Portland: Bike Lanes

Portland boasts North America’s largest proportion of commuters who travel by bicycle. The Oregon city is planning to add 175 kilometres of new bike lanes to its already expansive network, which includes dedicated signage and signals. Toronto has a great plan, adopted in 2001, that calls for a 1,000-kilometre bicycle network throughout the GTA. By 2007, the city was two years behind schedule, had spent far less than it said it would, and could barely manage to paint 10 kilometres’ worth of new cycling lanes in the course of the year. With the TTC eating up nearly half of every year’s capital budget, bike lanes are an afterthought: the city lumps them into the speed-bump construction budget, which is a mere $3 million a year.

Vancouver: Intelligent Development

By entrusting planning and development approvals to independent, arm’s-length bodies—including a planning commission, a permit board and an urban design panel—Vancouver has been a model for combining intensification with beau­tification. Vancouver also has no OMB: all ap­peals are heard by the city-appointed Board of Variance. Toronto recently established its own design panel pilot project; too bad so many bland developments have already been approved. A notable example is Concord Adex, the developer behind Toronto’s barren CityPlace and the same company that built Vancouver’s stellar Pacific Place. If they can make beautiful buildings there, they can make them here—we just have to demand it.

Stockholm: Trash Collection

In Hammarby Sjöstad, a redeveloped waterfront neighbourhood in Stockholm, residents sort their waste into organics, paper and combustible waste, then drop it into pneumatic tubes that shuttle them directly to a waste-transfer station. No bins at the curb means no raccoons, no fossil fuel–burning garbage trucks and no unionized trash collectors. Vacuum collection may not be feasible for existing neighbourhoods, but it’s ideal for large-scale redevelopments, of which Toronto has many: Downsview, Lawrence Heights, Regent Park and the vast redevelopment of the waterfront. In fact, the Waterfront Corporation considered the idea of a public-private partnership in vacuum collection, but the city shot it down.

London: City Centre Airports

While Toronto continues to gnash its teeth at Porter Airlines, Europeans see small city-centre airports as part of their economic engines. London opened its downtown airport in 1987 as part of its Dock-lands redevelopment. Today it serves some 2.6 mil­lion people annually, mostly business travellers. Smaller European capitals, such as Riga and Reykjavik, have relied upon the convenience of their city-centre airports to attract investment. London-based urban consultant Greg Clark—who works occasionally for Miller’s administration—loves the London City Airport so much he lives nearby. The Island Airport could be a boon to Toronto, if Miller hadn’t staked his reputation on demonizing it.

Manhattan: Green Taxis

Manhattan already has 375 hybrid taxis in its fleet. Mayor Michael Bloomberg originally planned to convert his city’s entire fleet of 13,000 cabs to hybrids within a decade but, upon second thought, decided to convert them in half that time. Here, the mayor’s climate change plan calls for converting Toronto’s taxis to hybrids by 2015, but there are only a handful on the road. The reason right now is that any cabbie who wants to drive a hybrid must apply for special permission to do so, since Priuses and Civics don’t have enough legroom to qualify as Toronto cabs. Toronto’s size standards for cabs are an environmental travesty: they ensure that the majority of taxi licences go to large gas guzzlers, like the favoured Crown Victoria.

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