INSIDE AURORA: Predictions for Aurora in 2017

January 18, 2017 · 0 Comments

By Scott Johnston

Last time in this space we looked back at what happened in 2016 in Aurora.
Today, we turn our minds forward to predict what we may expect to see in Town in 2017.

By mid-January, 95 per cent of New Year’s resolutions committed to by Aurorans will be broken.

In preparation for all-day two-way GO train service, a proposal will come forward to pave over the Magna property to provide commuter parking lots when that company moves to King.

The Town will attempt to guilt the Region into building the interchange at St John’s Sideroad and Highway 404 a few years earlier by putting up signs in the area proclaiming that this project is “coming soon from York Region.”

Condos will continue to be developed along Yonge Street, but strangely, many storefronts will continue to remain unoccupied.

Aurora’s claim to be the most fit municipality in Canada will be supported by studies that show that due to the challenges of finding parking spots in Town, people here have to walk further from where they can find parking to where they want to go than in any other municipality in the country.

Aurora will host a huge series of parties and events to celebrate Canada’s first 150 years, which will be about how long it will take to pay for it all.

Dandelions will become so prevalent in yards and boulevards that grass will start to be considered a weed.

After almost 20 years of debate over whether to keep them or not, the former library and senior’s centre will be demolished, clearing the way for a further 20 years of debate over what to do with this space.

Movies in the Park screenings of “The Postman Always Rings Twice” will have children asking their parents what a postman is.

More Aurorans will gain an appreciation for the quiet streets and older neighbourhoods downtown, when they start cutting through them in their cars to avoid the no left turn restrictions at Yonge and Wellington.

Summer complaints by Aurorans about how hot it is and when will it ever cool down, will be followed by winter complaints about how cold it is and when will it ever warm up.
Following outrage directed at cell towers in 2014, super mailboxes in 2015, and densification in 2016, Aurorans will now be blasé about these, and in 2017 will find some new form of infrastructure at which to vent.

As an added incentive to entice Prince Harry to Town in September to open the new accessible playground at the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Park, the Mayor will offer to put him up on his couch, since we don’t have a hotel for the Prince to stay in.

The addition of more traffic lights on Industrial Parkway will further reduce its viability as a time-saving bypass of Yonge Street.

Discussions of how far students have to walk from east of Bayview to their schools southwest of there will prompt increased recollections of grandparents of having to walk six miles to school uphill every day in five feet of snow.

The tree lighting ceremony in December will be preceded by a new tradition of passing a hat through the crowd for donations to offset the higher electricity costs.

A proposed reduction to the Town’s tax rate will have some speculating that if this downward trend continues, by 2029 the tax rate may finally equal the rate of inflation.

How many of these will come true? Only time will tell.

Feel free to e-mail Scott at: machellscorners@gmail.com