Matti Siemi­aty­cki – Toronto Star

In recent months, a sense of doom and gloom seems to have taken hold regard­ing the sorry state of Toronto’s infra­struc­ture, and its neg­a­tive impacts on our city.

Whether it is our tran­sit sys­tem, roads, social hous­ing, schools or sew­ers, the story is the same. There has been a lost gen­er­a­tion of infra­struc­ture invest­ment. And our fail­ure to invest is caus­ing chronic losses in eco­nomic pro­duc­tiv­ity and com­pet­i­tive­ness, envi­ron­men­tal set­backs and social exclusion.

Worst of all, our polit­i­cal sys­tem is grid­locked and dys­func­tional, mak­ing it impos­si­ble to address our regional infra­struc­ture deficiencies.

There is no doubt that this nar­ra­tive of pes­simism has ele­ments of truth — as con­firmed by a shelf full of expert reports.

Yet this “glass half-empty” view over­looks the vast trans­for­ma­tion of our infra­struc­ture that has already begun right across the region.

Shov­els are cur­rently in the ground on no less than: a new sub­way line to York Uni­ver­sity and beyond, a busway in Mis­sis­sauga, the com­plete rebuild­ing of Regent Park, CAMH and six hos­pi­tals in the GTA, and fab­u­lous new parks and the sea wall along the water­front show­ing signs of the trans­for­ma­tion tak­ing hold there.

In real­ity, these invest­ments are just a down pay­ment on the next gen­er­a­tion of infra­struc­ture devel­op­ment that is so crit­i­cally needed in Toronto. There is a lot of hard work still to do to gain con­sen­sus about what should be built next, where and how it should be paid for.

As these debates play out across the region, six prin­ci­ples should guide the discussions.

First, Toron­to­ni­ans should quit our envy of inno­v­a­tive ideas devel­oped in exotic “world-class” locales. While we can always be open to learn­ing from else­where, we should be our own trend­set­ter, build­ing great spaces and great infra­struc­ture that are designed to meet the needs of all Toron­to­ni­ans. And let’s not be sur­prised if these made-in-Toronto solu­tions get copied elsewhere.

Sec­ond, for rea­sons of both cost and capac­ity con­straints within the con­struc­tion indus­try, we will never be able to sim­ply build our way out of our infra­struc­ture deficits. Instead, we need to find ways to use exist­ing facil­i­ties more efficiently.

Are there travel trips that can be entirely elim­i­nated or shifted to off-peak times if accept­able incen­tives are set? And how might we use tech­no­log­i­cal inno­va­tions to encour­age greater water and energy con­ser­va­tion to avoid the need for costly infra­struc­ture expansions?

Third, we need infra­struc­ture invest­ments that stitch together a region that for too long has oper­ated as less than the sum of its indi­vid­ual parts. This means pro­vid­ing con­nec­tions that rec­og­nize that peo­ple, goods and ideas don’t only flow into and out of the down­town core, but increas­ingly from sub­urb to sub­urb and at all times of day.

Fourth, the infra­struc­ture of tomor­row must empha­size cre­ative mixed uses, built through cre­ative part­ner­ships. Whether it is the tight inte­gra­tion of con­dos and a school at North Toronto Col­le­giate Insti­tute or the repur­pos­ing of Maple Leaf Gar­dens by Loblaw and Ryer­son Uni­ver­sity, these mixed-use part­ner­ships bring invest­ment cap­i­tal and foot flow to make these projects successful.

Fifth, we des­per­ately need a ratio­nal con­ver­sa­tion about how we will pay for this infra­struc­ture invest­ment. Sure, national fund­ing pro­grams for tran­sit and afford­able hous­ing are crit­i­cal. But we also need to dis­cuss which big rev­enue rais­ing tools are most accept­able to finance munic­i­pal infra­struc­ture: an increase in prop­erty taxes, a regional park­ing tax, a regional sales tax, road tolls, addi­tional gas taxes?

Finally, project man­age­ment mat­ters. In order to main­tain pub­lic sup­port, it is crit­i­cal that our biggest and most ambi­tious infra­struc­ture projects are well man­aged to min­i­mize local dis­rup­tion, deliv­ered on time and on bud­get, and meet their per­for­mance expectations.

Much depends on how well we meet Toronto’s infra­struc­ture chal­lenge. Main­tain­ing our eco­nomic vital­ity and qual­ity of life requires that we get it right.

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Con­tact the Jef­frey Team for more infor­ma­tion – 416−388−1960

Lau­rin & Natalie Jef­frey are Toronto Real­tors with Cen­tury 21 Regal Realty.
They did not write these arti­cles, they just repro­duce them here for peo­ple
who are inter­ested in Toronto real estate. They do not work for any builders.
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real estate toronto sub­way line

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