Supersized speed signs, park profanity, and bringing on more bike lanes
The week at Toronto City Hall for December 1 to 5, featuring some evolving avenues, scaled-down environmental plans, and a new water shuttle.
Hey there! There’s a big week coming up at Toronto City Hall, with committee debates on matters like bike lanes, expanded housing permissions, climate change, tourism and whether we should be allowed to swear in parks. I say hell yes. Here’s a special bonus edition of City Hall Watcher covering the highlights.— Matt Elliott
What happened this week
🪧 COULD BE A BAD SIGN: A fun piece from the Star’s Mahdis Habibinia reveals that the speed-limit signs Premier Doug Ford has supplied to Toronto and other municipalities as a replacement for speed cameras are… big.
Really big.
I feel like maybe you’ll read those words and imagine a sign that is only somewhat larger than a typical sign, but that’s wrong. Here’s a helpful visual aid provided by Councillor Tim Tierney of Ottawa, using his own body — the body of an adult human — for scale.
The City received 80 of these signs this week — with instructions to install them in 20 of the locations previously covered by speed cameras — but the colossal nature of the signs caught City Hall off guard. Mayor Olivia Chow pointed out that the City would need to get new poles to support the weight of the signs. There are also concerns that these massive signs may cause sightline issues for drivers and pedestrians.
And, of course, there’s a lot of doubt that these signs — even so supersized — will do much to slow down traffic.
Meanwhile, reports this morning confirm that a pedestrian was hit and seriously injured by a driver yesterday on Parkside Drive. Parkside was previously home to a speed camera that, when it wasn’t vandalized or thrown into duck ponds, issued a heck of a lot of tickets.
🚇💲 TTC BUDGET TRICKS: For Toronto Today, Aidan Chamandy takes on the riddle of how the TTC managed to fill a $232-million hole in their proposed 2026 operating budget without a fare increase or service cuts. The budget was discussed this week at a meeting of the TTC’s Strategic Planning Committee.
It’s a tale of accounting adjustments and reserve funds, though it seems important to ask how much this might cost in future budgets.
⛴️ SHIP SHAPE: A motion from Deputy Mayor Ausma Malik at this week’s meeting of Toronto & East York Community Council confirms rumours that Waterfront Toronto will be testing out a new water shuttle serving various destinations along the waterfront next summer.
Service will begin in June, and stops will include Portland Slip, the water taxi docks on the central waterfront and the new Biidaasige Park in the port lands. Malik’s motion asks for a traffic study assessing the impacts of the Portland Slip stop.
Monday, December 1
🎶 The Music Advisory Committee meets at City Hall at 9:30 a.m. ZONING JAM SESSION: The committee will listen to the melodic tones of a bunch of bureaucratic presentations, including an update on the ongoing work to clarify zoning and licensing categories for music venues.
🚇 The TTC’s Audit & Risk Management Committee meets at TTC HQ at 10 a.m.NO FARE FOR FINCH: The good news is that the Finch West LRT is opening on December 7. The bad news is that the TTC already seems to be worried that no one riding it will pay the fare.
A proposed audit plan for the TTC in 2026 lists fare evasion on Line 6, the new Finch West LRT, as a “top risk” for financial sustainability, and lays out a plan to evaluate fare evasion on the line, even though the line hasn’t collected its first fare. The report notes that Line 5, the Eglinton Crosstown, may be added to the audit if it ever actually opens, which we all pray it will.
The concern is likely rooted in how fare collection will work on these lines. Unlike with streetcar routes, riders on Finch and Eglinton will have to pay their fares via Presto readers installed at the stops. There will be no way to pay your fare once on board. At the very least, I expect this will cause a lot of confusion.
🦁 The Zoo Board meets at the Zoo at 2 p.m.MENDING FENCES: The Board will be asked to approve a $1.6 million contract to improve the fencing around the zoo, which should help the zoo avoid a situation like the Great Capybara Escape that bedevilled the High Park Zoo in 2016.
AND ALSO:
Attendance remains a problem. Compared to 2024, visitor numbers are down 7%. The summer heat made for lousy zoo weather, apparently.
The zoo has a plan for using Artificial Intelligence. The board will get a presentation.
💳 The Debenture Committee meets at City Hall at 4 p.m.DEBT DEALING: The committee will approve $200 million in new debt. The City got a 4.7% interest rate for the loan, which will cover a mix of TTC and TCHC projects.
📚 The Library Board meets at the Reference Library at 6 p.m.
FROM WE TO ABC: As first reported in City Hall Watcher in October, a report on the agenda confirms the new location of the St. Lawrence Branch will be the former WE Charity HQ building at Queen East & Parliament. The sale of the property was finalized on November 21 for a cool $26 million.
The new district-scale library branch will take over three floors of the building, while the Library’s IT department will be relegated to the basement. The current St. Lawrence branch is 4,833 square feet, while the new library space will be 30,000 square feet. A nice upgrade. Another report on the agenda confirms that the relocated branch is also set to become home to a Youth Hub as early as 2028.
BUDGET BOOKS: After a request from the City to trim its spending, the library has revised its 2026 budget submission.
Instead of the 10.3% operating budget increase they first asked for, they are now requesting an increase of 7.8%. It works out to a reduction of about $6.4 million.
Part of the reduction comes from a freeze on the budget for purchasing new library materials. The library doesn’t seem happy about this change:
This will have a service impact by reducing access to TPL’s circulating collections in 2026 and increasing wait times. This negatively impacts the library’s most core service, providing universal access to knowledge, ideas and opinions that represent and amplify the voices of the communities it serves.
The board will also be asked to approve a trim of about $27 million from the library’s capital plan, a change motivated by a dramatic decline in development charge revenue. The reduction means that plans to make repairs and accessibility improvements at the Reference Library have been pushed to future years.
AND ALSO:
City Librarian Moe Hosseini-Ara tells us that approximately 21,000 people took advantage of the first day of expanded Sunday hours at all 100 branches on October 19.
Tuesday, December 2
📉 The Economic & Community Development Committee meets at City Hall at 9:30 a.m.PARK PROFANITY: A set of updates to the City’s park bylaw offer good news for sailors, or at least those of us who like to swear like them.
The proposal strikes out the part of a longstanding section of the bylaw that prohibits “profane” language in parks. It also removes part of the bylaw that banned people from indulging in “boisterous conduct.”
The old section read like this:
A. While in a park, no person shall: (1) Indulge in riotous, boisterous, violent, threatening, or illegal conduct or use profane or abusive language;
The new section reads like this:
A. While in a park, no person shall: (1) Engage in any form of harassment or riotous, violent, threatening, or illegal conduct; or use abusive language;
It’s good news for those of you who love being boisterous too.
The updates also remove a specific provision banning park-goers from flying hot air balloons. The city says hot air balloons are “outdated technology.” We’ll see about that.
ABSENT AMERICANS: Via new data from Destination Toronto, the committee will learn that tense cross-border relations have contributed to a significant decline in the number of Americans coming to the city.
“U.S. visitation remains 6% behind 2024, with nearly 80,000 fewer American visitors travelling to Toronto as of the end of September,” the report says.
But hey, the difference has been somewhat offset by increased visits from the other two countries that traditionally send a lot of tourists our way. Visits from Germany are up 7% while visits from the UK are up a massive 12%. Blimey.
AND ALSO:
With youth unemployment sitting at 15.2%, staff are proposing a plan to hire at least 1,000 more young people next summer. The big FIFA spectacle should also create some more youth job opportunities, the report says.
The City is asking for approval to lease some space at 355 Church Street to house a new training facility for Community Crisis Service workers.
A separate report offers some justification for training more crisis workers, concluding that crisis workers on the TTC could have responded to more than 10,000 calls this year, freeing up police officers and special constables to deal with other safety matters. Council recently approved a pilot putting crisis workers on the downtown part of Line 1.
A report on Toronto’s reconciliation plan says “the City has more work to do.” Of 141 sub-actions in the plan, 103 are in progress, and three have been completed.
⚽️ The FIFA World Cup 2026 Subcommittee meets at City Hall at 9:30 a.m.MLSE’S MONEY: The contract for “temporary hospitality structures” for the FIFA event has increased by $2 million. But the increase will be fully funded by MLSE, so there’s no impact on the City’s overall $380 million budget for the FIFA event.
Previously, in City Hall Watcher
For paid subscribers of City Hall Watcher, this week’s issue has:
It’s a chart-filled issue looking at housing starts by ward. Some councillors have seen a ton of development since Council adopted its HousingTO targets. Others have seen hardly any. It turns out some who complain a lot about the impacts of development live in wards that don’t see much of it.
Speaking of development, Premier Doug Ford says development charges never increased when he was a councillor at City Hall. Is that true? I’ve got a classic Ford Fact Check.
Next week:
LOBBYIST WATCH returns with a look at what City Hall lobbyists were doing in November.
Subscribe today for ad-free access to weekly subscriber-exclusive issues. Subscribers also get access to the COUNCIL SCORECARD — an interactive history of councillor voting records on major items, dating all the way back to 2010.
Wednesday, December 3
🏘️ The Planning & Housing Committee meets at City Hall at 9:30 a.m.
AMAZING AVENUES: The planning department has completed its study of the various avenues in Councillor Alejandra Bravo’s Ward 9 and Councillor Dianne Saxe’s Ward 11. They’re recommending rezoning and official plan amendments for nearly 2,000 land parcels across both wards. The changes, largely concentrated on Dufferin, Oakwood, Ossington, and Christie, will generally allow for as-of-right permission for buildings up to six storeys.
Rosedale is spared from major rezoning because of a heritage conservation plan in the neighbourhood. Planners are also shying away from recommending rezoning for land located near designated employment areas.
This process has not exactly been speedy, and it doesn’t look like that’ll change. The planning department is now recommending an additional process, with consultations, to develop a “Residential Apartment Avenue Zone” that will apply to these areas.
Avenue studies for other wards are scheduled for the next few years, starting with the remaining wards in the Old Toronto & East York area.
THE WINDS OF THE LABOUR MARKET: The results of Toronto’s 2025 employment survey are out. The good news is that the city continues to see job growth, adding 23,410 jobs this year to take the total to 1.62 million — a record high. The bad news is that growth is slowing. The 1.5% increase in jobs this year is significantly lower than the 4.2% increase the city saw last year, and below the 2.3% average annual growth over the last five years.
Office jobs made up the largest share of the growth. Jobs in retail, manufacturing & warehousing and the institutional sector all saw year-over-year declines.
AND ALSO:
Willowdale rep Councillor Lily Cheng is marshalling residents via email and social media to weigh in on a new secondary plan for North York Centre that outlines development that could grow North York Centre’s population from about 64,000 today to 170,000 over the next 30 years.
An update on Toronto’s new citywide rooming house regulations offers a few interesting numbers. After rooming houses became legal citywide in March 2024, the city has licensed 180 of what they now call “multi-tenant homes.” A whole lot of rooming houses — the City suspects about 2,118 — are still operating without a license. Councillor Parthi Kandavel’s Ward 20 has the most suspected unlicensed rooming houses, with 296. A program to provide landlords with financial support for renovating existing rooming houses to bring them into compliance with the new regulations has had some interest, but no one has taken the City up on the offer yet. The report asks Council to increase the eligibility threshold from $50,000 per room to $100,000 to try to get some takers.
After residents in midtown expressed concern about so-called “iceberg homes” — houses built by the wealthy with sprawling subterranean lairs with room for things like classic car collections — staff are recommending a rule that basements can’t extend further than the upper levels of a house.
🤝 The Corporations Nominating Panel meets at City Hall at 9:30 a.m.BROAD BOARDS: The panel chaired by Councillor Paula Fletcher will consider names for gigs on the Convention Centre Board and the CreateTO Board.
Thursday, December 4
🚧 The Infrastructure & Environment Committee meets at City Hall at 9:30 a.m.
CYCLING IS KINGSTON: A plan to install a new batch of bike lanes is on the agenda. To avoid any conflict with recent legislation passed by Premier Doug Ford’s government restricting the City’s powers to redesign roads, the package generally sticks to plans that maintain car lanes or put the bike lanes on the boulevard alongside roads.
These additions total about 20.5 kilometres. Kingston Road is the headline, as staff are suggesting a six-kilometre bikeway between Cliffside Drive and Scarborough Golf Club Road. All six car lanes are proposed to be retained.
There’s good rationale for improvements along Kingston. The report says there were 1,910 collisions in the area between 2014 and 2024, with 22 serious injuries and six deaths.
➡️ For more on the cycling plan and other routes that are now likely imperilled by provincial legislation — including the link between the new bike lanes on Kingston and the Danforth complete street — cycling advocate Robert Zaichkowski has you covered.
NOT EASY BEING GREEN: An update on the City’s TransformTO plan doesn’t offer much good news for fans of the environment.
A new forecast shows the City is on track to miss its 2040 Net Zero target. There’s a large gap of about 7.8 megatonnes of “residual emissions”, and the gap is likely to grow, the report says, as the provincial and federal governments continue to back away from programs like the carbon tax, the EV mandate and the Green Standard for buildings.
Speaking of governments that are backing away from environmental initiatives, the report also recommends the City Hall hold off on plans to establish a Building Emissions Performance Standards program. The program would have set limits on how much energy and emissions a building can produce. Staff say it isn’t ready for prime time due to tariff uncertainty, the ongoing wind-down of provincial and federal environmental programs, and affordability concerns in today’s economy. Environmental advocates plan to show up to the meeting to argue otherwise.
A report recommends the City try out a few new types of parking signage. A pilot will see digital “Towing in Effect” no-parking signage installed along select streetcar routes. They’ll be lit up during major snowstorms. At the request of Mayor Olivia Chow, the city will also test two new types of signs letting people know the rules for on-street parking — one that uses plain language and one that’s more visual. The pilot will start next spring and run for 18 months.
City Hall Chief Communications Officer Julia Oosterman will attend the meeting to detail plans to communicate the looming change to blue box collection that’ll kick in on January 1, when the City is set to exit residential recycling collection and let private consortium Circular Materials deal with the various cans and bottles and such. Councillors are very worried that it’s going to be a rocky handoff. A separate report details Circular Material’s plans to change the day some residents get their bins picked up.
A report on sidewalk snow clearing examines an idea brought forward by Councillor Dianne Saxe that would require corporate landlords to shovel their sidewalks, instead of just waiting for a City sidewalk plow to roll by. Staff reject the idea, arguing that it’s hard to define what a “corporate landlord” is.
Magna’s self-driving car pilot on the west side of downtown ended unceremoniously in October. The company hasn’t offered much explanation for what happened, but a letter on this agenda offers a clue. Ashley Curtis, the City’s Acting GM of Transportation, says the Magna cars showed some really bad behaviours. “These behaviours included vehicles incapable of making right turns at red lights, incapable of appropriately participating in turn-taking at stop-sign controlled intersections, frequent abrupt stops in response to a variety of common stimuli, veering out of lane of travel, turn signals that didn’t function, and an unscheduled shut-down and re-boot in a lane of live traffic with inability to move to the side of the road,” writes Curtis. There were also serious privacy concerns with the vehicle’s cameras. The City would like Queen’s Park to impose more stringent rules and regulations before authorizing any other self-driving car tests.
Councillor Frances Nunziata has brought forward plans to create a “Weston Loop” of public parks in her ward over the next 25 years. It comes with some snazzy art:
Friday, December 5
🎢 The Exhibition Place Board meets at the Automotive Building at 9:30 a.m.RISING RENT: The Board will be asked to sign off on a proposal to raise event rental rates for the Enercare Centre, Better Living Centre and Queen Elizabeth Hall by 3% each year between 2031 and 2035. For the Automotive Building, the rate is proposed to increase at a slower rate — with a 3% increase scheduled for every other year over the same period.
🌳 North York Community Council meets at North York Civic Centre at 9:30 a.m.BIG APPROVALS, BIG REJECTIONS: There are several big development proposals on the agenda.
Planners are recommending that the Community Council approve:
✅ A two-tower development with 1,115 units and a new YMCA on Sheppard East.
✅ A four-tower project with 2,377 units and a new community centre on Sheppard East.
But they are recommending refusal for these ones:
❌ A 49-storey tower on Avondale Avenue with 504 units.
❌ A two-tower project with 1,238 units on Sheppard East.
❌ A 25-storey building with 256 units on Eglinton Avenue East.
The Week After Next
The General Government Committee meets on Monday, December 8.
Mayor Olivia Chow’s Executive Committee meets on Tuesday, December 9.
The TTC Board meets on Wednesday, December 10.
The reconstituted Toronto Parking Authority Board meets for the first time on Friday, December 12.
The Far-Flung Future
Council meets for the final time in 2025, starting on Tuesday, December 16.
The City’s budget launch is set for Thursday, January 8, 2026.
Feedback? Tip? Email Matt Elliott at graphicmatt@gmail.com. For advertising inquiries, email Sean Hansel at seanishansel@gmail.com.
To prove to Ford that his signs are too big, they should put one in front of his house.And can you believe that he's frustrated about the Crosstown?What an actor!