Throughout this pandemic, my office has held regular meetings with Business Improvement Areas to hear their concerns and find ways to assist them. The COVID-19 pandemic was felt first and foremost along our main streets. These arteries and avenues lined with local businesses are the commercial engines of our neighbourhood areas and places we love to shop, eat and meet friends. These streets were assisted in becoming vibrant again bykey City programs that helped find creative solutions to pressing local issues: people needed to move and exercise, businesses needed space for lineups and bars and restaurants needed to make the most of a shortened season. These needs were met through three new programs - ActiveTO, CurbTO and CafeTO. These programs helped us envision a different use of main streets and a sharing of road-space unlike anything seen since before. Through July-November 2020 these experiments with public space are showing that we can find creative solutions to help people be healthy and safe in 2020 and beyond.
