Dundas Parking Background
As lack of parking is one of the biggest challenges facing our Business Improvement Area, we urge those concerned about the parking situation on Dundas West to read the following history of our struggle to obtain parking regulations that are similar to those enjoyed by surrounding neighbourhoods. Below the parking history summary, please find a declaration made by the BIA in response to this ongoing problem and the lack of support provided by our city councillor.
HISTORY
For as long as anyone could remember Dundas did not have any parking during the rush-hours of 7 to 9 am and 4 to 6 pm. In 2006 the Dundas West BIA,with the support of Councillor Adam Giambrone, requested City Council to allow parking on the opposite sides of the traffic flow during rush hour.
This proposal was opposed by Deputy Mayor Joe Pantalone and we carried on a one-year struggle to obtain these parking privileges which included numerous letters from businesses, over 900 petition signatures from residents and visitors to our area, BIA letters to councillors, deputations at Community Council meetings, attendance at City Council meetings, visits to councillors offices with information packages, media coverage etc.
Finally in September 2007 rush hour parking was granted by Council on a one-year trial period. During this time Dundas West experienced a re-vitalization. Many new businesses located here and the parking enjoyed by this neighbourhood did not appear to create any problems to traffic or TTC. We assumed it was here to stay.
However less then 2 weeks before the November 2008 Community Council meeting we were told by Councillor Giambrone’s staff that there was a negative TTC report and that he was intending to rescind our rush-hour parking arrangement during the upcoming meeting.
The TTC report was a study done to measure streetcar travel times between Lansdowne and Ossington comparing the last two weeks of March 2006 to the same period in March 2008. (2007 could not be used due to streetcar rail replacement construction.) This report claimed that our parking (the only variable considered) delayed streetcar operations by 14 to 40%.
Again, we mobilized, distributed a fact sheet in English and Portuguese to all of our members and residents along Dundas, had a large group of people at the community council meeting, obtained press coverage and made deputations to Community Council explaining how important this parking was to the community and how it positively contributed to the neighbourhood and questioned why Dundas West should not enjoy the same parking situations as similar streets such as College, Queen, Roncesvalles. We also pointed out (substantiated by newspaper articles and Environment Canada reports) that the March to March comparison was an unfair period to look at since March 2008 had record snowfalls that virtually brought all traffic to a halt for days and March 2006 was one of the mildest winters in years. We further pointed out that during March 2008 the TTC experienced labour unrest (they walked off the job early April) and that the left-turn prohibition signs that were part of the original motion to grant rush-hour parking had not yet been installed, so the benefit of these could not be measured then. However, our Councillor could not be swayed and he convinced Community Council to recommend rescinding our rush-hour parking with a recommendation to that effect going to the December 2008 meeting of City Council.
On November 28, 2008 during a meeting between Councillor Adam Giambrone and the Dundas West BIA a written agreement was reached. He promised to defer the item at Council until the April 2009 meeting.
During this time he promised to work with the Dundas West BIA and various City departments (Transportation, Economic Development, Toronto Parking Authority, TTC) to work out a compromise solution. He also promised to ask the TTC to provide statistics for a different study period. We hired an architect to help us through the process of evaluating various options.
However, besides a walkabout the neighbourhood attended by 5 of our members, a councillor’s office staff and a representative each from Transportation and Toronto Parking authority no other meetings were scheduled to allow us to participate in working out a compromise. Our architect was never contacted. In late March the Councillor scheduled a meeting where he brought members of the various city departments that outlined some vague ideas about parking lots and possibly creating some extra sidestreet spots to offset the loss of parking on Dundas. A few days before we also received a April 2006 to April 2008 TTC travel time comparison. Since this study had errors (such as the dates of TTC construction) and climate was still a factor, we rejected it and demanded a comparison of October 2006 to October 2008. This meeting did not result in any constructive solutions and it became clear to our full board that attended that our councillor was still determined to remove our parking to facilitate TTC travel times.
During the April Council meeting he made a motion to move the item to the Public Works and Infrastructure Committee to consider a “compromise” solution he had worked out. We were not shown any details of this plan and only saw hjm waving it in front of other councillors as he lobbied for their support while we were observing the meeting. Once we received details it became clear that this plan meant losing approximately 42% of our parking on Dundas around the clock. He also introduced this “great idea” about creating paid spots on several sidestreets which was to partially offset the loss of parking on Dundas. He failed to point out that these spots are currently already being used by businesses, customers and residents. This sidestreet proposal was deferred to Community Council for consideration.
Public Works approved and recommended the parking reduction to Council.
We again mobilized. To make everyone aware of the issue we distributed the “Giambrone Nope” posters to all businesses along Dundas and had then put up on other nearby streets. They created a lot of media attention. A second set of information posters “Why is Dundas West unfairly targeted” and “Porque nos” were again distributed to neighbourhood businesses and most merchants put them in their windows. We also hired a company to apply them to most poles and street furniture in the early morning hours prior to the Portugal Day Parade in early June (not attended by the Councillor). Lula Lounge organized a rally “Lula Si” on the sidewalk where many performers devoted their time to help us highlight the injustice of this proposal. We created a facebook page “Stop Adam Giambrone from Killing Dundas St. West” and paid for advertising on Facebook and obtained over 500 fans. Again we received press coverage from the Toronto Sun, Toronto Star, Globe and Mail, Parkdale Liberty, Now Magazine, Brazil News and had interviews on OMNI TV, City TV, CP24 and CBC Radio. During our Samba on Dundas festival in August (not attended by the councillor) we introduced petitions in the form of postcards again urging Council to favourably consider our neighbourhood. These postcards were available in many stores along the strip after the festival and were being signed by people from the area and visiting the area. We collected them in time for the early October Council meeting.
On July 24th two of our members met with the Councillor and two of his staff in a last minute effort to try and convince him to change his position. Again he claimed that he and various staff had spent over 800 hours on this issue and it had to be brought to a close (not acknowledging the thousands of hours of unpaid time we had spent) During this meeting however he once again promised that should the new rules be passed that the changes would not be implemented until after the watermain construction planned for our area next spring was completed. Again, as we had done many times before we requested the October TTC comparison, which again he promised to provide.
We attended the September Community Council meeting, again sent letters to Councillors and made deputations. During this meeting the councillor claimed that he had attended many of our meetings. (He has not been to one regularly scheduled monthly board meeting since our inception in 2006.) He also stated that he is doing this for the residents and that he had many meetings with residents to explain the sidestreet proposal. We are still wondering who these residents are and when and where these meetings happened, since most of our board members are residents as well (a fact he dismissed during a City TV interview) and were not aware of any meetings. He managed to convince Community Council and they voted to recommend his “compromise” solutions to Council.
These recommendations could have been passed automatically during the October City Council meeting without discussion. We enlisted the help of Councillor Michael Thompson to hold our item for discussion and introduce our concerns and postcard petitions. Councillor Giambrone claimed that the petitions were not signed by people from around here and were meaningless, that he had many meetings with residents that want faster TTC service, that this matter had dragged on too long and needed to be resolved. A motion from Councillor Thompson to defer the issue until June 2010 was defeated. The recommendations to reduce the parking on Dundas, turn most no-parking into no-standing, introduce additional left-turn prohibitions and create paid spots on the side streets was approved by Council.
Meanwhile when it became obvious that we were not getting the October TTC comparisons we filed a request under the Municipal Freedom of Information Act for this data. A few days after the decision was made we received the report and it shows “no significant delays in TTC travel time” as we always suspected it would.
After the decision was made we contacted the Councillor to confirm that his promise about not implementing the changes until after construction next year was still valid, however our several emails to question this went unanswered and as we all know the new rules were rushed in at great speed.
It is clear that our elected councillor has put his position as Chairman of the TTC ahead of the concerns of his constituents. The unanimous wishes of the BIA board (which he is a member of) have been ignored and so have the pleas from many businesses and residents in the area.
At this point the decision has been made, it can be revisited in time, but since Council listens mainly to the recommendations of the local councillor, we have little hope in getting a more favourable outcome since our councillor is not listening to us.
We are well aware of the outcry and anger over this in our community. Please let us assure you that we have worked hard and long to avoid this from happening. Since nothing else has worked so far we have to remember all of this come next year’s municipal election.
We need to all join together to make sure that we elect a councillor that listens to the constituency that elected him. So remember this come next November.
The Board of Dundas West BIA www.dundaswestbia.ca
1569 DUNDAS STREET WEST, TORONTO, ONTARIO M6K 1T9 416-534-7567