The Good News About the Bad News

Lots of people have made unexpected pandemic-era purchases—items they would never have considered buying in the before times that suddenly seemed essential. In the spring, a neighbour of mine ordered an inflatable bouncy castle and set it up in her backyard so her kindergarten-age kid could jump around while she sat nearby working on her laptop. Someone else I know scooped up two mini-trampolines before they were sold out everywhere.

Of course, the most extravagant pandemic-era impulse buy is a cottage. With summer camps cancelled and overseas trips on hold, Torontonians who never thought of themselves as cottagers rushed out to purchase vacation homes, leading to a surge in sales, bidding wars and a supply shortage. This is a good year to be a cottagecountry realtor.

My big pandemic-era splurge was a deluxe bike rack for the car. I ordered it from Mountain Equipment Co-op a month into the lockdown, when it became clear that we weren’t going back to normal anytime soon. I was embarrassingly excited when it arrived and rushed out to assemble it. My kids had been riding their bikes in our neighbourhood all spring, exploding with energy after weeks of being cooped up. It was time to go on cycling adventures farther afield.

Our first big outing was down to Lake Shore Boulevard West, where the city had blocked off a few lanes for cyclists and pedestrians. We parked near Windermere and biked east. It was glorious. I loved riding along with the expansive view of the lake, on a sunny morning, without worrying about traffic. The experience greatly enhanced everybody’s mood.

The Lake Shore closure was part of the City of Toronto’s ActiveTO program, which opened up streets so downtowners could exercise outside while following physical distancing guidelines. It was a little slow to kick off (other cities blocked off streets earlier in the pandemic), but it’s since been a big success.

Over the course of this most extraordinary spring and summer, Toronto has

implemented a host of initiatives like ActiveTO that seemed unthinkable before the pandemic. For better and for worse, our city government moves slowly—at least, it used to. Up until recently, even sensible ideas would endure months, sometimes years, of careful consideration, research, public consultations and endless discussions in council chambers. Remember the debate that went into the King Street pilot project? It’s amazing the thing happened at all.

But over the last few months, the city has been moving fast: we have patios on roads, free Wi-Fi in low-income apartment towers, hundreds of planned new units of affordable housing, a program to help small businesses set up e-commerce, new bus routes in underserved areas along Eglinton and 40 kilometres of new bike lanes.

Now it’s our job to keep the momentum going, to be even more creative and ambitious. The pandemic, as horrific as it is, has presented the city with an opportunity to make meaningful, lasting improvements, to address inequities and to establish a better quality of life for all. Almost every aspect of our lives has been altered. Why not rebuild everything better?

In this issue, Toronto Life has invited some of the city’s big thinkers to identify what the pandemic has taught us and to envision how things will look when it’s all over. The result is “The Post-Pandemic Future of Everything” (page 36). We hope you find it as inspiring as we do.

—Sarah Fulford Email: editor@torontolife.com Twitter: @sarah_ fulford