If we'd won the Olympic bid . . .

Ha!

If Toronto had won the Olympic bid, they'd have bulldozed entire neighbourhoods in a blinding rush to prove to the planet that "we're world class" at last.

Toronto is the sports car driving 45 year old of cities, desperately wanting to fit in to the "world class" set, like New York.

Part of the reason Toronto is not world class is that it can't get its act together enough to tackle the issues this article laments (unless the world is watching of course), but it sure can build condos...

Image is everything.

If the world were coming to Toronto this summer, we wouldn't be closing swimming pools our residents use and need for lack of a few million dollars in the school board budget. We'd be building new ones, a legacy of the Olympics.

If the world were coming to Toronto, this week's city council debate on tearing down part of the Gardiner Expressway would have been over. Ditto the headaches from the construction.

If the world were coming, Union Station would have been retrofitted already, the ridiculously narrow TTC platforms replaced with a modern facility fit for the region's most important transit hub. The rapid transit link from Union Station to Pearson airport would have completed its test runs, not stalled on the planning board.

If . . . if . . . if only . . .

Read more here.