If you've been following Toronto politics for long, you'll realize this move from Tory is just another in his (and Toronto's) long history of poorly-delivered half-measures which come well after other major cities have already turned the corner.

I would not laud the city for "making some real changes" as much as I would criticize the mayor for being a stale, retrograde leader who is clearly in the business of delivering the barest possible minimum solution only after made to look like a fool.

Wake me up when he applies any pressure whatsoever to Toronto Police over their alarming lack of traffic enforcement and takes less than a year to support like the Bloor bike lane.

I wasn't singing the man's praises, I'm just hopeful that something will actually happen.

They did point to SF, Portland, and other cities as the inspiration for actually making the step—even though citizens and newspapers have basically been crying out for this very thing for weeks.

I'm just glad they're finally moving to do it. I was glad with how they stood strong on the King St traffic project. Hopefully many of these items will persist.

I've enjoyed the sweeter air due to the lessened traffic so, so much.

We'll see if it materializes into a truly bold and long-term improvement (out of character for Toronto), or fizzles out into marginally effective solutions sandboxed into very limited time/space constraints (very much in character for Toronto).

We will indeed.

I'm hopeful, though. For all that can be said about Tory he has proven to react in the peoples' favour when he actual has to face the consequences of not acting. I'm referring to the case of our subways A/C breaking in the middle of summer heat waves. When he actually rode it end-to-end with someone who raised the issue with him and he stepped off at the end of the line drenched in sweat he actually acted and it tangibly improved.

I'm hoping this may be a similar situation and prove to be a silver lining.

That's a very low bar though, isn't it? I'd be happy with that kind of responsiveness from a mayor of a mid-sized Russian city appointed by Putin. Like ooh, we got lucky this time, the tsar sent us someone not entirely incompetent. I expect more from my Canadian elected officials. It's all about who the voters elect though, and what kind of feedback they give politicians, that's definitely true.

It's no hard defense of John Tory. It's just an observed behaviour that I hope works in our favour (as it did with the subway line).