Autonomy. Mastery. Purpose.

“Autonomy: The urge to direct our own lives. Mastery: the desire to get better and better at something that matters. Purpose: the yearning to do what we do in the service of something larger than ourselves. … If you want engagement, self-direction is best. ”

This TED talk by Dan Pink is one of my favourites. It is one of my ‘go-tos’ to get motivated videos; The Surprising Science of Motivation. Or watch a slightly different version on  the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, Drive (also the title of Pink’s book).

Forget the traditional thinking, rewarding people for the work they do. The science, the facts, demonstrate this funky inverse relationship, the more you reward people the lower the performance in return. What?! You mean you’re not going to reward me for working hard?

No, that’s not what Pink is arguing.  Pink and the research he has done argue that you have to pay people fairly, ‘take money off the table.’ Ever heard of ROWE? Results Only Work Environment. Not being monitored for the hours you sit at your desk (you know those idle hours where you wonder what you’re going to do since you’ve read every headline, every magazine and every tweet you can imagine!), but instead being paid for the results you produce. Technology has changed everything, who needs to be in a desk all day to be effective. More importantly what a great way to kill creativity; force people to sit at a desk until they feel suffocated. Not sure ROWE is effective? Encarta vs Wikipedia. Managed, micromanaged vs created for free.

Autonomy: The urge to direct our own lives

We all want to be our own bosses these days. We want control. We want to do things when we want to do them. We do not want to be told when to arrive, when to go home, when to eat lunch. Technology makes that possible. Bureaucratic, conservative institutions make it impossible. Give a deadline, demand the results, expect the unexpected and allow a little flexibility and freedom.

But we all must remember we cannot be Chiefs all the time, sometimes we need to play the role of Indian.  It’s ok to work for, or even better with, someone. One can still maintain autonomy. Produce the results, work hard and you can be rewarded with a ‘flexible work schedule.’

Mastery: The desire to get better and better at something that matters

Something that matters. Matters to me? No, what matters to you. For self-direction and creativity it has to be important to you. It’s why there are so many people who practice a musical instruments. It’s why there has been a rise in masters level sports and intramural sports. It is your desire to be the best you can be at something you think is important… It’s why I ride my bike at 5:40am with a giant group of enthusiastic riders.

It is the birth of creativity. It is the desire for all of us to do something that is important to us. And do we need monetary reward? Not necessarily. Recognition is often enough.

Purpose: The yearning to do what we do in the service of something larger than ourselves

Ok it would be pretty cool to be like a Steve Jobs, a Warren Buffet, a Bill Gates, but for the majority of the planet we will have to settle for something a little less. Although you can argue they did what they did in the service of us, in the service of something larger than themselves. And working for someone doesn’t mean you have to be unhappy. Ski Coaching brings me some of the greatest rewards in life; being out on the slopes with the under-11 athletes, watching the engage, learn, ski better, ski faster. There is no where else I would rather be on a wintery weekend morning than on the snow.  I am part of the growth and development of the young ones; something larger than myself.

What brings me purpose and fulfillment in life may not be for you. You may find purpose in developing policies that protect the citizens around you or in building something that makes ones life easier or in developing something to bring enjoyment to others. What drives each and everyone of us to be part of something larger than ourselves is completely individual.

Can we compare to 3 Pillars of sustainability, People, Plant, Profit to Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose?

My sustainable brain light bulb turned on after watching these videos again. How does Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose relate to People, Planet and Profits?

People: It is easy enough to see that most people want a life of fulfillment, they want some form of Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose.  To do something larger than yourself? Protecting the planet for future generations is definitely outside the scope of oneself.

Planet: Protect the planet. Do it more efficiently. Do it with fewer resources. Do something that leaves a smaller footprint. I can see how purpose ties in here. And mastery, the idea of being able to do what we have done before with a smaller impact. You will need several masters to tackle this art!

Profit: Efficiency. People want autonomy, people want to be paid fairly, people want self-satisfaction from their jobs. Pay the right person for the result you are trying to achieve. Hire someone for their skills (mastery), because they are passionate about what they do (purpose) and let them achieve that result, whatever path they chose to follow (autonomy). You would be surprised at the efficiencies. It might mean less office space, less wasted time, a different product (good or service) that meets your goal or objective.

Lululemon prints their manifesto on the bags they sell their products in. It is a collection of slogans, sayings and words that Lululemon believes in. “Creativity is maximized when you’re living in the moment.” To live each moment to it’s maximum potential one needs a life of autonomy, mastery and purpose.

Who actually won the debate?

Unfortunately politics, at least what I’ve seen as of late, in Canada (recent Federal and Toronto Mayoral elections) is about attacking your opponents instead of announcing your platform. And when we do hear about parties platforms, we hear about outlandish claims to make the city, province, country, etc a better place. But have any of these candidates actually considered the consequences of their promises on the budget?

Where promises meet reality, reality bites!

Here is a bit of reality (well at least in my opinion). Costs for education, transportation, health care, etc. are rising. Costs are increasing at a rate greater than what our tax system can manage. Instead of looking at reality (i.e paying more taxes) candidates make promises for more services with less taxes. That equation just doesn’t add up!

During the CBC debates 6 questions were posed by Ontarian citizens. The last question raised the issue of a tiered health care system. NONE of the candidates were able to directly answer the question (Although do candidates ever really directly answer debate questions?!). But the final question on tiered health care raised an interesting point;

We already have a tiered income tax tariff, why not introduce a similar program for other sectors?

The objective is tiered system is not to benefit the low income earners. Having said that the objective is also not to punish the high income earners either.

Energy: What about increasing taxes on increasing consumption? For the first ‘x’ number of watts there is no tax, the next ‘y’ units consumed are charged the HST, and above ‘z’ units consumption is charged an extra nominal tax. Consumption blocks would have to be broken up for residential and commercial. But this does a few things. First of all it promotes everyone to conserve, to consider the environment, you pay no tax if you’re a low consumer. Secondly it’s fair; it does not discriminate between high- and low-earners, each consumer is considered the same. And finally it would likely benefit the low-income earners. Typically they own small residential units , do not own a bunch of ‘energy-sucking gadgets’ that do not consume a lot of power. Seems pretty win-win-win to me, but I do understand the policy implications and the difficulty in setting up such a program.

Education: We are so fortunate for everyone to have access to great education in Ontario. I am a product of the public school system and loved every minute I spent there. From my classes (nerd coming out again) to the athletics to the organizations I was involved in; I was incredibly fortunate. I do not want to see that slip away for future generations. Keep those teachers that love what they do. I’ve never really thought about how to ‘tier’ education… I think that will be the thoughts of my run today.

Health Care: It’s a bit of a ‘can of worms’ when you discuss health care. It comes down to essential services and necessities; there is a lot of abuse in the health care system. I have no problem with 6-figure administrative salaries; all competitive CEO’s are paid these salaries and I want the best and brightest to be running the hospital I visit. Administration is needed; how else do you bring those essential services to the patients? Trust me the doctors are too busy to take care of all the administration and I’d rather have that amazing doctor working on me and other patients than pushing paper. Of course there is no easy answer. Many countries, who previously had a completely publicly funded health care system, are now privatizing some costs. Given that Ontario has the largest population in Canada, I would like to see a trial with some of the current health care services (for instance MRI’s, CT scans, x-ray..).

Transportation: Bring on the tolled highways. Not every lane, not every highway. HOT (high-occupancy-toll) lanes have proven successful. Congestion charging has proven successful. We have come to think that driving a car is a right, not a privilege. But to maintain that right we are going to have to pay the ‘actual’ cost to drive on our roads.

Ok, these examples are my opinion and fairly volatile. With the right policy they can work. I’m not saying it’s a perfect solution, but under a Nash Equilibrium you’re always looking for the second best solution!

The conference started out with David Miller’s last appearance of the Mayor of Toronto. He spoke about the initiatives Toronto was undertaking to reduce their carbon footprint, including the waste diversion programs and gas collection from landfill sites. He spoke passionately about being the leader of the C40 cities. Miller was honoured by the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, Donna Cansfield, and Stockwell Day, the Minister of the Asia-Pacific Gateway. Toronto can only hope that the succeeding mayor will be as passionate about sustainability (ha!).

Sustainable Electricity. Sustainable Transportation. Sustainable Cities. Building Sustainable Lives for all citizens

… Was the theme of the first day. Barry LePartner, somewhat of an alarmist, spoke about the failing infrastructure in the US. He predicts that the Minneapolis bridge disaster might just be the first of many. Dalton McGuinty lunch speech was about Ontario’s leadership in sustainable energy, with the FIT program and promotion of electric vehicles. His speech may have been more credible had he left the new Harry Potter movie out of his speech.

The second day was about the past/current (?) financial crisis, and was disappointing in comparison to the first day. Speakers skirted the main topics ‘Have we seen the bottom?’ and ‘What are the fundamentals for Sustained Growth?’. Perhaps these issues were avoided because commenting on them would be insulting both the Canadian and American Economic Advisers.

The highlight for me over the two days was an interview between Amanda Lang and Martin Wolf. Wolf spoke to the failing US economy and the reliance of the Canadian Economy on the US (given that 75% of Canadian exports go to the US). But it was not just the hard facts that he laid out, he also shared his views that the Developed Nations are naive to think they can continue on the path their on; the Developing and Emerging Countries will not only overtake the Developed Nations but they will surpass and leave them behind in their dust. He couldn’t repeat enough that we have to change the way we currently conduct business. He eluded to the fact that we value the ‘wrong’ things, we are too much of a commercial society that consumes meaningless goods. His candor and enthusiasm were welcomed by the crowd, especially in comparison to the high-level, reluctant speeches of his peers.

A more inclusive summary of the conference can be found here (shortly )

Pasternack, a lawyer and municipal policy adviser, admitted that he was not a climate science expert, but proved he was an expert on policy to help mitigate and adapt to climate change. One theme that Pasternack hammered home was the idea that climate change contributes to deteriorating infrastructure, changes in weather patterns, etc but that it is not the root cause in these changes.

Why Do We Need To Respond?

Cities, hubs of economic activity, generate the bulk of greenhouse gas emissions. That’s not surprising given that about 50% of the world lives in an urban environment. The C40 Cities, The Climate Leadership Group estimates that 75% of the total electricity use is in cities.

Not only do cities need to adapt due to the emissions they release, but also due to the changes in weather patterns. Extreme storms are causing electrical outages and washing out roads. Cities need to adapt their infrastructure to mitigate the climate change effects.

How Will Cities Respond?

The city of Toronto has come up with a mitigation and adaptation plan; they believe that the two go hand-in-hand to successfully combat climate change. From Ahead of the Storm, a City of Toronto a climate change adaptation strategy, the following Venn diagram was borne:

The C40 cities have all come up with mitigation and adaptation strategies. The C40 cities understand that cooperation and transparency are necessary to make real gains in combating climate change; the cities have made their climate change action plans publicly available.

In a perfect world cities would be making grounds mitigating the effects of climate change, instead cities are left pondering what the next steps are. Pasternack cited that insufficient funds, lack of consensus, unengaged stakeholders and legal impediments are thwarting city efforts. More than anything cities are powerless due to paramountcy and preemption.

The success of cities is held in balance with economic and social sustainability, but also environmental sustainability.

The other day I was thinking about how the system could be better, at the municipal, provincial and federal level. My thought was,

The individuals in charge of a specific portfolio should have some experience in that sector.

For instance, the Minister of Education should have worked in education, as a teacher, a principle, a professor, etc. The Minister of Justice should have worked in the legal field. The Minister of Finance should be a finance guy or gal. The Minister of Transportation should be a transportation engineer.

And this would work at the municipal level too. We need hard working technical officials to help put Toronto back together.  Sorry to pick on you Adam Giambrone, but your lack of knowledge of public transit systems has not been good for Toronto, neither was your scandal!

I’m not saying we should take away from the elected officials. We live in a democracy and should be represented by an elected official of our riding, district, area, however you want to call it at the federal, provincial and municipal levels.

What if instead of having to draw from the elected individuals as top cabinet representatives that we either elected or appointed technical representatives?

Although there maybe some drawbacks, including more officials that need to be paid a salary (could we increase the size of a riding and decrease the number of elected officials?) or lack of policy knowledge (easier to learn than technical knowledge), I think the benefits could far outweigh the disadvantages.

• Technical Knowledge: officials would have technical knowledge of their portfolio and could provide more sound advice to the premier
• Timely Decisions: officials could make timely decisions and not have to rely on the technical knowledge of a support staff. This could not only be a time savings but also a $ savings too (didn’t we learn enough from the EHealth scandal?)
• Public Support: the public may have more trust in the decision made my a technical representative with a thorough understanding of the problem

Our democratic makeup has got us so far but as with everything else I think it’s time for an evolution. We need hard working, technical people to help us move forward in the 21st century. We need forward thinkers. We need officials who are not afraid of change, not afraid to push the envelope and not afraid to make a few mistakes along the way.

A little history…

The Allen Expressway was originally designed to be a connection from the 401 all the way down to the Gardiner, known as the Spadina expressway. Construction began in 1963. Homes were demolished, neighbourhoods destroyed and air pollution was increasing for surrounding residents. Opposition continued to mount. Modifications to the Spadina Expressway were made in 1964, it meant the expropriation and demolition of more homes. by 1966 the city opened the first section from Wilson Avenue down to Lawrence, with a massive, highly efficient connection with the 401. Construction down to Eglinton continued but in 1969 a group led by Alan Powell and Jane Jacobs known as the “Stop Spadina, Save Our City Co-ordinating Committee” (SSSOCCC) formed committed to halting the progress of the Spadina Expressway.

Based on the Eglinton terminus the SSSOCCC won.

What does Toronto really need?

Does Toronto need a buried expressway? Didn’t we learn enough from Boston’s Big Dig? The multi-billion dollar project was way over budget, has not improved efficiency and has not helped reconnect citizens to the waterfront.

Toronto needs roads to function more efficiently, better bus transportation on existing roads and traffic engineers to work together to get our city moving again, from pedestrians, to cyclists, to buses and finally vehicles.

Toronto needs a mayor who can think about what the citizens really need. Do they need their taxes raised to fund more projects? Or do they need a mayor who can work with what the city already has and make it better?

Give me a KISS

Do you remember when you were much younger and someone told you to follow the KISS principle? Keep It Simple Stupid. While I was driving back from class I thought of a few things the city could do before it was forced to construct an underground expressway

• Eliminate illegal parking/stopping on streets during day hours: Bathurst was crawling today. Why? Because a delivery truck decided to park facing south on the northbound lanes. Instead of two lanes of traffic, it was reduced to one. In addition the one lane competed for right turn space, since the driver had parked so close to the intersection. Flow would have been uninterrupted without the truck illegally stopped.
• Dedicated Pedestrian Crossing at all major intersections: I wrote a blog on this before. The Dundas square intersection almost ‘gets’ it. But instead there should be no pedestrian crossing when traffic is moving. It is safer for pedestrians to cross when the intersection is completely stopped.
• Eliminate Street Parking: You cut capacity in half with street parking. Facilities can be built in nearby areas. I see the other side of the argument, that it hurts businesses where street parking has been eliminated. However, the loss of business due to congestion is likely greater than the cost of lost business.
• Dedicated Bus and Carpool lanes: Their benefits are well documented and require little infrastructure for implementation.
• Signal Timing: Ever feel like you get a green light as the one in front of you turns red? City Traffic Engineers need to set routes as ‘main lines.’ Consecutive green lights would allow people to come into and out of the city easily.

Instead of dreaming of elaborate, expensive, complicated infrastructure, lets go back to the basics. Instead the city should work with its existing infrastructure. Make the roads move efficiently. Make buses move along those routes efficiently. Make it attractive to live in the city again. Work with all the great infrastructure that exists in the city before we bring in more.

Maybe Rossi has a vision. Or maybe he thinks a massive elevator will transport vehicles up to meet the Gardiner.

Yesterday Dalton McGuinty shuffled cabinet in a hope to improve operations of Ontario Governments. Although, that’s also what he said in January when he had again shuffled cabinet. Instead of efficient, reliable government Ontarian’s were sidled with an eco-fee debacle, a raid on ministries and a strengthened sense that our government is no longer serving the needs of the province.

The shuffle also saw the split of the Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure (MEI). Both with sizable mandates, they warrant having two ministers. Infrastructure is responsible for the implementation of sound infrastructure strategies for the province; given that the population of the province is exploding and our current infrastructure is aging and failing, this is no small feat to accomplish. Energy is responsible for developing the energy policy framework that is central to the building of a strong and prosperous economy for Ontario; green energy, smart-metering, conservation, etc … again more work than one minister should be responsible for. To be fair to Ontarian’s and to move this province in the right direction MEI needed a split, let’s just hope it wasn’t too late.

Now that the Ministry of the Environment has a new leader, will it be enough to undue the mistakes made with an Eco-fee?

An eco-tax was inevitable. To move from cradle-to-grave to cradle-to-cradle (i.e. eliminating and minimizing our waste) a fee was needed to encourage consumers to buy more eco-friendly products and to choose products with less packaging. My favourite criticism of the new tax (because it’s not a fee, it is a tax) is

“Taxpayers on the hook as eco fees scrapped.”

And who else was going to pay for it? I must have missed something but I believe that most people paying the eco-tax also pay their provincial taxes. Granted how the tax payments are distributed may not be as equal as if we all had bought our own products. But don’t blame Queens Park for that the media spun the eco-tax as evil. Why don’t we sidle them with the millions of dollars that will be generated from the eco-tax? But then again what’s the point?

Until there is transparency as to where our eco-tax is spent and who get’s what proportion of it, no one should be footing the bill.

Maybe the money generated from the eco-tax should be donated to those suffering from the flooding in Pakistan, Kashmir, China and all the other places we never hear about. After all at least we would know where are money was going.

Presentation #1: Analysis of the Low-Bid Award System in Public Sector Construction Procurement

The main thing that I took away from this presentation was that typically a project in the public sector has about a 25% final cost escalation after the bid. What this really means is that public sectors budget for ‘$x’ but really they need to budget for ‘$x+25%’ – that can get really costly for us taxpayers!

Other things highlighted in this presentation:

• Pre-qualified Vs Open Bids: Typically the public sector has Vendors of Record and only allow specific companies to bid on projects. In an open bid anyone can bid the job. The author noted regardless if the company was pre-qualified that all jobs saw a 25% cost escalation.
• What project are they bidding on?: The author suggested that companies will ‘low-ball’ their job price just to get the job knowing that they can charge for many extras. Other companies will bid the ‘whole’ job and build in contingencies. I wonder which overall in the end would be cheaper?

I thought the research as lacking, particularly in consistency of level of government; there is a big difference between municipal, provincial and federal jobs in terms or budgets, project size and complexity.

What should we do In the Future?

The author didn’t offer research ideas for the future I these should be incorporated:

• Analysis of government levels: i.e break it down to municipal, provincial and federal
• Project Scope: Some $100 million jobs are the easiest so break the projects down by complexity
• Project Cost: Even though those $100 million dollar jobs are easy how do they compare in over-runs with the bigger and smaller jobs?
• Schedule: one season vs multi-year – what are the impacts?

I questioned the author on pre-qualified bidders under completed designs and asked if an investigation was done on contracts where no ‘extras’ were permitted. This area had not been explored because most of the projects looked at were bid on at the 30% design stage (I see a flaw here). But looking at the other conferences I’ve been to this year I would think that a P3 is needed here, such that the risk is transferred both to the client (the constructor) and the owner (the public sector). Using P3’s BC has been able to minimize cost escalations and has built many impressive projects.

Presentation #2: Investigation of Glass Fibre Reinforced Polymer (GFRP) Reinforcing Bars as Internal Reinforcement for Concrete Structures

GFRP might be the future in concrete construction, well at least for certain applications. Typically concrete is reinforced with steel; to be technical concrete is great in compression and terrible in tension so without any reinforcing material in it everything would come crashing down.

Why switch from steel to glass? When steel is produced it is not in its elemental state, that shiny steel wants to return to it’s rust covered natural state. As the rust penetrates the steel it looses its structural strength. Plus steel is highly reactive and with all the chemicals in our buildings and roads the steel is once again on the defence and can break down.

Enter glass. A material that does not react to the chemicals the same way steel does. It is actually stronger than steel and has been shown to withstand twice the applied force of steel.

Drawbacks to glass:

• No way to monitor its behaviour: Because glass does not react the same way as steel and because it is so new there are many testing mechanisms to test the glass
• No way to tell it will fail: Steel has both an elastic and plastic phase. As it approaches its maximum load it enters plastic deformation. Basically we can see when it is going to fail. Glass on the other hand is only elastic and fails once it reaches it’s ultimate load
• Not recyclable: the glass fibers are covered in resin. Separating the glass from the resin is almost impossible. And to add insult to injury using recycled glass initially significantly lowers the strength so only new glass is used in GFRP.

A bulk of the authors work was testing the GFRP at extremely cold temperature, -40C/-40F. The author noted that the GRFP had no strength deviations at these low temperatures and performed well – good news for Canada!

In the end I have to say that I did enjoy both presentations. I thought the second candidate did a far better job at answering questions and proposed where future research could go (the student it starting his PhD this fall in GFRP and is continuing to build upon his research). But what I really took away from this was that a master defence at the University of Toronto is more of a presentation; these candidates weren’t sweating it out at all!

The Toronto Star has reported (and more than once) that the amount of waste that the city claims it diverts is inflated.

Why Isn’t the Composting System Working

The City of Toronto provides a list of items that can go into the green, compost bin. The list includes traditional diapers and kittie litter, which we all know does not do well in a compost bin. In addition they tell residents to put it in a plastic bag, which obviously do not decompose.

The Toronto Star reports that the compost that is produced from city waste is highly salient. With the high salt content farmers are not willing to buy the compost because it kills their crops.

The final issue really complicating composting is the fact that compost sites have been shut down due to the smell they produce. The NIMBY’s are not recognizing the benefits of having mass compost areas but they’ll also criticize the city for not having a compost program!

Is it possible to find a viable solution?

The idea of city wide composting is great, we all (should) produce ample amounts of compost waste everyday (I say should because it does depend on one’s diet). I think the fault in the system is how we currently deal with the compost. Publicly run composting systems just aren’t working, instead it should be privately owned. In this regard there would be more incentive for removing waste which cannot be composted and producing a higher quality product; the better the compost, the more farmers and others will buy, the higher the profits.

I think if it were privatized that there were be incentive for the apartments and condos to ask their residents to start composting. It’s no secret that people living in apartments are not required to compost and everything ends up in a landfill. But their garbage is someone else’s treasure.

If compost bins were privatized there would also be more incentive to track those that polluted the compost. Add to that municipal waste should be sorted and that which is for the compost should end up in the compost pile.

Composting, recycling, pre-cycling, diversion, etc. are the future for our cities. It is just a matter of providing a combination of the right education and a well-managed waste system.

In moving to be more environmental WATERFRONToronto set up an online consultation tool. Here it lists the Study Goals and Design Principles, Alternative Concepts, Criteria Groups and Consultation Approach. I decided to spend sometime this morning going through the material and reading some of the comments.

The Triple Bottom Line Approach
For years we based our well-being and growth on the economic bottom line; a company, a project is viable if it is economically profitable. We have evolved since then; Triple Bottom Line (TBL) looks at the project, business from three perspectives, social, environmental and economic.

I decided I’d examine the Gardiner East project from the TBL perspective.

Study Goals and Design Principles
As stated on the website “The Gardiner Expressway EA and Urban Design Study has specific goals and related study principles that will be used to develop and evaluate the design alternatives.”

The goals are:
Goal 1: Revive the Waterfront;
Goal 2: Reunite the City with the Lake;
Goal 3: Redistribute Traffic and Rebalance Modes of Travel;
Goal 4: Restore the Waterfront Environment; and,
Goal 5: Reconcile Long Term Costs and Benefits.

Someone suggested that the 6th goal should be “Contributing to the long-term goal of shifting transportation flows from cars to transit, cycling, etc,” but I think that is captured already in goal 3.

From the TBL perspective I think these goals are unfairly waited towards the social benefits. The first three goals are aimed at satisfying the social aspects. Goal 4 does capture the environmental aspect and perhaps the strategies of shifting modes of travel of goal 3 will also contribute to the environmental aspect.

What I think is really ignored with these goals is the economic aspect. Downtown Toronto is an economic hub. I think there is need for an additional goal to address the economic aspect of this problem. I propose to add another goal (and in keeping with ‘R’ theme)

Goal 6: Retain the robust and diverse economic activity of Toronto

Alternative Concepts
Like any good policy the authors came up with alternative concepts for the Gardiner East.

• Do nothing
• Replace the Gardiner East with a different type of elevated expressway or tunnel
• Improve the existing elevated expressway, and create a better urban environment underneath the Gardiner
• Remove the elevated expressway and instead develop a street-level connection

Overall I think that the third alternative is the best solution since it can fairly address all the goals and design principles including the 6th one I proposed as well as addressing the TBL.

Criteria Groups
The criteria groups were broken down into four sections two social aspects, Urban Design and Transportation and Infrastructure, and the Environmental and Economic Aspects. The chart below summarizes what is on the website.

I think the criteria groups did a good job at capturing what was set out in the goals and alternative concepts. I do think that again that the existing local business infrastructure was missed, goal 6 that I proposed.

Under the Economic aspects I think the following should be added “Local Business: maintain and grow the operations of business and industry.”

Consultation Approach
The final criteria for evaluating and sharing information on this project is the consultation approach. WATERFRONToronto has considered and is employee the following.

• Stakeholder Workshops
• Public Forums
• Stakeholder Advisory Committee
• Web-based Consultations
• Face-to-face Meetings
• First Nations Consultations
• Input Management and Reporting
• Notice of Study Completion

With the last set of public information centers this past week look for more comments and updates on the project to be posted in the coming weeks.

Personally, I don’t think the Gardiner Expressway is an ‘eyesore.’ If it was revitalized and refurbished it could be a landmark piece of Toronto. Structures can be elegant and sophisticated and provide the necessary infrastructure to efficiently move commuters.