John G Patte

In Ontario, if you're involved in a motor vehicle collision but your injury isn't permanent & worth more than $46,053.20 (statutory deductible), you get ZERO. The province needs to readjust the scales between injured people & insurance companies cc @douglasdowney @fordnation

In 3 yrs this #solar installation at a high school in Arkansas turned the district budget from a $250K deficit to a $1.8 million surplus. They're using the surplus to increase teacher salaries. We have the solutions. Implement them. #ActOnClimate #climate #renewables

In the Netherlands, bikes are transportation. It's more about function and offering an efficient, affordable, healthy way to get from A to B. Cycling just 30 minutes every day is equal to the weekly recommended level of physical activity. READ MORE: dutchcycling.nl/wp-content/upl…

@Tania_WattsUofT @jen_keesmaat Market value assessment is simply a way of dividing the cost of providing services among residents of a particular municipality.

@Tania_WattsUofT @jen_keesmaat The point of the graphic is that it’s less expensive to the municipality to provide the same services where density is higher. This has nothing to do with market value assessment.

I was just about to dig this up, since this is an issue adjacent to the issue of undertaxing larger homes in the city through municipal assessments, which makes the Star investigation sting just that much more. Cost per household of a suburban built form vs an urban built form. This is why so many sprawling Canadian municipalities are short on infrastructure funding - they are subsidizing sprawl, and then crying that they don't have cash. City design matters to long term fiscal viability.

The discrepancy between large homes underpaying taxes and small homes over paying taxes is the issue, not the discrepancy between the assessment and the home value. This *is* new data - and lower property taxes for wealthier households is regressive. Impossible to find a public policy justification for this. Needs a fix.

For better streets, we do not need more space. We also do not need new technologies or tools. What we need is imagination and courage. -#Sheffield, via Biophylic Design

The bigger your home, the more likely the rest of Toronto is subsidizing you. Let that sink in. If you have 4 fireplaces, you get a tax break. No fireplaces? Pay up. Many of us suspected this but we never had a robust data set. Now we do. thestar.com/news/investiga…

You want to hog road space, which is at a premium in any thriving city? Paris has an answer to that: they are putting a price on parking based on the weight & size of vehicles. No more lugging the kids to school in an SUV without thinking twice about it. theguardian.com/world/2023/jul…

🚨BREAKING🚨 #Paris to charge SUV drivers higher parking fees to tackle ‘auto-besity’: Size, weight & motor will be taken into account as councillors target ‘dangerous, cumbersome’ vehicles. lnkd.in/enjrishB

Volume of pedestrians ✔️ Amount of space allocated to pedestrians ❌ This is why the redesign of King Street was a critical next step in the pilot. What exactly are we waiting for?

Witness the 7-month transformation of Marnix Avenue, in Utrecht. The city converted the busy traffic road into a safe road with fewer lanes for cars, more greenery, and smart traffic lights for a better flow of bike, car and public transport. 🚲🌳 Video: utrechtonderweg

Good times: Canada has ridiculously cheap gas, an irrational fear of road tolls, and the world's least fuel-efficient cars. No wonder 75% of all new housing built in Canada over the past decade is in gas-guzzling suburbs. No wonder. What a trap! theglobeandmail.com/business/comme…

Cyclists are now a greater proportion of traffic than cars and taxis on London UK streets. Yes, wet, damp London, home of the very pricey Congestion Charge. A sea change in a relatively short period of time.

New plan for Fifth Avenue unveiled: given there are already far more pedestrians than cars, the space is being ‘right-sized.’ Wide sidewalks! A safe, separated cycle track! Dedicated bus lanes! And then a little leftover space for cars. Putting cars in their place, finally.

Let’s apply this to Whitby too!

I experienced this last week. Officer wearing a Vision Zero badge held back about 25 people despite the walk signal, to allow 2 cars to make a left hand turn. This garbage approach is not #VisionZero. This garbage approach prioritizing cars over people is...garbage.

As part of our downtown plan when I was Chief Planner, we proposed 9.5 acres of new park - by transforming University Ave. Low cost, high impact. The community + the @globeandmail championed it. City Hall? Crickets. Will @oliviachow run with it? It needs a political champion.

Cities get makeovers all the time. In the ‘80’s streets everywhere were widened + street trees were removed. Today cities are going in the other direction, reclaiming space for people. New street designs proposed in Paris: amount of space reserved for cars will be roughly halved.

@jen_keesmaat We should not be too complacent. The tight (beyond tight!) financial situation of Toronto could be both bad news and good news: bad, because there is no money to expand the cycling network; good, because there also is no money for frivolous projects like tearing up bike lanes.

Also. The tear-up the bike lanes candidates (Saunders and Frey), together, got 13% of the vote. So I think it is safe to say we have finally turned the tide for good.