What would you do with an extra 32 minutes-a-day?
That's the question
CivicAction's Regional Transportation Champions Council is asking Torontonians in their newest initiative to get the city talking about transit.
The "32 minutes" comes from the estimated average time daily that commuters in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton area will save if the Metrolinx transportation plan is funded and built in the next 25 years.
CivicAction's transit "champions," a group of more than 40 civic leaders, is dedicated to mobilizing support behind Metrolinx's Big Move transit plan. Metrolinx is scheduled to present their investment strategy to the Ontario legislature in early 2013.
"The champions council is really taking on this issue of how do we get more people talking about transportation," says CivicAction CEO Mitzie Hunter, "and really understanding how we can build something much better the what we have today. What we need is greater investment in transportation. So we started with that premise and have been working on that for the past couple of months with a subgroup. What emerged from that is the 'What would you do with 32?' initiative."
Early last week CivicAction launched the new public awareness campaign, complete with a website,
Your32.com, and Twitter handle, #your32, that asks Torontonians to image their life with an extra 32 minutes.
"The response has been really great," says Hunter, "We're really seeing a lot of quality-of-life responses: 'I would spend more time with my kids' or 'I would cook more.' Thing like that. It's really got people thinking."
After spending a few months collecting the responses, CivicAction will push Torontoians to answer an even harder question.
"From asking Torontonains 'What would you do with 32?', we're going to ask them "What they would do for 32?'"
The hope is to get commuters thinking about the new sources of funding, from road tolls to regional taxes, that will be required to fund the Metrolinx plan.
Metrolinx was established in 2006 by the Government of Ontario to "improve the coordination and integration of all modes of transportation in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area." Read more information on the agency
here.
Writer: Katia Snukal
Source: Mitzie Hunter, CEO, Civic Action