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Residents call for removal of bike lanes along The Esplanade in Toronto
Residents call for removal of bike lanes along The Esplanade in Toronto

CTV News

timea day ago

  • General
  • CTV News

Residents call for removal of bike lanes along The Esplanade in Toronto

Currently under construction along The Esplanade. A group of residents has come together to say they don't want them. CTV's Allison Hurst reports. A community organization wants the City of Toronto to remove the dedicated bike lanes that are currently being installed along The Esplanade. The Downtown Concerned Citizens Organization (DCCO) held a news conference on Wednesday morning, outlining the 'chaos and harm' they say the bike lanes cause in the city. 'Bike lanes restrict road space, making it tough to drive seniors to important medical and other appointments,' said Sharon Danley, a resident representing three seniors' buildings on the street. '[They] have turned streets into parking lots with residents unable to stop, get their kids to events, and seriously impact emergency services and transit.' The city held a public consultation for the project from October 2019 until March 2021, and reported at the time that, 'overall feedback was largely supportive.' 'We represent 58,000 plus people in the downtown core in three different wards and they've all specifically said they want the bike lanes contained or removed all together,' said DCCO's Dana McKiel. Aly Somani, the owner of nearby Buster's Sea Cove at St. Lawrence Market, said his regular customers are expressing frustration about the bike lanes. 'A lot of [them] are already upset that there's nowhere to stop,' he told CTV News Toronto on Wednesday. 'People bike here in this city probably less than six months in the year and there's a lot of people impacted by these decisions 365 days a year.' Area resident Inge Shardy told CTV News Toronto that she worries about getting around. 'In the winter, the sidewalks are not cleaned, [so] how are we going to get to walk down there to get into a cab or wheel trans,' she said. After passing the controversial Bill 212, the Ontario government was in the process of ripping up bike lanes on Bloor and Yonge streets and University Avenue, however that work has been paused after a judge granted an injunction following a charter challenge. 'We'll be in direct contact with the lawyers for the Province of Ontario to ensure that we remove these bike lanes,' McKiel said. In a statement, city spokesperson Laura McQuillan said the contract to build the bikeway on The Esplanade was awarded in March 2024, adding that, 'Bill 212 allows projects with contracts awarded before the new rules started to continue without restrictions.' 'Because this contract was awarded before the rules took effect, the City can move forward with the Esplanade-Mill Street Connection project as approved by Toronto City Council,' McQuillan said. Cyclist Dennis Rijkhoff says biking on The Esplanade currently is unsafe. 'I bike and my children are learning to bike right now, and I think that being able to do that safely in the city is integral part of living [here],' he told CTV News Toronto after listening to comments by other attendants at the news conference. 'Their concerns are 100 per cent valid. We have to take care of our elderly, they need to be able to live here just as much as me and my sons need to be able to live here in a good way and get around in an efficient and safe manner.' The construction on The Esplanade bike lanes, which includes updates to the city's watermain and sewer system, is scheduled to be finished on June 30.

Sao Paulo moves to end area known as Crackland as residents scatter and cry foul against police
Sao Paulo moves to end area known as Crackland as residents scatter and cry foul against police

The Independent

time3 days ago

  • Politics
  • The Independent

Sao Paulo moves to end area known as Crackland as residents scatter and cry foul against police

Marcelo Colaiácovo was driving to his bar in Downtown Sao Paulo on a recent May afternoon when he noticed something unusual: the hundreds of drug users that for years roamed around the neighborhood were all gone. He walked around for 10 minutes finding no trace of them. Also gone was the stench of their waste being cleaned by city hall staffers. 'I felt this strange peace,' said the 42-year-old Sao Paulo resident. 'Everyone had disappeared. But how come?' Colaiácovo's bar-museum is located in one of the edges of Cracolandia, or Crackland, a sprawling downtown Sao Paulo area that for decades has been home to thousands of drug users, often lying on the ground or jaywalking with pipes between their lips. But by May 12 the scene had changed. Only police officers were seen where crack users dominated for decades. Shop owners and residents who worried about muggings were chatting outside. Pavement that until recently featured scattered shoes, single socks, broken pipes and, sometimes, feces seemed spotless. The makeshift shelters, made of cardboard and fabric, were gone, and some of the graffiti on deteriorated buildings of Crackland, once a backdrop to the human drama, can finally be seen. The transformation that stationed police officers in the area and scared residents into other parts of the city is the result of an aggressive local government initiative to change the region for good. Experts caution, however, that the cleanup carried significant costs: police brutality, the spread of security risks to other areas and the neglect of treatment and protection to drug users, who are not criminals. Instead, they say, Crackland residents have only scattered and will inevitably return. 'We can't even carry a blanket' Residents told The Associated Press that police aggression has escalated since earlier this year under Gov. Tarcisio de Freitas and Mayor Ricardo Nunes. They say officers more frequently are using batons, preventing them from carrying bags where drugs could be hidden, closing several local pensions and even threatening to kill them. About a fourth of neighboring slum, where drug traffickers are reportedly based, has been removed. Nearly two weeks after drug users vanished from the main Crackland area, hundreds have been spotted in smaller pockets around Sao Paulo's old city center. Social media videos show some attempting to return at night to their former drug use spot, now a 24/7 police-protected area. But all attempts have failed. Many hope to soon return to the area they occupied for decades — provided police brutality wanes and authorities lose their grip of the region, as has happened in the past. 'My guitar is in the mud because of a criminal wearing blue," said Rogério, a tearful man in a dirty shirt and yoga pants, who didn't provide his surname due to fear of retribution. "I have nothing against the law. But the law has to understand we live there. Now we have to roam, it's horrible. We can't enter where we lived, we can't even carry a blanket.' 'It's about people' Crackland is located in what was once part of Sao Paulo's old city center. The decline of the region began in the 1960s, as business moved to Paulista Avenue, a more central artery, and industries relocated to the cheaper outskirts. For about two decades, until the mid 1980s, low budget film companies moved in, earning the region the nickname of 'Garbage Mouth.' Drug users first arrived about three decades ago. Brazilian researchers say Crackland emerged in the 1990s due to a confluence of two factors: the proximity of a major transportation hub, encompassing buses, subways and trains, and widespread mass killings in the city's most impoverished districts, which forced residents to congregate in the downtown's most dilapidated sector. For much of the last 30 years, shop owners and residents feared being mugged. Today, the area the size of 10 soccer fields in Sao Paulo's old city center, is spotless and silent. Lieutenant Sao Paulo Gov. Felicio Ramuth, who was picked by Gov. de Freitas to clean up Crackland, said last week that there was no police brutality linked to the scattering of residents. 'We had 50 police raids at the scene (and) 1,000 criminals were jailed,' he told daily O Estado de on Wednesday. 'We did not receive any accusation of police brutality.' Ramuth said that 1,200 drug users who were in the area until a few weeks ago are now under treatment in clinics, but offered no evidence to support his claim. He added that he will deem Crackland free of drug users if its current condition remains for the next six months. Gov. De Freitas, a former minister under President Jair Bolsonaro, is reportedly considering running against President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in the 2026 presidential election. His rivals claim he stands to gain political capital by ending Crackland, which could also make way for a 5-billion Brazilian reais ($900 million) project to relocate about 60 state government buildings to the area. Critics of the government's strategy to end Crackland are crying foul. Catholic priest Júlio Lancelotti, who has worked with homeless people for most of his 76 years, said police brutality and the scattering of drug users will not solve the problem. 'It is not right to make political propaganda to say Crackland disappeared," Lancelotti said. "Crackland is not a physical area, it's about people. They are being taken to isolated regions, they are not going to clinics.' The city hall of Guarulhos, a city within the Sao Paulo metropolitan area, expressed concern in a recent statement about the accusations by Lancelotti and other activists who claim that the residents of Crackland 'had been brought and abandoned' there. It added it will investigate the case. Sao Paulo Mayor Nunes denied any wrongdoing. 'The problem will grow' Giordano Magri, a University of Sao Paulo researcher specializing in urban issues, said the current crackdown on Crackland aims to remove the infrastructure for drug users to survive in the area, but they will eventually find similar conditions elsewhere. 'Since the governor and the mayor became more authoritarian, that ecosystem is gone. But they can't do this forever,' said Magri, who added that people leaving Crackland will have more than 70 smaller spots across the city to relocate to. Rogério, the man whose guitar was broken, fears the situation could get worse in the coming days as hundreds seek to return. 'We are real people. I say that with a sour heart. I am garbage, I know,' he said. 'But now that they are scattering the garbage, the problem will grow.' ___

The Triangle Block: Remembering Williamsburg's Black business and residential district
The Triangle Block: Remembering Williamsburg's Black business and residential district

Yahoo

time17-05-2025

  • General
  • Yahoo

The Triangle Block: Remembering Williamsburg's Black business and residential district

In a city known for its vast history and many stories, Williamsburg's Triangle Block is one story that is getting its long overdue spotlight. Centered in the triangle of Armistead Avenue and Scotland and Prince George streets downtown, the area was once a bustling Black business and residential district. Today, the area is home to businesses such as a college book store, a bakery and a cheese steak shop. But in the 1930s through the 1970s, the Triangle district was a thriving community, with its own restaurant, grocery store, blacksmith and a hospital led by the city's first Black doctor, Dr. James B. Blayton. Over the years, and especially following a city-issued report on 'substandard negro housing' in the early 1950s, the district was displaced to make way for newer businesses and homes. There are some residents, however, who refuse to let the Triangle Block fade from memory. Jacqueline Bridgeforth-Williams, founder of The Village Initiative, a group formed in 2016 to look at disparities in education, is one . For the past three years, she's been working on a documentary about the district, determined to keep alive the memories of the area that once took care of its own. 'They were families,' Bridgeforth-Williams said. 'They had children, they had community, and they were here.' ___ A tour of the Triangle Block today reveals areas where residents used to live, such as a green space on Armistead Avenue and spots where the Williamsburg Police Department and the Williamsburg Regional Library now stand. But once, Williamsburg's Black residents were not allowed in parts of the city, which led to the Triangle Block's creation. According to a 2021 multimedia project called 'Stories from the Triangle Block' by the Williamsburg Documentary Project and The Village's Local Black Histories Project, the Triangle and its nearby neighborhoods had their early beginnings in the 1890s after Samuel T. Harris, a successful Black merchant, bought and platted property with investment partners. Property owner and realtor William Henry Webb Sr. and wife Martha signed a land deed for property on the block in 1907, among other property purchases. Two of their children, Clarence Webb and Virgie Webb Williams, would soon have their own businesses in the district. Robert 'Bobby' Braxton, a community leader and former city councilman, remembers the district well. He is the grandson of Robert H. Braxton, a local builder who platted Scotland Street's Braxton Court subdivision. Growing up in Braxton Court and going to the all-Black Bruton Heights School in the 1950s, Braxton recalls how he and other Black kids would go to the Triangle Restaurant, owned by Williams and her husband, Jimmy. 'Coming back from school, we would always stop by his place to get penny candies and all that stuff,' Braxton said. 'It was a Black restaurant, if you will, and it sold the type of food that people liked at that time.' Also known as the Paradise Cafe, the Triangle Restaurant became a gathering place for the community. Williams, her husband and their two children lived above the restaurant. Clarence Webb owned Webb's Grocery, which in addition to food, sold kerosene oil. He was known for cashing checks and giving credit on paper slips, Braxton said. Other owned and operated establishments included the West End Valet Dry Shop, a tailor and dry cleaning shop by Charles Gary; Henderson Electric shop; and two barber shops by Thomas Wise and William Crump Sr. Samuel K. Harris (unrelated to former Samuel T. Harris) operated a blacksmith shop for the community and Colonial Williamsburg. Braxton called Harris 'a man's man.' 'I mean, he had hands that looked like ham fists,' he recalled. 'It looked like to us, looked like he could lift up a building and move it.' When the blacksmith shop was torn down around the 1950s, Blayton's hospital was built, according to Braxton. The hospital had 14 beds, an emergency room and a basement where kids could play. It was the main health care facility for Black residents in the city until a fully integrated community hospital opened in 1961. 'It had dances, playing records and all that stuff,' Braxton said. 'It was makeshift, but it worked fine for us. I mean, we enjoyed the heck out of it.' ___ Around 1952, a report by Harland Bartholomew and Associates was prepared for the city on housing and public buildings that also detailed substandard housing, focusing on homes that had no central heating, an outside water supply or a tub or shower. The following year, the city's comprehensive plan recommended revitalizing part of the city, specifically noting the Triangle and its surrounding areas. That same year, a $15,000 contract was created in part with Harland Bartholomew (with half paid by Colonial Williamsburg) to enforce the plans. In 1958, Williamsburg City Council approved a comprehensive housing ordinance aimed at eliminating substandard housing. Ten years later, the city's 1968 comprehensive plan identified 'problem housing areas' in Williamsburg while proposing commercial tourist facility development and additional expansions. It noted 'intensive treatment' of the Scotland Street area, which 'holds the key for the future development of the entire central area' of the city. Despite a petition by the Williamsburg and James City County Black communities that noted the lack of representation in city and county government and being 'systematically ignored' — on Dec. 2, 1969, the city established the Williamsburg Redevelopment and Housing Authority. In 1970, a residential area on the corner of Armistead Avenue and Scotland Street was chosen for the new site of the municipal library, displacing 15 families. In 1972, the council adopted the Armistead Avenue Urban Renewal Neighborhood Development Program, using funds from the Federal Housing Act of 1949 and the Housing & Community Development Act of 1974. Redevelopment took place throughout the 1970s, seeing the end of various fixtures of the block, including the Triangle Restaurant (the building was split in half) in 1977. It was a scene viewed across the South, as many Black communities were displaced by urban renewal in the name of redevelopment. The Housing Law of 1937 provided localities federal funding to construct public housing. The law required that one blighted or slum housing unit be demolished per new unit of housing, which caused many Black community areas targeted due to decades of segregation and lack of overall investment, according to Encyclopedia Virginia. Urban renewal saw many Black communities destroyed and repurposed for parks and institutions. Some neighborhoods were erased to make way for college and university expansion, such as with Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Christopher Newport University in Newport News and the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. In Williamsburg, many community members moved to Harriet Tubman Drive; others moved to James City County and York County, according to Bridgeforth-Williams. The Triangle was no more. The Black businesses that were there would never return. ___ Today, what remains of the Triangle Block district is historic First Baptist Church — one of the nation's oldest Black churches — and a sign that marks where the original businesses used to be. But in recent years, the city has established several initiatives to honor the Triangle's legacy and the Williamsburg Black community. In 2021, the city started by establishing the Truth and Reconciliation Committee to uncover Williamsburg's racial history while finding ways to provide reconciliation and racial healing. The city also began working on plans for an African American Heritage Trail, a 2-mile walking/driving path that will start in the city and tell the story of the Williamsburg Black community. The trailhead will be placed in the area originally known as Harris Bottom to tell the story of the area's displacement, said Assistant City Manager Michele Mixner DeWitt. Construction is expected to start this summer. 'The story's not been fully told and the city wants to honor that and tell the full story,' DeWitt said. In 2024, the council also adopted a scholarship program for city residents with Black ancestors who lived in Williamsburg prior to 1964, the year the Civil Rights Act was passed. The city pledged to replenish the fund for the next 20 years. According to research commissioned in 2017 called the Downtown Vibrancy Study, there also has been talk of turning the Triangle Block area into an entertainment district — along with redeveloping the Blayton Building, an apartment building built in 1981 for older adults — into a mixed-use development with apartments and an urban grocery store. But those are just ideas. While an urban grocer 'sounds interesting,' Bridgeforth-Williams said she'd like to see something that is 'equitable for the entire community.' 'That when we look at what type of entertainment and what type of businesses we would bring, we would give equal opportunities to everyone to be a part of that,' she said. Bridgeforth-Williams said she'd like to see 'continued success and progress' with the current initiatives, along with the descendant community continuing to have their voices heard. She would also like to see more cultural events come to Williamsburg, pointing to the success of the Village Initiative's annual Juneteenth celebration. 'We can't go back and grab the past, because that's been done,' she said. 'But the people who are here now, we can definitely work towards continuing to do the right things. Together.' ___ In a collaboration with The Village Initiative, William & Mary and various descendant community members, Bridgeforth-Williams is planning to release her documentary, 'Displaced from the Birthplace of America,' in 2026. The film — parts of which were presented as a sneak peek at William & Mary in March — aims to dive deeper into the Triangle Block's history and its displacement with personal reflections by descendants of the Triangle community. Bridgeforth-Williams has carefully been collecting their stories to find out what it was like to live in an area that was basically removed from the map. One of the film's main goals is to do 'the work of healing' for the descendant community to share their thoughts, feelings and emotions about what happened, Bridgeforth-Williams said. She also notes her personal ties to the film — her grandmother, Quetta Vaden, lived on 'a little house on Clay Street' as a widow, bought her home and dealt with the changes that came from the displacement. Realizing that every one of the descendants she talked to had been affected in some way was a 'real eureka light-bulb moment' for her. All their stories, from property owners and business owners alike, were equally important to tell. She wants to tell those stories — what that was like for their families, what it was like to be moved from the Triangle Block. 'They talk about their losses. They talk about some of the pain that was involved with it, that some of them still experience,' Bridgeforth-Williams said. 'But they also talk about the good times, and the great things.' Two previews of 'Displaced from the Birthplace of America' are coming up. The first is at 5 p.m. May 30 at First Baptist Church, 727 Scotland St. An additional preview will be shown at the Village Initiative's Juneteenth celebration on June 19 at City Square Park. James W. Robinson, 757-799-0621,

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