One of my favorite Toronto columnists is Sue-Anne Levy.  She gets more irritated by month by the wing nuts that run our city.  Even though she lives downtown and mostly walks to work, she understands the hell motorists go through to navigate around anti-car Toronto.  Unfortunately, I cannot link to Sun articles as they don’t keep an archive.  So here’s her column.

On Tuesday afternoon, it took me a scant 90 minutes to breeze down from Gravenhurst to the outskirts of Toronto.

There, at the Hwy. 407 cutoff to Hwy. 400, I came to a dead stop – stuck in the overflow from vehicles vainly trying to exit west on a completely jammed Hwy. 401. Reaching the Allen Road 20 minutes later, I sat for 25 minutes inching my way from the Lawrence Ave. cutoff down to Eglinton Ave.

Total travel time for the 25-km trip from Hwy. 400 and the 407 to my downtown home: one hour.

Luckily, living downtown I rarely use my car for work. How people grind their way through such traffic day after day is beyond me. But it’s as if council’s car haters and their supporters in the left-wing press don’t want to know about the traffic jungle out there.

How many times have I heard councillors and their enviro-friendly hangers-on smugly chide Torontonians for not hoofing it, biking or taking public transit more? (Although according to a survey I did last year, very few of the city’s politicians actually practise what they preach.)

Perhaps their ulterior motive is to ram such a clutter of anti-car policies down people’s throats that they ultimately abandon their vehicles in utter defeat.

It’s not just the new, improved Official Plan, which recommends no new roads or road improvements but more streetcar lines, subways and bike lanes to handle an extra one million people over the next 30 years. (That plan goes before council at month’s end.)

Or the insane $3.3-billion plan to tear down the Gardiner Expressway, which is expected to resurface in a few weeks.

It’s the speed humps which are flourishing like fleas on every downtown street and bike lanes that narrow downtown streets, creating traffic problems that never existed before.

A series of such bike lanes just went in on Shuter and River streets, costing $160,000 for lane markings and signs. As for the humps, Stephen Benjamin, manager of traffic operations in District 1, told me yesterday 102 speed humps have been installed on 20 (mostly downtown) streets so far this year, costing roughly $200,000.

Another tender is about to go out for $240,000 worth of humps. Add that to the 206 streets already “calmed” with 1,000 hideous humps.

I’ve got news for Toronto’s car-hating planners and politicians. You can hump and bike lane the city’s roads to death. You can pretend the potholes don’t exist. People still aren’t abandoning their cars and taking the TTC!

Figures obtained from the city’s own traffic counts, among other things, prove that.

The last count done (in 1998) of cars and other vehicles crossing the city boundaries – called a cordon count – showed the number of automobiles coming into or heading out of Toronto during the daytime (a period of 12 hours) increased by 14% over 1995.

The number of autos with at least one passenger grew by 16% compared to 1995. About 90% of the total inbound and outbound trips were by car.

In fact, when the number of trips taken by private car and other vehicles (such as trucks) were combined, the total number of vehicles crossing the city’s boundaries reached a 13-year high of 1.7 million.

While the number of GO Transit passengers jumped by 15% during the same time period, TTC ridership was down throughout the city (even in the downtown core).

Faye Lyons, of CAA Central Ontario, says she expects another city cordon count, due out next month, to say much the same thing.

A 1999 U of T study reports similar figures. It shows auto use in the downtown core increased by 29% between 1986 and 1996, while transit use declined by 40,000 trips per day.

The trend continues, according to the TTC’s own figures. They show the number of TTC riders plummeted by four million between May, 2001 and May, 2002.

“The focus of council on this transit-centred approach hasn’t been successful for the last 30 years,” says Lyons. “People aren’t making that shift from the car onto transit.”

Heck, if the gridlock out there and these numbers aren’t proof the car still reigns supreme, I don’t know what is.

But don’t tell council’s car haters. They won’t rest until they drive the car (and commuters) out of this city.

I have to agree with this letter writer, Thestar.com/Food bank hustling business. 

Re Donor fatigue and boredom lurk behind food bank crisis, Oct. 16.

I used to give to the food bank. I used to believe that my donation was going to a worthy cause. I used to hope my donations would improve the lives of people and make Toronto a better place to live. Not any more.

Yes, there are hungry people who need the food bank, but many of its clients are just taking free food because they want to save money. Why pay for food when you can get it free? Without any form of scrutiny about who gets food, the system cannot be trusted. Why should I feed the fed?

There is no good way to verify if food bank users are really in need.  While this is not a good reason to never give, usually the same people give food, and they get tired of the constant plea for food.

Economics 101 state that if goods or services are free, the demand will be unlimited.  Health care has the same problem in Canada, so it must be rationed, like the food in food banks.

I don’t think it would be draconian if food bank users needed some kind of proof of income, some speed bump to limit or reduce the flow of free food.  This would reduce the freeloaders and perhaps encourage the givers.

We know this won’t happen, however, since the food bank is part of a social industry that requires users to feed its own economy.

Rarely do I agree with the Toronto Star, but this time, their article Thestar.com/A strong island airport is good for Toronto is right on the money.

After years of endless debate, countless studies and paralyzing indecision, it’s time to let Toronto’s island airport fly high.

As usual, a very few vocal users are trying to scuttle the progress of an entire city.  The same local activists also helped derail the Spadina Expressway, disabling traffic flow from downtown to the northwest of the city.