"Cowardice asks the question...is it safe? Expediency asks the question...is it politic? Vanity asks the question...is it popular? But conscience asks the question...is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but one must take it because it is right." ~Dr. Martin Luther King

Tuesday 14 September 2010

About Commuting and Families

Many Go passengers do more than just catch a train in the morning. Children have to be transported and picked up at the end of the day.Shopping has to be accommodated,

Family schedules don't necessarily accommodate a brisk walk or a leisurely bus trip.Getting off the train doesn't necessarily mean the end of a working day.

That doesn't mean it's acceptable to choke residential streets in the heart of the town with parked cars for a whole day.

If people have to use their cars , they might just as well drive a little farther to the edge of town. If it has to be on the other side of Bathurst on the edge of King, that would be fine too.

It would solve a myriad of traffic problems in the heart of Aurora.

It has been said the Town had no say in the placement of the $74million dollar Go parking garage.

I am not inclined to swallow that. Go didn't decide to spend all that money in that location without being invited and encouraged to do so by the Municipality. If not by the Council, certainly by the Mayor.

The Mayor takes credit for the "new amenity"of the Go Transit Parking Facility.

The Steering Committee chaired by the Mayor is recommending removal of parking alongside the railway tracks on Berczy Street to make way for a "linear park"

The consultants, directed by the Mayor, are telling residents in the neighbourhood, parking is a function of the roads in front of their homes. .

The convenience of one group at the expense of another is a sure way to split a community into factions.

In the past, Aurora has borrowed to provide land for industrial development to provide employment for residents in their own community.

Provincial policy requires municipalities to provide for employment lands in the planning process.

Yet, with the encouragement of the municipality, Go transit continues to swallow up ever more employment lands, produces no assessment revenue and certainly no jobs.

There were arguments against a Separate High school being built on Wellington Street and refusal to sell lands to York Region to build a Police headquarters. because no taxes would be derived.

Hundreds of police and teaching jobs and the boost they would provide to local businesses was dismissed by some Councillors as irrelevant. .

Working families are having to share homes to pay a mortgage. Others living in basements and attics, paying half their income for rent, leaving not enough for food and making them ,in this day and age, in this affluent community, dependent upon food banks is apparently acceptable.

$74 million spent on a pile of concrete to shelter cars , built on lands which should be producing jobs and revenue to reduce the burden of taxation , is in my opinion, an obscenity.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hello Councillor Buck
As you are running for council again I would be interested in knowing your position on introducing more, and a variety of different types, of affordable housing in this town.
I know that the mayor has claimed that Aurora doesn't have "those type of people' but, in my opinion, every town does and I believe all kinds of people have the right to live in "nice" communities too and should not be shut out because they don't have lots of money.
Please shed a little light on your thoughts about this matter.

Anonymous said...

Perhaps we all should park on Phyllis's street and catch the bus to the train station.After all, one of the functions of a road is to provide parking.Has anyone considered ploughing in the winter of these roads?

Anonymous said...

Perhaps we all should park on Phyllis's street and catch the bus to the train station.After all, one of the functions of a road is to provide parking.Has anyone considered ploughing in the winter of these roads?

Anonymous said...

"The Mayor takes credit for the "new amenity"of the Go Transit Parking Facility.
The Steering Committee chaired by the Mayor is recommending removal of parking alongside the railway tracks on Berczy Street to make way for a "linear park"

Another idiotic ideas by an idiotic mayor. Perhaps if she got on the GO Train and saw what happens at stops such as Rutherford
and Maple she would come to understand that commuters after a long day of work don't want to spend time in traffic jams.How else would you explain the track meet once the doors open. Moving all parking to the East side of the tracks is a recipe for extended traffic tieups and a long wait for those exiting the ill conceived 5 storey parking lot.Yes there are votes to be had by turning the west lot into a parking lot.Given the hairy fairy promenade study that has even the consultants telling Morris what she wants to hear is typical of the Morris years as MAyor.Sounds almost like an Aesops Fable about an Emperor.Hopefully this nightmare ends October 25!