Everyone agrees, Toronto is at a turning point. We hear that over and over, especially as the municipal election draws ever closer.

Certainly, the absence of a Ford in the mayor’s chair will mark a sea change. Even if Rob Ford (open Rob Ford's policard) succeeds in being returned to council as the representative of Ward 2 in Etobicoke, he cannot inflict the sort of destruction he managed as mayor, the worst Toronto has ever had — no mean feat in a city that has elected the likes of Mel Lastman and June Rowlands.

Given that Brother Doug has little chance of winning, it’s a safe bet that the Ford era in Toronto is finally, mercifully, over. That alone is reason for celebration, maybe even cheering in the streets, but does that mean Toronto is at the turning point we talk of so often?

The fact is that despite all the good ideas and better intentions of the two main mayoral candidates — Olivia Chow and John Tory — the city is sadly still nowhere near the crossroads we have been expecting for decades.

The candidates’ transit plans are examples of how conventional thinking prevails even though the situation has moved beyond conventional solutions. As it stands, Toronto has a transit system suited to a city of, say, 1.5 million. Except for the fact we have reached 2.8 million, it would work perfectly.

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And so the proposals are based on the assumption that simply by enlarging the system, we can solve gridlock. Just give us more buses, streetcars, subway cars, more routes and stations, and everything will be fine.

Except, of course, that it won’t.

Enough mistakes have been made already to ensure that the existing transit network will never meet demand. What does it say about how Toronto transit, for instance, that the King streetcar carries more passengers every day (60,000) than the Sheppard subway line (50,000)?

What does it reveal about Toronto that it is preparing to spend $3 billion on a subway in Scarborough that will carry even fewer passengers than Sheppard?

Tory, who doesn’t dispute the numbers, argues that Scarborough should be built simply because all three levels of government have agreed to it. This is tantamount to admitting that the facts of political buy-in are more important than objective reality.

He may be right, but the conclusion can only be that the decision-making process takes precedence over the decisions it is required to make. We’ve heard of doing what’s right for the wrong reasons, but doing the wrong thing even for the “right” reason makes no sense.

Despite the calls for bold action, the discussion boils down to: How many new buses can we afford, how many streetcars do we need and where will the subways go?

But all the new equipment and routes in the world won’t solve Toronto’s congestion problems. When all is said and done, the issue is that there are too many cars on the streets of Toronto.

Before we do anything else, we must deal with that. Failure to do so means more of the same, only worse. The city has reached the point where we must devise new ways of using streets.

Other cities have done this, and so can we.

But who among these candidates will broach a subject so sensitive it cuts deeper than even taxes? Who will address the need to curtail car use in a city where the car is king?

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So far, no one has dared mention such alternatives as street closures, road tolls and an end to street parking. Therein lies the route to civic sanity; the one we’re on leads only to municipal madness.