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I'll admit, I was skeptical at first. But in the end, kudos must go to Toronto's pedestrian-friendly traffic planners.

It turns out that crossing Dundas and Yonge streets on the diagonal, while traffic bound north, south, east and west idle helplessly until I and my 100 or so fellow pedestrians are finished, is a stink of a lot of fun. It feels safely transgressive - like legally sanctioned jaywalking. Or more accurately, like a cross-the-square victory lap in the city's ongoing war on cars.

It would be naive at this point to deny that the city is engaged in anything less.

Whether under Mayor David Miller now or Mel Lastman before him, the powers-that-be in Toronto have long looked upon the personal automobile as vehiculum non-grata. Tear down the Gardiner Expressway, all or part of it, to open up prime motorway lands to pedestrians and cyclists; build a streetcar line along St. Clair Avenue West to move commuters by light rail on tracks where no autos are allowed; and on the horizon, Transit City, that same philosophy writ large across North York and Scarborough and Etobicoke. The city is even taxing driving now, thanks to the vehicle registration tax approved last year alongside the land transfer tax on real estate transactions.

The scramble intersection at Yonge and Dundas is but a flyspeck compared to those other initiatives. But looking at the genial riot of pedestrians crossing in thick streams from one corner to the next, past all those cars ... it is a massively potent symbol of the direction the city's taking.

In all likelihood, the scramble intersection will remain that way. Essentially a three-phase traffic signal, it gives green lights once each cycle to north-south and east-west traffic, pedestrian and vehicular, then a third green light to pedestrians alone, who are free to cross the intersection any way they like, for what seems like a very long time.

This works well at Yonge and Dundas, where pedestrians assemble in concentrations that would fill out the background in a Cecil B. De Mille sandal epic and where turns are already prohibited. In other parts of Toronto, according to transportation staff, there simply aren't enough feet on the street to justify it.

But at the very visible intersection of Yonge and Dundas at the very core of the city, the intersection functions to give notice that Toronto is not the sort of town that bends over backwards for its drivers.

And in the rest of the city, the Toronto Transit Commission this week gave the very same notice in its own way. Late in its Wednesday, Aug. 27 meeting, the commission approved a staff report that will eliminate free parking for Metropass holders in the TTC's 16 commuter lots.

Parking privileges has for many years now been one of the perks of holding a Metropass and one of the selling points for suburban commuters who are deciding whether to drive their car to work downtown and pay for parking or drive it a shorter distance to the subway and take transit the rest of the way.

Of course, it costs money to operate those lots - $6.2 million a year - and Metropass holders are taking up 80 per cent of the spots. It's not a massive financial drain, but it would be wrong to call it trivial. Similarly, the number of actual Metropass holders being hit by the new parking fees would not be huge - there are only so many parking spots to go around, after all.

But like that single scramble intersection at Yonge and Dundas, the decision to charge Metropass holders for parking is a statement. Drivers may feel that running an automobile is desirable - even necessary to enable a good and productive life. But the city will not do anything to encourage those sentiments, particularly at the expense of those who ride buses and subways and get around on foot and on bicycle.

To do so, would be giving comfort to the enemy. And that's no way to win a war.