Improving city comms and increasing development charges also popular



TORONTO July 15th, 2014 - In a random sampling of public opinion taken by the Forum Poll™ among 754 Torontonians 18 years of age and older, the most popular of the 35 "Big Ideas" for the city's future proposed by the Toronto Star, expressed as "a unique idea that you would put on the short list of ideas" is building the Downtown Relief Line, or DRL, now (52%), and this is followed in popularity by reforming city communications to improve coordination between departments and keep the public better informed (50%) and increasing development charges to pay for transit and green spaces (50%). Among the least popular ideas are adopting a regional government for the GTHA and supporting the sharing economy (20% each) and, especially, allowing city staff to pilot interesting projects without council approving (16%).

"The ideas that are liked best are about Toronto, not the region, and not especially the neighbourhoods or former metro cities. De-amalgamation isn't popular, neither is regional government, regional transit or zone fares. Torontonians seem to want to see Toronto become more like Toronto," said Forum Research President, Dr. Lorne Bozinoff.

Lorne Bozinoff, Ph.D. is the president and founder of Forum Research. He can be reached at lbozinoff@forumresearch.com or at (416) 960-9603.







