Anti-transit NIMBYS on Bathurst Street | Toronto Walk (May 2025)

Good morning everyone and friends and my friends Caroline as well 😎😌

Good morning

Good morning everyone

Good morning ❤❤

Only imbeciles would use AI disinfo against their neighbours. These anti-community-improvement regressives can leave, so honest folks can benefit from the new changes instead.

Hey Johnny!
you should do a video of the area in the portlands ! Its been changing so much lately

PSA that Tiny Market, one of the businesses with a poster up on the video took it down yesterday afternoon. They don't want to be associated with what Protect Bathurst has become.

Another great walk around the city especially on Bathurst Street and the anti transit
supporters hope that things work out but have a wonderful week thanks Johnny.🇨🇦👍

Johnny, it's brave of you to walk around and highlight the level of ignorance in Canada's biggest city. Really appreciate it.

Bless Saturday morning everyone and hello there ! ..

Unfortunately the comment section isn't allowing me to post a link. Is it possible to pin a comment where we can fill out the surveys to support the Bathurst/Dupont bus lanes?

NIMBY's suck.

RapidTO consultations started in 2021, it's ridiculous to argue that this is rushed.

Lmao that a barber's shop thinks it would have to close if trucks couldn't stop directly outside to deliver... what, exactly?

I dare say they get through a lot of shampoo, but is it really anything the owner couldn't fit in his trunk?

bathurst is so unpleasant to walk on because of how fast the traffic is and the volume of cars. hilarious they claim to want to "save" bathurst street. Save it from what? getting better? lol

To be fair, these businesses do all look like they might have to close. Very soon. They are not doing well.

Maybe they should consider the possibility that attracting more cyclists and transit passengers to the area might work better for them than imagining any significant number of people are gonna drive to one of these shonky little shops on Bathurst St and try to grab a parking spot on the street outside? Rather than, you know, driving to a big box store with a parking lot?

Thanks for this, the CBC is uncritically giving voice to these idiots just like they have been deferring constantly and uncritically to landlords and SBOs over tenants and workers for a good long while. About time a real counterpoint was served.

Johnny you mention some interesting points.. how many of the customers DRIVE to the businesses and cant they park else where? How do other businesses on streets without parking receive their deliveries this isnt something new .

Hey Johnny I totally agree with you on the bike Lanes they're putting in. the buses will make business improve by doing this these businesses got it all wrong everything's going to be good everything's going to be fine. So no worries😊😇

People like them are the reason why Toronto will always have unbearable gridlock. No matter what is tried to improve traffic, there's always these types who come up with some "will hurt my business" BS. Improving the ability for people to get around the city is better for business.

The anti-transit movement might be funded by the oil industry or the auto industry which are represented by the Doug Ford Conservative government? I know it sounds like a conspiracy theory but movements like that have had a lot of money and power behind the anti-transit proposals in other cities in Ontario.

The movement might use persuasion to frighten business owners because logic and urban planning would indicate that accessibility will bring MORE customers to that road.

Only the business in favour of improvements offered a link to back up their claims because there is no proof that transit causes businesses to close.

Anti- transit folks and anti- bicycle folks are the same folks . They should get the same respect as Maga folks and that is zero respect.

It seemed like a lot of the places with the signs were closed, despite the curbside parking.

The thing that kills me is the notion they must have an on-street parking space to get any business. But what happens when that space is occupied. No more business for the next hour?

I’s the same story time after time: Spadina, St Clair, King have all had their version of this.

It seems like the traffic actually runs very smoothly in your video. I don't see any congestion despite the fact that there are parked cars along Bathurst. So where is the problem then?

I used to live right at Bathurst and Harbord - good to see that old dilapidated place again - but the traffic there most weekdays is so terrible, if you open your windows, you get a fine, brown/grey dust coating your whole home.
The streetcars used to be amazing when we had the CLRVs, they were smaller and faster, they could speed-up at a green light and slow for a red much faster, they had more comfortable seating, too. Then, everyone took the streetcars, and the streets were emptier. Cars could pass them more easily as well, keeping traffic flowing. Now, the streetcars were designed for LRT and right-of-way tramlines, and they take too long to get moving and slow down. More people turned to cars, and more people moved to the city. Now we have bigger, emptier, slower streetcars, and a lot of annoyed car-owners.
I walk and laugh at them all.

The movement is one of the examples of how some Canadians are so ignorance.

About bike lanes and pedestrianized streets. This is the experience from Montreal, if you're interested:

Cafés and restaurants tend to LOVE them (more foot traffic). Retail shops tend to HATE them (fewer parking spots).

Not a perfect solution. It's an ongoing social debate.

—From Montreal With Love

Deliveries in the central part of the city (i.e. Old Toronto) should be all done by kei truck or cargo bike! It's ridiculous to need to make the whole city accessible to 18-wheelers.

😂😂 Every Business pretty much along that stretch might have to close 😂 it's ridiculous they're outcry, perhaps it might be their outrageous prices are what's pushing their sales down not the Rapid To implementation

I know this has been said in many videos, but it can't be said enough: we need more bike lanes. They're safer and they boost local business. I’ll never understand the resistance to making our streets safer and more accessible for everyone.

Amazing how people and their cushy little businesses can't stand back and try to see the 'Big Picture' when the 'poor me' factor consumes every fabric of their minds and bodies. Great focus on this location sensitive dillema Johhny.

Sad to see that Nella has an anti-RapidTO sign. Guess i'll be buying my kitchen gear elsewhere from now on.

These comments are very disheartening. I’m guessing none of the commenters have ever owned a business. Business owners (I am not one) are rightfully worried about the negative impact of the city’s transit ambitions. Just look at King Street, the St Clair W streetcar and the Eglinton crosstown debacle. The city has botched every one, leading to scores of people losing their livelihoods. A little empathy would help.

Did anyone stop to think that, just MAYBE, these small business owners, who have just been put through the ringer for the last half decade with lockdowns and being forced to alienate their customer base with pointless, performative “vaccine passports”, might have legitimate concerns about a demonstrably inefficient, horrendously mismanaged bureaucracy imposing another in an endless series of strains on their livelihood?

You useless, bike-humping ghouls are demonizing honest, hardworking people for the crime of…

gasp

Objecting to more impositions on their daily operations. You have people review-bombing these businesses for opposing a useless bandaid solution that will only serve to shave a wopping 3 minutes off of commute time. Meanwhile, the subway system is a laughing stock and becoming more dangerous by the day (and it surprises you that people opt to drive instead).

It never ceases to amaze me how much contempt you bleeding-heart virtue signallers have for your fellow man. Truly despicable behaviour. You are not the good guys here.