Mayor John Tory says he won’t support a staff-endorsed plan to remove two lanes of traffic along a stretch of Yonge Street in North York and will instead push council to adopt a less dramatic proposal for the overhaul of the street.

Tory made the comment to reporters at city hall on Tuesday afternoon, hours after the release of an open letter from a number of community organizations calling on him to “demonstrate leadership” and support a proposal that they call the “the only way forward for safe streets”

The proposal calls for Yonge Street to be reduced from six to four lanes between Sheppard and Finch Avenues in order to accommodate a bike lane, wider sidewalks and a landscaped median.

Tory, however, is pushing for a scaled-down version of the plan, wherein a bike lane would be put in along a parallel corridor on Beecroft Road, allowing the number of lanes of traffic along Yonge Street to stay the same.

Tory’s plan would actually add $20 million to the $51 million cost of the staff-endorsed proposal but he told reporters on Thursday that he believes the difference could be “substantially reduced, perhaps down to zero.” He did not say how the cost would be reduced.

“There are still some people who drive cars. We are trying to build all kinds of transit to get them out of their cars but in the meantime they are still going to drive their cars and go where they are going,” Tory said. “My mandate is not to slow down traffic but to try to have it move better and have it move safely and to have cyclists be safe and to do that in the most cost effective way that we can.”

Matter will be debated again next week

The city’s public works committee was initially supposed to vote on the Yonge Street proposal during a meeting last month; however the matter was put aside until Feb. 27 after the time for debate was eaten up by a number of deputations from members of the public.

A staff report that was tabled prior to January’s meeting says that reducing the lanes of traffic along Yonge “provides the best support for vibrancy” and would also present “better opportunities to integrate with important public spaces such as Mel Lastman Square.

The staff report also notes that traffic modeling data indicates that commute times along Yonge would only increase by one to two minutes on average but Tory said that any increase in congestion along an already traffic-choked corridor would be unacceptable to him.

“I just believe when it is possible to get bike lanes and public realm improvements that will make it a much more hospitable place while at the same time keeping traffic moving in a safe manner, that is preferable solution given that this is one of the worst areas in Toronto for congested traffic,” he said. “I believe this is the right kind of balance.”

Staff have said that the reconstruction of Yonge Street will have to be carried out over the next five to 10 years and that doing so ““without any improvements to the steetscape quality or safety” would still carry a cost of $24 to $29 million.

Speaking with CP24 last month, Ward 23 Coun. John Filion said that rebuilding the street presents an opportunity to “to be imaginative and create a main street culture.”

Filion, in fact, said that it is “ridiculous” to have a “six-lane highway running through” the area, an assessment that the signatories behind the open letter released on Tuesday agreed with.

Those signatories represent nine community groups, including Cycle Toronto, Friends and Families for Safe Streets, 8 80 Cities and the Lytton Park Residents’ Organization.

“Imagine yourself as a pedestrian standing at the corner of Yonge Street and Sheppard Avenue on a spring day,” the letter asks. “You’re surrounded by six lanes of car traffic. The air is choked with exhaust from idling vehicles. You’re above one of the city’s busiest transit hubs but the sidewalks are too narrow to accommodate the swells of commuters. You’d like to sit down for a coffee but none of the nearby restaurants or cafes have reliable outdoor seating. You notice that families with strollers and people using mobility devices are struggling to navigate uneven sidewalks. Do you feel like you belong here?”

There are an estimated 80,000 people that live within walking distance of the stretch of Yonge between Sheppard and Finch avenues.