As some of you may know…

I’m not a fan of Toronto’s Coordinated Street Furniture Program.

Not. A. Fan.

Last year, I choose it as my Villain for 2008 on Torontoist. I wrote:

“In April of last year, Astral Media beat out competitors CBS Outdoor and Clear Channel Outdoor to land a lucrative twenty-year contract to provide “5,000 transit shelters (2,000 more than currently exist), 12,500 litter/recycling bins, 2,000 benches, 500 multi-box newspaper vending boxes, 120 information pillars, 2,500 postering/neighbourhood information structures (500 pillars, 2,000 pole-and-board type), 20 public washrooms[,] 1,000 bicycle racks,” and 2,000 of these.

Among those in the city who care about public space issues, including but not limited to the Toronto Public Space Committee and Spacing, as well as the “public space zealots” here at Torontoist, the announcement of this deal was a disheartening sign for our city’s future. (Especially since the city’s earlier experiments with private furniture turned out so awfully.)

This year we saw saw the trickling rollout of the promised street furniture, and, unfortunately, from bad planning, to silly mistakes, to city guideline violations, the rollout has done little to assuage our fears.

The disturbing reality of this deal is that it effectively privatizes city infrastructure. True, street furniture is just a small part of the public infrastructure and services that make a city run—but it is a highly visible and impactful part, affecting our life on the street every single day and going a long way to shaping the character of our streets. It helps form not just our own impressions of our city’s personality, but visitors’ ideas about Toronto and its culture as well. Putting our street furniture in the hands of a media giant for the next twenty years ensures that the top priority will be profit.

This is a slow-motion trainwreck for our city. For all our efforts to promote Toronto as a vibrant city, for all the money invested in billing Toronto as a world-class destination and building our cultural attractions, visitors to our fine city will find little evidence to counter our reputation as a cold, soulless, ugly city obsessed with money and completely bereft of culture and charm when, the minute they step out onto our streets, they encounter a privatized streetscape, choked with ads, and prioritized not to be friendly, welcoming, or informative, but to generate revenue.

We may even begin to forget the heartbeat of the city ourselves. Twenty years is a long time to sell our streets.”

…So yeah, these lil’ poster tots are just my way of striking back. Old enemies united in a common cause! Pow, Pow, Pow!