If developers are too often allowed to close curb lanes for years at a time, Mayor John Tory says it’s not because he isn’t doing anything about it.

My Jan. 14 column lauded city Councillor Josh Matlow for his efforts to make it much harder for developers to set up hoarding in traffic lanes, and questioned if Tory is as committed to the same goals.

That prompted a note from the mayor’s office about things he’s done to address traffic-snarling lane closures for development, along with a phone call from Tory to set me straight.

It may come as a surprise, but Tory says it’s harder now for developers to occupy traffic lanes for extended periods, because he pushed city staff to hold them to a tighter timeline and make them pay for the privilege.

Before he took an interest in city-issued approvals for hoarding in curb lanes, “nobody ever questioned them,” at city council, he said in a phone interview last week.

“There was no debate and no discussion. I think the record will show that I pretty well held every one for discussion the first two or three years I was mayor.

“The developers were not used to anyone holding them, let alone the mayor, and we negotiated a much shorter time for the closure and a better deal for the city. For example, keep lanes open during rush hours and close them during the day.”

His office sent me a list of what he’s done to reduce the time that traffic lanes can be occupied for construction, including:

Any road/right of way occupation of more than 30 days requires a report to council and or community council for accountability.

Road occupation fees were substantially increased in 2015. Depending on the location, length of closure and road, the fee can now be hundreds of thousands of dollars. But Tory concedes that the higher fees are merely the cost of doing business for developers.

Monthly auditing of construction sites to determine if staging can be safely removed before it was planned to be removed, a practice that Tory said was done at his urging.

Studies were introduced a few years ago to help identify traffic impacts to the larger neighbourhood due to development, which leads to other strategies like adjusting nearby traffic signals.

The city recently announced a new, one-year Construction Hub Pilot that allows staff to manage work zones to improve safety and help keep traffic moving. It’s expected to provide a model for other areas of the city where there is a lot of construction and lanes being blocked.

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Those measures have no doubt improved the situation, even if it doesn’t seem so to the public. But if Matlow and Tory — whose rivalry was defined and sharpened over the Scarborough subway debate — decide to make common cause on development lane closures, it can only make things better.

So get on the same team, fellers.