto.ca http://www.onetoronto.ca/ Watch 'Facts not Fury'- a video counterargument to Ford's negative campaigning at http://youtu.be/2Kn5YFnPc6E Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/OneTorontoca/160160227330948
People Plan Toronto at http://peopleplantoronto.org/ Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/peopleplantoronto
Toronto Cannot Afford Ford http://www.torontocannotafford.com/ Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=151516278207363

An election is a terrible thing to waste. Otherwise, four years of Rob Ford may drive people like me, a proud, leftwing, latte-swilling, arts and culture loving, downtown greening, smog-reducing, neo-urban hippie from my natural urban habit, and force me to flee to the ever-expanding suburbs to get my taxes worth of clean living. We need to be One Toronto, and to come together now.

References:
‪OneToronto.ca ~ Toronto is our Home, don't TRASH TALK it!‬
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-DxAcFLwU8
Rob Ford's Maturity Level at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOi2wIUCTnA
Principles of New Urbanism at http://www.newurbanism.org/newurbanism/principles.html
Chris Bilton, 'It’s on: the mayoral race gets serious' at http://www.eyeweekly.com/city/mayoralrace2010/article/101166
Steve Rennie, 'Yearly water loss could fill one million Olympic pools', at http://detnews.com/article/20100512/METRO/5120371/Great-Lakes-water-levels-drop-worries-boaters--shippers#ixzz11EG19NfN