[LINK] "G20 turning downtown Toronto into a ghost town"

[rfmcdonald]

I'm going to have fun exploring Toronto Sunday. Contrasting the crowded old core with a vacant rest-of-the-downtown will be an interesting thing to do first-hand.

There are no tumbleweeds rolling down Bay St. just yet but the signs are everywhere: downtown Toronto is set to become a ghost town once the G20 takes over.

The summit is just days away and while protesters and police are beginning to flood the downtown core, the well-heeled and pinstriped are starting to flee.

Big banks have already kicked in their contingency plans, emptying their Bay St. towers as employees work from home or satellite locations. At the Bank of Montreal, about 20 per cent of its approximately 6,000 downtown workers are already offsite, with as many as 75 per cent expected to stay away Thursday and Friday.

Erika Degroot, a 36-year-old financial adviser, noticed a surprising change while taking the GO Train to work Tuesday.

“I got a seat this morning,” she said. “That’s rare.”

Other commuters also reported a bit of extra leg room during their morning treks and GO Train officials noted a “slight decrease” in ridership Monday and Tuesday.

Near the G20 security zone, a parking lot manager said traffic is down between 35 and 40 per cent. At a Citipark lot near the King Edward Hotel, cars are usually packed three deep but on Tuesday afternoon, the lot sat half empty.