[TOR] Some Monday news links

[rfmcdonald]

• An issue of major concern to cyclists like myself is the astonishing scope of the accused bike thief Igor Kenk, "the long-time used-bicycle dealer facing a raft of charges in a sweeping probe that has so far uncovered nearly 2,500 stashed bicycles, many believed stolen." He admitted to a journalist that he goes so far as to change the pedals and seats so as to make sure that the owners of bikes really know them.


• It's official: This summer is Toronto's rainiest summer ever, with huge volumes of rain and an unusual number of thunderstorms. People seem to be taking this with a bit of incredulity, especially given the
  spectacular lack of rain in a famously (if somewhat inaccurately) rainy Vancouver.


• Construction has begun on the Spadina subway extension, which sonjaaa mentioned will include extend north from the Downsview station at the northern end of the western branch of that line to (among others) stops at at relatively isolated York University, the other large Toronto university but hitherto isolated from the TTC subway lines. It will end deep in suburban York Region.


• The above extension coincides with the apparent decision to abandon subway development along Eglinton Avenue, a major west-east corridor. Already, plans for an Eglinton West subway have been abandoned, and Mayor David Miller says that an Eglinton subway isn't going to happen now.


• Murray Whyte's article in The Star, "Is highrise farming in Toronto's future?", speculates that farming might be shifted from open fields in the country to high-rise buildings in the city. It's science fictional, but if it minimizes pollution ... If.


• Royson James at The Toronto Star argues that if Toronto won the 2008 Olympics Toronto could have remade itself in the same way as Barcelona when it won in 1992.


• See also David Topping's daily selection of a photo from the Torontoist flickr pool and his summary of other of Toronto news events today (Toronto's very expensive, no one's quite sure what's going on with the tourism industry in Toronto, the David Dunlap Observatory that discovered Cygnus X-1 won't be torn down after its sale, cyclists can still look for their stolen bikes, and some kids were arrested and charged with looting an apartment building emptied by an explosion last week).