Toronto has topped the list of the most congested cities in North America, beating out both New York and Mexico City, according to new traffic data released by navigation and location technology company TomTom.
The company, which released its annual traffic index on Thursday, ranked Toronto third on a list of the most congested cities in the world, falling behind only London and Dublin.
Torontonians could face a property tax hike as high as 16.5 per cent if the federal government doesn’t come through with the city’s demand for funding to house refugees claimants, budget chief Shelley Carroll warned Wednesday morning at a press conference.
“That is the potential crisis we face…we don’t have the funds,” said Carroll, speaking before the 2024 budget proposed by city staff was presented to council’s budget committee.
Carroll added that it was now on the federal government to respond and Toronto residents would need to speak up in the next few weeks.
Fuck them all.
Public support ‘strikingly bad’ for renaming of Yonge-Dundas Square to Sankofa Square: poll
A new survey finds that an overwhelming majority of Toronto residents disapprove of city council’s decision to rename Yonge-Dundas Square to Sankofa Square.
According to the new survey, conducted by Liaison Strategies for the National Ethnic Press and Media Council of Canada, 72 per cent of respondents disapprove of the move, while 16 per cent say they approve and 12 per cent aren’t sure.
Toronto’s budget chief is warning that a “substantial” property tax increase will be part of the city’s new spending package, as council grapples with a long-brewing fiscal crisis.
Coun. Shelley Carroll, who was appointed budget chief by Mayor Olivia Chow last year, had a blunt message when asked if property taxes are headed up: Yes.
And not by a small amount, she said, because Toronto needs to face its structural deficit head-on.
A TTC rider says she has no faith in the transit system, police and even fellow residents after being attacked and robbed in a subway station and receiving little to no help.
TikTok user @hxnicho, who identified herself as Hannah, posted a video earlier this week sharing details about how she was assaulted at Vaughan Metropolitan Centre Station on Christmas Eve.
The Big Smoke had the lowest rates of arson, robbery, impaired driving and burglary
Despite its problems, Toronto is actually a very safe place to live.
That’s according to an analysis of crime statistics by experts at Money.ca, which found cities in Ontario and Quebec placed in the top 10.
Garbage in …
A pair of Toronto activists have launched a fresh bid to convince city hall to keep Henry Dundas’s name on city landmarks, saying the long-dead Scottish politician is not a villain and should not be treated as one.
Daniel Tate and Jonny Pottins’ petition to keep the Dundas name was launched after city council approved Sankofa, an African word that alludes to making peace with the past, as the new name for Yonge-Dundas Square. It has gathered nearly 20,000 signatures.
Sankofa means shit for brains.
Not that we would ever make up the news, but this is the kind of news you could not make up. This month, Toronto City Council voted to rename Yonge-Dundas Square. This was done to rid the place of any association with the 18th Century Scottish politician Henry Dundas, due to his role in the transatlantic slave trade.
The next day, as part of the same meeting, Toronto Council voted to name a stadium after former mayor Rob Ford. Mr. Ford, who died in 2016, was not a slavery advocate, I’ll give him that, but nor was he worthy of being immortalized in bricks and mortar – or bleachers and turf.
It took leftists one city council meeting to erase 200 years of Toronto history with the renaming of Yonge-Dundas Square to Sankofa Square.
It might take longer to restore it. But some are working on it.
Toronto may have a new deal with the province for financial relief, but Mayor Olivia Chow says city residents will also need to do their part to battle the $1.5-billion shortfall — and that will mean property tax increases and new fees in 2024.
Chow made the comments to CBC Toronto in a wide-ranging year end interview.
The new mayor and Premier Doug Ford announced an agreement last month that will see the province provide billions of dollars in aid and upload the Gardiner Expressway and Don Valley Parkway. But Chow says the city has to be willing to show it will make sacrifices as well to fix the city’s structural deficit.
Toronto’s city council approved a motion last week to change the name of the city’s landmark Yonge-Dundas square to “Sankofa Square.” The renaming is part of a $700,000 taxpayer-funded initiative to scrub the name of late 18-Century Scottish politician Henry Dundas from city-owned assets, due to his minor association to the trans-Atlantic slave trade, and despite the fact he was an abolitionist. Interestingly, the square’s new moniker, Sankofa, was first used by those who were active in the very same slave trade that Dundas opposed.
Toronto’s political left fought tooth and nail to change the name of Dundas Street and eradicate the legacy of the individual that the name honoured, Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville. This controversial battle has ended in partial defeat and a state of total confusion.
There is no initiative at Toronto City Hall that better exemplifies how out of touch politicians and bureaucrats are with the priorities of regular folks, and just how wasteful they are with taxpayer money, than the ongoing saga of renaming Dundas Street. And the problem has only gotten worse, with costs ballooning and the targets for renaming expanding to include subway stations, libraries and public squares. All of which is supported by Mayor Olivia Chow.
When city staff first recommended renaming Dundas Street in the summer of 2021, they pegged the cost to the city at around $6 million . But the price tag has now more than doubled to almost $13 million.
Yonge-Dundas Square, TTC stations to be renamed under new city council proposal
A controversial plan to rename all of Dundas Street appears to be off the table, replaced with a proposal to rename Yonge-Dundas Square and two subway stations that bear the 18th-century Scotsman’s name.
Coun. Chris Moise on Thursday morning tabled a proposal that would, in recognition of Henry Dundas’s role in the slave trade, direct the Yonge-Dundas Square board in collaboration with city officials, to undertake a process to rename the square by “removing the name Dundas and adopting the new name,” to be chosen by a city review committee by June 2024.
The city’s coffers may be empty, and Mayor Olivia Chow may be begging the federal government for a bailout but that doesn’t mean we won’t spend millions to rename Dundas St.
