Yes, Toronto made it into the Monopoly World edition though Montreal is the top Canadian city (actually the TOP CITY WORLDWIDE on the Monopoly board). Good to see that makers of Monopoly have “updated” the utilities to renewables, Solar and Wind. Well to “celebrate” our induction to the middle of the Monopoly board Mr. Monopoly will be at Ontario Place along with Mayor Miller from noon till 2pm today.
Heard on CFRB’s John Moore show that they’re talking again about beefing up transit along Eglinton Avenue, specifically if a subway is better than light rapid transit (LRT). Over a decade after Harris cost this province tens of millions of dollars shutting down subway construction west of Allen, along Eglinton, and almost a decade after Harris left office (if memory serves right), a couple of Councillors have raised their heads tentatively to broach this idea again. It must’ve been all those billions Jim Flaherty — a Harris brother-in-hate-Toronto arms — was waving around yesterday that’s got them showing courage.
But as far as I could tell the millions promised for the Spadina extension to York was exactly what the McGuinty government set aside before the last election, so all they’re doing is reminding us that they still have it banked for whenever it happens. I’m sorry to be such a jaded Torontonian, but ever since Lastman-Harris-Chretien stood on the banks of Lake Ontario promising us billions to revitalize the waterfront, we’ve endured many more such announcements by the Mayor-Premier-Prime Minister of the day, or parts thereof, promising millions or billions for TTC, waterfront, or take-your-pick-of-desperate-Toronto need, followed by nothing. I don’t know why optimists even try to get together a bid for big games like the Pan Am games because (a) the federal government hates Toronto and won’t lift a finger for it and (b) no senior government is going to invest in infrastructure in this city. All those billions China spent on Beijing, making it a games jewel, would never happen here under similar circumstances because the country doesn’t see Toronto as representing it to the world, even though it does, even during an ordinary tourist season.
Anyway, it’s not like the plans for Spadina, Eglinton, or even Queen Street subway expansion are new. They’ve been studied and planned to death. Yet today’s leaders are loathe to use the technology proven to move masses of people swiftly, without being hindered or slowed down by car traffic, because it’s the most expensive to build. It’s a good thing our city planners back in the 1940s and ’50s had more guts, else we’d have an LRT down Yonge Street and along Bloor-Danforth instead of what are today overloaded subways. Now, OK, I know that we haven’t yet reached the massive crowds of London in rush hour — where getting on a train means committing to not being able to move even a mm, anywhere in the car — however, during the day and on Sundays Toronto trains are fuller than they should be from a user’s point of view. I attribute this directly to the fact that our leaders, starting in the rich 1980s (remember, the era when people flaunted their wealth), stopped building subways here in Toronto, while they continued in Montreal, and that voters rejected a leader who put subway planning in her platform in favour of a do-nothing so that, in the words of one editor, we could give him a second chance (to do nothing). And so instead of having a line parallel to Bloor-Danforth, we have none, neither along Queen — which planners say is the one place a subway would pay for itself — nor along Eglinton. And so people take buses, subways, streetcars down to Bloor-Danforth or up to it, thus causing needless overcrowding on that line, while the Yonge-Bloor interchange has become a nightmare.
While debate continues about whether Eglinton should have a subway or an LRT, and the federal government waves around money already committed to one subway and makes no announcement about any other subways, England is set to spend 32 fuckin’ BILLION bucks on a crosstown subway line in London, this in a city that has never stopped building subway lines, even getting them built by badgering developers into funding them if they want to build towers. It’s not like the British like London any more than Canadians like Toronto; it’s that they understand that they must move people as quickly as possible there, as efficiently as possible if that city is to continue to generate wealth for the country. It’s too bad Ontarians and Canadians forget that piece of wisdom.
It was good to see the Federal and Ontario Government were all smiles about finally giving Ontario some Infrastructure funding. Approximately 3.1 million under the Building Canada Fund from the Feds, and almost 3 million from the gas tax. Ontario will match the Building Canada Fund amount (3.1M) for a total of 9.3 million towards Ontario Infrastructure.
A great start. Remember that some of these funds were already fought for by Mayor Miller and Premier Dalton McGuinty and promised by the PM Harper. I tend to agree with Christopher Hume’s Toronto Star article that Infrastructure spending is still paltry and almost too late. It was no surprise to see us lose Olympic bids when our current transit routes and highways are so strained.
We cry for the benefits of our Infrastructure but have much work to do to earn them. The sad thing is partisan squabbling between the Feds and the Province have already delayed any real progress on this issue. Instead of focusing on investing in Canada the Conservatives have been focusing most of their attention on abstract issues like Democratic Reform. Not exactly what will strengthen the Canadian economy and make us competitive in global markets.
Some feel that Canadians are ready for an election but all candidates, including the reigning Conservatives, need to work harder and TOGETHER at all levels. A contrast to current partisan power games. Infrastructure, whether it’s a TTC Subway station, improved internet/cell phone network, bike lanes or highways provide real benefits to taxpayers. Plans for the Waterfront, TTC’s LRT and subway expansion are steps in the right direction. Hopefully politicians put more money where the mouths are moving. The cheques are still in the mail.
We have an odd City Council. On the one hand, they’re suddenly all hot and bothered about private gun clubs leasing space on city property, which as any thinking Torontonian can tell ya will make diddly squat difference to the gun crime rate in Toronto. On the other, they couldn’t care less that the fire department reports serious safety concerns with the design of the St. Clair streetcar right-of-way. They’re much more concerned that Fire Chief Bill Stewart toes the party line and declares everything hunkey dorey. Of course, if they do act in Torontonians’ best interest and start tackling the issues raised in the fire department’s report, then they may, gasp, have to rethink their vaunted light rail transit design and may even have to modify the strategy and, in the end, admit that subways make much more sense on some city streets. After all if wide St. Clair Avenue cannot fit a dedicated streetcar right-of-way (and I’m not saying it cannot, it’s just that the fear-response by Council suggests it), how can narrower, more crowded streets accommodate them, like Pape Avenue on the proposed Don Mills Road LRT?
Mayor David Miller and Council took an inordinate amount of time to respond to the summer of the gun. He couldn’t even get out of his comfy limo to say some soothing words to the masses. But this late-day hot-air shutting down of gun clubs, while shutting up the Fire Chief, says that nothing has changed since 2005. Miller still can’t figure out how to make this city safer, and even when given a concrete report on how to ensure emergency services can arrive safely and quickly to Torontonians in trouble, he doesn’t want to know about it. This is leadership?
CFTO evening news (oops early senior’s moment CTV Toronto News) did a story on the unsightly blue box tonight. Tom Hayes reported that since the blue bin program started 20 years ago, they’ve been increasing the amount of stuff that goes into the bin and so the bin had to grow. Um no. Here’s a thought: the frequency of pickup had to increase NOT decrease. The illogic of trying to get people to recycle more while decreasing frequency of pickup boggles my mind. But let’s continue.
As the person-on-the-street mentioned, she doesn’t even have to walk out her front door, she just has to look out her window, and there they are: big butt-ugly bins hogging the sidewalks and the visual line of sight. These bins are so big, they do not fit! As Hayes points out, they are changing the esthetics of the entire city. So much for aspiring to be once again Toronto the beautiful or the clean.
“I thought we cared what the city looks likes,” said the person on the street. Apparently not.
The fact that Councillors and city staff members actually thought that these bins would fit and not pose a safety hazard (more later) shows how utterly out of touch they are with the realities of city living when you can’t afford hired help and to rent storage areas. Or in Glenn De Baeremaeker’s case, be in love with garbage. After all, only someone who loves the sight and smells of garbage would actually come out with this stupid line:
“When we go to the garbage bin system, we’ll have a nice row lined up like soldiers of garbage bins, all basically the same shape size colour and function. It’ll be very efficient. And I think it’ll look actually better esthetically on most streets.”
And if you don’t like it, tough. “Get used to it,” he, Mr. Garbage, adds.
If you don’t believe me, that I quoted him exactly, check out the list of videos in the blue band on the mid-right side of the screen: Blue boxes an eyesore for some residents.
Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m fighting this Councillor’s arrogance. I looked out my window recently and saw the first line of soldiers hitting the sidewalks in my neighbourhood and wondered where I’d walk. You see, the bins take up half the sidewalk at least — and these are just the FIRST rollout, there is another set coming — which means I’m relegated to the edge of the sidewalk, not the safest place to be. In the winter between snow banks and bins, there would be nowhere to walk except the road…where the cars are.
But wait, it gets better. After the garbage men came through, flinging bins hither and thither, there was nowhere to walk. I could walk two steps, pick up bins, walk three steps, move bins, walk two steps, pick up bins, or I could walk on the road, keeping ears out for cars and get home in a timely manner. What about the poor mobility challenged? Finally the snow is gone, they can go out again, hurray. Oh but wait, it’s garbage day. Now the sidewalks are for bins, not humans, certainly not humans with canes, walkers, wheelchairs, and scooters or buggies.
Get used to it, says Mr. Garbage. Get used to only being able to use our sidewalks 6 days out of 7; get used to having to use the roads as sidewalks in the winter time every garbage day; get used to a garbage esthetic because that is what Toronto is becoming unless you e-mail your Councillor and the Target70 team and tell them this is unacceptable. You won’t be alone. I understand the Target70 team can’t keep up with the irate calls from Torontonians to get rid of the butt-ugly bins and return to a saner method of pickup. Perhaps we should start flooding Mr. Garbage’s e-mail box too. After all, he should be at least half as harassed as we are with this new insane pickup method.
At 3pm this afternoon the TTC could be back in service. It’s expected that the legislature will unanimously pass back to work legislation (Liberals, NDP and Conservatives. On Sunday no less!). Hoping the Monday commute will be OK too and that we see a swift end to the strike! The meeting is due a 1:30pm. We can only hope!
Well the Liberals got in bed with shady advertisers to try and keep Quebec in Canada. Looks like the Conservative Party may have topped them by using the help of Retail Media Inc (and others) to overspend to help win their election campaign. It’s not surprising that the list of candidates suspected of receiving ad funding due to creative accounting were in Quebec and in the GTA. Many tight races for sought after seats, duh.
The allegations are that the federal Conservatives deliberately skirted election financing laws. Basically they claimed tax rebates at the expense of taxpayers for ad expenses that local candidates were not entitled to. Stealing your money to steal your votes. Hmm, what do you think would happen to you if you filed for deductions you weren’t entitled to?
Aparently some Toronto candidates, felt the interpretation of the ad spending and flow of funds was unethical. If the RCMP are involved there is likely some fire behind the smoke and mirrors. So far Mr. Harper said that “we always follow the law as we understand it“. Elections Canada, the RCMP and some Toronto voters will want to better understand what that means in the coming days. In the end it reinforces the assumption that Markerting and Advertising people are slimier than the greasiest politician.
It’s amazing what getting creamed in an election and having an entire riding pissed at you for your high-handed ways will do to a party’s attitude to the big city.
“”Dalton McGuinty likes to blame others for his problems,” Flaherty told a somewhat bewildered business audience expecting a preview of the federal budget.” (Toronto Star, 10-03-08)
The former finance minister for Ontario under the Mike Harris Tories, the same party that never got rid of the province’s deficit, I might add, Jim Flaherty attacks the Premier, the man who beat his provincial party in the polls — do I detect a hint of sour grapes? — for financial incompetence. It’s rather strange that Prime Minister Stephen Harper let him speak as it was, but to let him go on and on about the business taxes in Ontario — which would not have to be so high if the other nine provinces, three territories, and Ottawa didn’t keep sucking the Ontario tax teat dry — and how it’s all the Liberals fault Ontario is tanking, never mind that Flaherty participated in the cancelling of the infrastructure and city-building projects when the Harris Tories came into power, is just unprecedented. After all, the PM is known for putting duct tape on the mouths of all federal Tories two years ago when they came into power.
So obviously Harper agrees with him.
Then suddenly we had the odd spectacle of Flaherty enthusiastically giving Toronto — that evil city, the blight of Canada — over $300 million for, gasp, transit! Yes, they’d promised some money over a year ago. But after all the belly aching about Toronto, and now Ontario, one hardly expected them to be serious and for Flaherty to be in the photo op. And to announce that the money is going towards hybrid buses is even more surprising. They really have been converted on the road to a hotter Damascus.
But have they?
I doubt it. Flaherty said a couple of days ago on television that the federal Conservatives needed to build in the 416. Whoa! I thought the Harper Tories figured they could win a majority sans Toronto. Isn’t that why they’ve watched as our city has sunk more and more into the mire of poverty? Isn’t that why they’ve blamed us and our politicians for our woes and troubles? Isn’t that why they haven’t followed the lead of their US mentors by funding transit and rebuilding infrastructure and giving us back some of the billions in taxes they suck out of us?
Apparently, that by-election they put off and put off and angered one riding by getting rid of the Tory candidate who’d been campaigning like a dog for months and then lengthened before finally getting it done, taught them a few things. They need cities. They need Toronto. And now they’re sucking up to us and kissing our asses. Former Conservative PM Brian Mulroney won several seats in Toronto. Some of elected became important members of his cabinet. That’s how he kept his political lock on the country. Whether the rest of the country likes it or not, Ontario is the engine of Canada — as Harper belatedly acknowledged yesterday on television, standing in front of kids’ drawings — and Toronto is the engine of Ontario. We are the biggest city in the country, we are its financial centre, we are the city the world knows best, and we support the country with billions of our bucks. We go down, you go down. I don’t believe that Harper and Flaherty get that yet. I believe that all this sudden new conciliatory attitude to my city, my province, is all to get votes in the election they’re trying to get going if only the Liberals would vote against them in one of those upteen bogus confidence motions they keep throwing out. Once they have their majority, they’ll ignore us again and go back to creating greater division between us and the rest of Canada. The best thing for Toronto is to keep them on a tight leash. Minority governments all the way because the Liberals ignore us too, just not in such a mean fashion.
TheStar.com | News | We don’t deserve this horrorchitecture
I loved the words Christopher Hume uses to describe the new structure finally arising out of the ashes of Yonge Street’s old has-been, city-expropriated architecture: “nasty dark grey bunker”, “galactic coal-carrier”, “lumpen excuse for a building”, “dead and inert”. And what is this lumpen grey bulky coal carrier called? “Time Life Square.” I had no idea. Did you?
I haven’t see it. But it doesn’t surprise me that a city that thinks cluttering up our sidewalks with garbage bins once a week and converting our neighbourhoods from flora to trash showcases would A-OK horrorchitecture. After all, a city hall that couldn’t care less about the downward spiral of our collective living space from being the cleanest and greenest on the continent to littered and stinky, is not going to care much about what the buildings look like. We really are dependent on individuals, corporations, and developers to ensure we have architecture that one can admire and that provokes (good) thought. For the most part, they’ve been letting us down.
Still, there have been a few shining lights, especially recently. The Crystal at the ROM is a masterpiece that adds to Avenue Road and Bloor, no matter whether one likes it or not. The new opera hall elevates the intellectual life of our city. And Citytv, now owned by Rogers, its iconic building stormed by CTV, may yet save Yonge and Dundas.
The Yonge-Dundas Square is attractive, in a urban, hard-edged way, until one looks to the east side and sees that rather messy temporary structure. It really brings the whole place down. How about erecting a permanent stage of beauty, like the shell at the CNE? (Perhaps Citytv with their penchant for taking over the area around their building may do just that.)
But no matter what a few good corporations do, somehow the citizens of Toronto are going to have to find their moxie and counter the efforts of city hall to turn our urban oasis into a grey dump.
TheStar.com | GTA | Bigger bins no small problem
My response to that article was succinct and not for public consumption. Living in this city is becoming more exhausting with each pronouncement by city council. The reason why people look to the past and sigh that life was simpler back then was that life was less regulated, less stressed by government, less infantalized, freer. I’m sure government started imposing rules and regulations before I was born, but I swear they’ve accelerated like a druggie on a logarithmic curve. Take garbage (yes, please, take my garbage!). Back in the bad old simpler days, everyone put out all their garbage in whatever receptacle they wanted. On Wednesdays huge items that didn’t fit in bags or bins were picked up. Twice a week everything — that’s right folks EVERYTHING — was picked up. The streets were clean, gardens were gardens, and people didn’t waste time and brain power sorting their garbage. Everyone could participate, no matter how infirm or poor or overworked because bags are lighter than bins, brain power wasn’t required as everything went into one bag or bin and everything went out the same day of the week, the poor and overworked didn’t have to spend what adds up to hour or hours each week sorting and hauling out the garbage. For the infirm, poor, and overworked, garbage was quick and easy and even they could participate. Then recycling was introduced.
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