Toronto’s status as a region of grave congestion, encroaching gridlock and some of North America’s most challenging commutes is not about to change any time soon.

The billions upon billions of dollars earmarked for transit improvements — if spent over the next decade as planned — will only forestall the crippling of our economy.

Many factors, good and bad, contributed to our current state. Many factors, small and large, are needed to ameliorate the condition.

The fixes will hurt. They will cost. They require a long time to take hold. Some will fail spectacularly. The effort, of necessity gargantuan and critical, will test our patience and will.

So, beware of politicians and planners and pundits who promote big-ticket solutions at the expense of simple ones. Or those who suggest the fixes will be painless or possible if politicians would just stop wasting the money we send them and divert the taxes to transportation projects.

Election campaigns, being what they are, cloud the above realities.

The entire campaign apparatus is built around attacks and counterattacks, claims and counterclaims. Campaigns have SWAT teams on Twitter and Facebook. They send out “fact check” emails that themselves have to be fact-checked. If candidate A suggests a solution or an idea, opponents feel compelled to attack any smidgen of the proposal that is open to debate or subject to controversy.

Campaigns convene focus groups, see what ideas sell, and package them for general consumption, hoping to connect with key voters. Candidates avoid certain subjects, change language, dodge questions, ignore realities and brush aside toxic wedge issues.

The result is a roller-derby of a year-long carnival that can confound constituents trying to make informed decision on who best should lead the Toronto region.

The political attacks are superficial and, sometimes, comical; they do, however, provide the theatre that helps the city endure a year of campaign palaver and propaganda. The assumption is that voters will finally separate gems from dross and coalesce around a civic leader.

Toronto’s mayoral race sucks up most of the media oxygen for good reason. He or she may be the mayor of the 416 area code only, but everyone knows that Toronto is the face of the entire urban region, from Clarington to Burlington and up to Barrie. Residents there look to the Toronto voter to vote with intelligence; to look beyond the issues in the local neighbourhood.

Since transportation is the region’s number one issue by far, the following is worth remembering:

The political stars are aligned positively for the region. The provincial Liberals have a new mandate and have committed unprecedented spending on transit. Ottawa will have an election over the next year or so and the major parties need Toronto-area seats. In October, all GTA residents can put in place mayors prepared to work with the province and federal governments to attack congestion, stop changing plans every year and build.

All the money in the world can’t give each of us a clear lane of traffic from the country into an office job at Bay and King. We’ll need to embrace diamond lanes, driving restrictions in rush hour, toll roads, parking levies and other tax measures.

On some routes, citizens need more buses; other routes require a BRT (bus rapid transit) or LRT (light rail transit). Subways are reserved for the most highly used corridors with heavy passenger capacity.

Commerce is essential to the metropolis. But allowing delivery vehicles to block a lane of traffic during rush hour is suicidal. Make deliveries during 20 hours of the day, leaving 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. clear and free. We can argue about the length of rush hour, but this is a reasonable start and the least we can do for sensible accommodation.

Who cares whether transit goes above ground or below, on GO tracks or TTC tracks, with a Metrolinx logo or a TTC logo? The issue is functionality. Can it be built fast, at reasonable cost, with minimum disruption possible? And can it operate without worsening the traffic congestion already present?

When the election is over and we all turn to living and governing, what Toronto needs is a leader who is wise enough to take all the good ideas generated, and skillful enough to shepherd through the ones that actually work.

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Royson James usually appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Email: rjames@thestar.ca

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