Toronto’s patio dining program renewed for 2021 should be ‘permanent,’ mayor says

Thestar.com
Feb. 8, 2021
David Rider

Restaurant and bar patios are set to move back into Toronto road lanes and sidewalks in May -- a popular pandemic innovation that Mayor John Tory says should become a permanent seasonal fixture.

City council on Friday approved the return of CafeTO -- the hastily developed, enthusiastically received city program to let pandemic-struck eateries and bars expand patios into new public and private spaces.

The patios started appearing last June, after COVID-19 concerns temporarily halted indoor dining. The lifeline for businesses eventually saw 801 new patios, many on wide sidewalks and more than 200 in curb lanes closed to vehicle traffic.

A streamlined registration process will open this month with the aim of getting as many patios as possible ready to host people by the May long weekend.

Tory congratulated city staff for rapidly developing and improving the program last spring, a feat councillors compared to building an airplane while flying it.

“What I want to do is make sure, in some way shape or form, we make this a permanent program so we don’t have to every year have this discussion over and over again,” Tory told councillors before they approved CafeTO 2021. “We make it a permanent program subject to annual regulation, as it were, but it’s just permanent.”

The new May-to-November version will see efforts to make patios more accessible for disabled people, more attractive with better materials for barriers, and with more seasonal patios installed outside the downtown core.

Coun. Jaye Robinson called the program “a great long-term pandemic outcome for Toronto.” She urged city staff to restart CafeTO quickly because restaurants are again struggling to survive an indoor dining ban.

Council also approved a city staff proposal to start work on a high-speed broadband network to offer cheap, fast Wi-Fi starting in three Toronto neighbourhoods and potentially going citywide.

Residents of Jane-Finch in North York and Malvern and the Golden Mile in Scarborough could see the service, with private-sector partners using existing city fibre-optic cable, operating by the end of the year.

Firms including Rogers, Bell and Teksavvy already sell Wi-Fi access across Toronto. But a city-commissioned report says the pandemic, with its emphasis on digital communication and schooling, has highlighted a “digital divide.”

Prosperous Torontonians can easily afford unlimited, fast internet. But low-income residents need inexpensive, high-speed connections for school, work and more, said the report by Ryerson University’s Leadership Lab.