TORONTO, Ont. — After successfully defeating an ill-concieved attempt to ban trucks from downtown Toronto during rush hour last year, the Ontario Trucking Association finds itself once again having to fight the same battle.

As previously reported on trucknews.com, Coun. Michael Walker has renewed his calls for a ban on downtown Toronto deliveries during the morning and afternoon rush hours. The OTAs position remains the same as it was a year ago that the proposal will do nothing to resolve gridlock issues in Toronto.

OTA president David Bradley has been fielding calls from the media following Walkers latest proposal. He has taken the opportunity to point out: Trucks are not the main cause of congestion; trucks already attempt to operate outside rush hour as much as possible; and trucks do not determine delivery schedules.

He said trucking companies will gladly ship products outside business hours if there is someone available to receive the load outside regular business hours.

Walkers plan is currently not under active consideration by the City. His latest outburst was an attempt to re-ignite the debate that he lost two years ago, the OTA said in a release. Despite the fact that Toronto has already driven a lot of business out of the downtown core to the surrounding GTA, Councillor Walker continue to persist in advocating his ill-conceived plan that would only make it more difficult and expensive for downtown businesses to get the goods they require, driving even more of them to leave the city and seek more business friendly jurisdictions. We can only hope that cooler heads on Council will continue to understand this point.