I can’t believe it is almost the end of March already! What a busy winter it has been with everything that has been happening. I’m glad it finally feels like spring has arrived with all the warmer weather we have been having the past couple weeks. It’s nice living in a place where you can see the changes from season to season, particularly the change from winter to spring.
Of course, with the changing weather and the melting of the snow comes the appearance of all the built up winter litter and potholes on many of our streets. I’ve been seeing a lot of this as I’ve been walking around town. It’s been nice to see that City crews are on top of it this year, getting the city cleaned up and repairing the winter damage to our roads.
I have been thinking a lot about the state of the economy, especially with the City’s budget coming up to a vote at Council next week. It is important we get the budget passed so that the resources are in place to help people get through these tough times and create more jobs for people. To do our part at the City, even though we aren’t allowed to use deficit financing like other levels of government, we are focusing in particular on getting major infrastructure projects underway, which will create a lot of construction related jobs.
When I walk down Dufferin Street I am happy to see that work has begun on one of these projects, the new tunnel being built at Dufferin and Queen. This is a huge $40 million dollar investment in our neighbourhood that will provide jobs this year as well as great improve the traffic flow for cars and transit in the Queen and Dufferin area. We are also going be starting construction on the first of the new Transit City lines this year up on Sheppard Avenue.
Things have been tough for the people of Toronto in the past six months, but I’m feeling hopeful and optimistic that things are going to start turning around soon. All three levels of government have been coming together to get infrastructure projects like these going, as well as provide tax relief, social assistance, job protection and creation programs, and many other initiatives to get our economy back on track.
