Cities around the world are turning over vast sections of roadway to pedestrians and cyclists during the pandemic. Canadian cities, including Vancouver, Calgary, Winnipeg and Montreal, have moved to redistribute road space.

And why not?

It’s not as though the roads are filled by the usual drivers rushing to and from their offices, and pedestrians clearly need more space than most sidewalks provide just to stay the required two metres apart.

Unfortunately, none of these sensible changes are happening in Toronto. Here, we get something called CurbTO.

It’s a tiny bit more pedestrian space, grudgingly given only where absolutely necessary. And even that plan comes with additional parking for drivers.

Starting this week, Toronto will block off short sections of the curb lane to alleviate sidewalk crowding in “hotspots.” It should make it possible for people walking past pharmacies and grocery stores in certain areas to stay two metres away from the people lined up outside those stores in two-metre increments.

It’s the equivalent of adding parking space for pedestrians. It does absolutely nothing to provide safe space for people feeling cooped up after weeks of lockdown to carry out the most basic of human activities: going for a walk.

This is not a plan to help Canada’s largest city survive the coming weeks, even months, of continued restrictions. It’s the bare minimum the city must do just to avoid being held responsible for people breaking the two-metre rule while going about their essential business.

Mayor John Tory acknowledged some people “want more than this.”

They sure do. And they’re right not just to want more but to expect more from the city than this paltry plan.

We’re told it’s all that can be done because Dr. Eileen de Villa, the city’s public health chief, says giving pedestrians any additional space may “inadvertently encourage congregation.”

This is the same type of thinking put forward by Ottawa’s associate medical officer of health when he suggested people couldn’t be trusted to have a socially distanced drink over the fence with their neighbours.

Only in that case, Ottawa’s mayor rightly shot it down, while Tory is parroting it.

Plenty of other cities — Ottawa included — have safely provided more outdoor space for pedestrians by reallocating roadways and it’s high time Toronto figured it out.

Over the past six weeks, the vast majority of people have done what’s been asked of them to flatten the COVID-19 curve. But it’s not physically or mentally healthy to expect people to stay indoors for the weeks and possibly months still to come.

So many people in Toronto live in densely populated neighbourhoods full of highrise apartments and condominiums that the city’s public spaces and parks — the bits of them that remain open at any rate — are insufficient to allow for social distancing. More space for pedestrians is needed to make pandemic rules sustainable, especially as the weather gets nicer.

The ability to go for a walk after being cooped up inside all day working or trying to get kids to do their school work — or quite possibly both at the same time — should be a pretty low bar to meet for a city as capable as this one.

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Toronto has long been car-centric. It takes years of debate to make space for public transit or a bike lane if there’s a risk it will inconvenience drivers or reduce parking in any way. So it’s not a surprise that Toronto hasn’t yet used this crisis to rethink travel in a post-pandemic world the way other cities have. But it should not be too much to ask that the city try to make life just a little more bearable right now.

Toronto needs to free up more space so people can get outside and still maintain social distancing. And the city should trust its citizens to use it appropriately.

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