Good Afternoon All,
As you know from the announcement last week, the City is quickly moving to implement the redesign of Danforth Avenue from Broadview to Dawes. The City has mailed a letter to each of you but snail mail being what it is, I've attached a copy of the letter to this email and I encourage you to please take a few minutes to read through it.
Today your Board Chair, Albert Stortchak, and I joined staff from Councillor Fletcher's office and Transportation Services to walk through our section of the Danforth and to start work on the initial plan for the redesign. As you will see in the letter the City is proposing two lanes for traffic, two bike lanes and 2 lanes for parking. As part of the walk through today we also identified areas for loading, hidden driveways for certain businesses, curb extensions and we tried to identify restaurant/pubs/bakeshops that may be interested in participating in the Cafe TO program which would allow you to have a patio area in the curb lane in front of your business.
For our restaurant/pub/bakeshop members:
Last week I asked you to please let me know if you're interested in participating in the Cafe TO curb lane program. I heard back from 3 members. As we're now working on the actual plan I'm asking again if you could please let me know if you're interested. I'm just asking for expressions of interest as I still don't have all of the details on cost etc. I do know that the City is working on securing barriers to create these patios and is also working with the AGCO on allowing your licenses to extend to these patios. Again - I don't have specifics yet. But please let me know if you're interested. Also for those who don't currently have a sidewalk patio but are interested in this program please let me know - the City is working to make this program accessible to you as well. The one limitation that I do know is the following: curb lane patios can't be installed if a business is located less than 30 metres from an intersection. The other important component is insurance - you would have to speak with your insurance company about extending your coverage for the curb lane patio - this may be a call you want to make sooner as opposed to later.
Thank you,
Susan