T.O. ponders half-fast plan

TORONTO — As if this city — already the scene of some of the worst gridlock in North America — needed another reason to make commercial drivers hate it.

In light of a series of recent collisions involving pedestrians in Toronto, a prominent City Councillor named Bill Saundercook thinks that drivers are too speedy, so he is proposing that all of the city’s posted speed limits get reduced by 10 km/h with a bottom limit of 30 km/h.

He also thinks it’d be a swell idea to knock the speed limit on all streets around Union Station to 30 km/h and remove all the pedestrian-crossing systems so that pedestrians and vehicles would be able to, umm, negotiate crossings and rights of way on a one-by-one basis. Brill.

The Toronto Sun reports that Saundercook, who co-chairs something called the Pedestrian Committee, will be bringing his notions to that committee’s next meeting and even if they do pass muster with that group, the ideas would still need City Council’s green light.

First. a Toronto Councillor wanted to ban all delivery
trucks from the downtown core. Now, another
wants to slash speeds limits by as much as 25%

It’s far from being law yet, but remember which city we’re talking about.

The last idea Saundercook came up with was a failed scheme to have the City add a five-cent tax to bottles of water sold in Hogtown stores. While that never happened (yet), the City will be banning plastic water bottles from municipal property, including arenas and golf courses, by 2011.

Ironically, Saundercook points to the water bottle scheme as an example of how "long shot" ideas can still come to pass in Toronto. Yeah, he meant it like it was a good thing.

Councillor Doug Holyday told the newspaper the idea doesn’t make any sense, but he wouldn’t be surprised if council adopted it anyway.

"The nuttier it is, the better chance it probably has of gaining traction," he said

Yup, that pretty much sums up Mayor David Miller’s City Council.