As long as we get the pandemic under control before the weather warms up, the City of Toronto is planning for a revamped, COVID-friendly summer.
Toronto Mayor John Tory announced today that plans are underway to improve and expand two of the most popular programs from last summer – ActiveTO and CafeTO.
During the spring, summer and fall of 2020, ActiveTO opened up sections of major roads, like the Lake Shore, to pedestrians and cyclists only.
“I think if anything my objective would be to scale it up and by saying that I’m talking about what I’ve asked of the staff, which is that they look at opportunities to have an ActiveTO corridor… in other parts of the city,” Tory said. “There’s no reason why we can’t at least look say, a place we can do it in East York, North York and Scarborough if the local people want it.”
A report will be coming to council within the next few weeks.
The City is also preparing to allow more restaurant owners to take advantage of every outdoor space they can.
With CafeTO last year, restaurants were able to set up sidewalk, curbside and in some cases parking lot patios in order to serve more customers. Tory says this time around he’s hoping for less red tape.
“I think the desire is obviously there to have the program start as soon as possible, and that’s why the applications will open in the next week or so,” Tory said. “We will then allow the patios themselves to open in early May… we will allow some platforms and decks to be built whereas last year that was kind of a more haphazard sort of thing.”
Tory added that this time around the application process will be as streamlined as possible to make it easier for owners to apply.