Toronto: A Bit of Alright?

As much as I disparage Toronto and Canada, it is nice sometimes to be reminded that the difference between here and New York can sometimes be a neat thing. Case in point, this article from Torontoist.com. The article refers to a street in the downtown core which the city is designing pretty much from scratch, and so is holding meetings to gather community feedback for their proposals. And so:

The meeting started with a presentation by the architects who are leading the project. They proposed, as a sort of opening bid, a 35-meter-wide street (a little bit more narrow than Spadina, for example), including extra wide (4.5 meter) sidewalks, four lanes of traffic (including a slightly widened lane for bicycles and off-peak parking, but not a full bike lane), and a streetcar right-of-way. It was a modestly impressive attempt at pleasing all interests.

Then came time for questions of clarification, and the very first one was impressive. "Has there been any thought given to the very likely possibility that cars won't be playing a key role in our transportation mix at all 25 years from now? Why are we building any lanes for cars?" The question wasn't asked in a confrontational tone, nor did it come from someone wearing sandals and a hemp-woven hat. It was simply a reasonable observation of the facts, coming from a normal, reasonable person.

Wow. Way to go, that person. And yet, even though I love New York way more than I'll ever love Toronto, even though I consider New York my home and would love to live there again some day, it pains me to wonder (and doubt) if anyone there would express a similar sentiment in such a non-confrontational, consensus-seeking fashion. In some ways, the in-your-face that is New York is one of the things that I love about it (of course, the New York aggressiveness is interesting in that it exists, but only if provoked; if you walk down the street and keep to yourself, you are far more likely to be left alone and not have every person you pass by stare at you, no matter what you look like, than you are in any other city I've ever been in).

I watched An Inconvenient Truth a few days ago, and had an incredibly frustrating conversation with a person about it. This person's viewpoint was essentially the same as the one that Matt Drudge foists upon his readers (for example); it is the perspective that the human factor in global warming remains unproven (perhaps is even, ultimately, unprovable?); that there could be other factors to account for it, that the rising temperatures are simply a part of the earth's natural cycle, and so there is little or no reason for us to change our lifestyles, certainly not without much more research into the effects of carbon dioxide and other factors on the Earth's climate.

There's something inherently wrong with that perspective, with the perspective that just because things seem fine right now, they always will be, that without incontrovertible proof there's no reason to make any changes whatsoever. And the most frustrating thing is, there doesn't necessarily need to be massive changes for real progress in sustainable growth, changes which would benefit both the environment and consumers. Everyone knows fossil fuels are a finite resource; why then are we not conserving as much as possible? Why are North Americans the only people living on the planet who barely give a thought to recycling, to energy efficient appliances and weather-proofing homes? Why do people still need to be reminded to turn lights off when they're not in the room? How much of a difference could it make if governments upped gas mileage requirements by 2 miles per gallon? Or 4? How about 10? How about mandating minimum efficiency requirements for other appliances, or for lightbulbs? Why is mass transit over here so shitty? All of these things are so minor (well, maybe not the mass transit question), and yet add up to savings for both consumers (less money spent on gas and utility bills) and the environment. So why not go ahead with them? What does it hurt? Why is North America so fucking selfish?