Despite city objections, RapidTO rollout squashed parking spots
· Toronto Sun
So much for a stroll in the park.
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Emails obtained by the Toronto Sun show how the city’s leaders strategized on how to best sell residents on the removal of dedicated on-street parking on part of Bathurst St. – a change that came alongside the rollout of RapidTO lanes further south.
While some Torontonians were indeed outraged by the idea, there was conflict even at City Hall as bureaucrats told a city councillor they wanted the parking spots to stay.
Councillor Dianne Saxe told the Sun recently that removing dedicated parking spots on the east side of Bathurst St. between Bloor and Dupont Sts. was the “best compromise” to get the TTC’s notoriously poky No. 7 bus moving faster.
Saxe acknowledged that some constituents have strong feelings about both RapidTO and the parking changes, but she insisted the improvement in bus service, enjoyed by thousands of Torontonians, is worth it to her University-Rosedale ward.
“I think there’s a very substantial public benefit,” she said of RapidTO.
Removing parking north of Bloor, she added, has “definitely” made the bus more reliable.
The emails, obtained after a freedom-of-information request, were given to the Sun by the group Citizens of Toronto, formerly Protect Bathurst, which had requested documents from Saxe’s office related to the RapidTO project.
Paul Macchiusi, of the political advocacy group Citizens of Toronto, says the removal of parking spots on the east side of Bathurst St. has been bad for local businesses and residents alike.
‘Parents can’t pick up kids’
Paul Macchiusi, of Citizens of Toronto, said without the dedicated spots, people can’t park on the east side of Bathurst from midday until after 7 p.m., including on weekends. That’s been detrimental, even fatal, to local businesses, he said.
More than that, Macchiusi argued it’s illogical. Most of Bathurst between Bloor and Dupont is residential, so now people can’t park in front of their homes for much of the day. Meanwhile, the local arts centre at 918 Bathurst St. is typically closed before east-side stopping is allowed.
“Parents can’t pick up their kids anymore. It’s like these little things that the councillor is overlooking that’s directly affecting her constituents,” he said. “She’s acting like, oh, these are all good changes.”
The emails show Saxe played a lead role in reshaping how Toronto parks on Bathurst – and at times was at odds with the Toronto Parking Authority.
“I have put a call into (Toronto Metropolitan University) to see if any of their experts have suggestions on how to implement a time-of-day bus lane,” Saxe wrote to a handful of top city bureaucrats on May 29, 2025, the documents show.
“In the meantime,” she added, “TTC staff have agreed with me that banning virtually all left turns at peak hours, making parking more expensive and a concentrated effort on bunching and gapping could make a material difference in bus reliability quickly.”
On June 2, 2025, she followed up: “I would also like to use the TPA data to reduce the number of parking spots, please thank you.”
That afternoon, an official with the TPA chimed in.
“We are in favour of retaining as much parking on Bathurst (between) Dupont (and) Bloor as possible, but recognize for efficient transit operation, some stalls may need to be repurposed,” Aviva Levy wrote to Saxe.
Levy added that 138 parking spots could be affected.
As of June 4, 2025, things had shifted at City Hall as Levy told Saxe that the transportation services division appeared to be “reconsidering the parking removals on Bathurst from Bloor to Dupont.”
The two apparently spoke over the phone later that morning, after which Saxe wrote to a handful of city staffers, including TTC strategy boss Josh Colle: “There is lots of opportunity to reduce parking availability and hours on the east side.”
‘Targeted, tactical’
Saxe was also in touch with Colle last September, days before a key vote on the Bathurst bus route. In an email to Colle and a City of Toronto address labelled “RapidTO Bathurst Street Project Team,” she urged for TTC CEO Mandeep Lali to speak at that month’s Toronto-East York community council meeting.
“I think it would be extremely helpful to begin … with a presentation from a senior person at the TTC, ideally Mandeep, on why the changes are necessary … and why the TTC cannot improve the speed and reliability of the bus without changing parking,” Saxe wrote.
Colle made a presentation instead, and promised “ much more targeted, tactical, incremental changes ” on Bathurst than what was coming south of Bloor with RapidTO.
After his presentation, Saxe asked Colle twice about the viability of speeding up the bus route without removing parking. (Colle said the removals were “very critical” to accelerating the route.)
Saxe defended the parking removals and RapidTO rollout, saying her office specifically had worked hard to engage and consult with the community. She said she has encouraged businesses in the affected area to form a BIA – and though that’s taken a lot of work, ultimately the business owners themselves have to take the big steps.
Saxe also said she’s been pragmatic. Parking could’ve been removed on both sides of the street to mirror the RapidTO portion of Bathurst.
“That seemed to be both really hard and expensive to do,” Saxe said, “and also not a perfect match to the problem we had, which is by far a northbound afternoon problem.”
She said TPA data showed the parking spots didn’t see much use, a point that was brought up at the September meeting. However, Levy had warned Saxe in May of last year that that data came with a “caveat.”
That stretch of Bathurst had “28% average daily peak occupancy” for its parking spots, Levy said, but “potentially up to half of parkers” don’t pay for parking – and thus are lost in the data. (Saxe said she has more recent numbers that suggest non-compliance is not that bad.)
In an emailed statement, Jacquelyn Hayward, a director with transportation services, told the Sun her division reached its decision on parking removals after consulting the public. The 277 spaces removed along Bathurst as part of the RapidTO rollout had “average daily maximum parking utilization rates of 10% to 39%,” Hayward said. (The TPA, when asked for comment, pointed to Hayward’s statement.)
Macchiusi said the city’s numbers don’t ring true, as Bathurst’s west side is now often jammed with cars.
“I see it with my own eyes,” he said, “especially on weekends.”
RED-LETTER DAYS FOR RAPIDTO
July marks one year since Toronto City Council voted to roll out the RapidTO dedicated transit lanes on Bathurst and Dufferin Sts., an undertaking that included eliminating some parking spaces and banning some left turns, plus a host of other traffic-related changes.
The red RapidTO lanes only run south of Bloor – at least for now – but dedicated parking spots were removed on Bathurst between Bloor and Dupont Sts. parallel to those changes.
While City Council’s vote was an overwhelming 20-3 , the decision was contentious as dozens of Torontonians spoke against RapidTO at an executive committee meeting the week before.
Stephen Holyday, an Etobicoke councillor who voted against the concept, memorably derided it as “CongestionTO.”
Councillor Dianne Saxe told the Toronto Sun most of the constituents in her partly downtown ward of University-Rosedale don’t drive, so the improvement of bus service on a major artery like Bathurst is a positive.
The Sun asked the TTC for data on how RapidTO has worked out for Bathurst St., including the No. 7 Bathurst bus, but didn’t get a response in time for publication.
Still, in the months since its implementation, there have been issues.
Most obvious is RapidTO’s trademark peeling red paint, which annoys Saxe as much as it does anyone else. She blames the application of the paint during some of Toronto’s coldest months as the culprit.
Paul Macchiusi, of the political advocacy group Citizens of Toronto, said RapidTO is “obviously a disaster in my eyes,” having made traffic worse. He said at the southern end of Bathurst, he’s heard of long lineups just to get out of condo parking lots with traffic down to one lane each way.
There’s also the fact that implementation was hurried to have the lanes ready in time for the World Cup. With Toronto’s last game as host in the books, it’s debatable that the soccer tournament brought a surge of summer tourism to the city.
Data from payments company Moneris suggests spending in tourist areas in late June was only modestly better than 2025 excluding hotel spending.
Still, Saxe said it’s better to be safe than sorry.
“I think it was important that the city prepared as much as we did for FIFA visitors,” she said. “I do understand that far fewer international visitors came to North America and I expect that’s because of our neighbour to the south.”