[PHOTO] Alex Mazer for Ward 18, Toronto

This is one of several signs for Alex Mazer, Toronto city council candidate for Ward 18 I passed yesterday morning.

[PHOTO] Red hibiscus, furled

I snapped this photo, not one of my best, by the shoe rack as I was leaving for Charlottetown airport. My attention was caught by how tightly rolled up the flower was.

[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• Antipope Charlie Stross describes why he's shifting from science fiction to fantasy: the latter better fits the black-box technological zeitgeist.


• blogTO recommends thinks to do in Kensington Market and Chinatown.


• Centauri Dreams looks at some proposals for interstellar drives.


• The Dragon's Tales notes Indonesia's participation in a South Korean fighter plane project.


• Joe. My. God. notes a Jamaican newspaper poll that has found 91% want to keep laws against gay sex on the books.


• Language Hat notes the conflict between traditional and vernacular registers of the Japanese language in the 19th century.


• Languages of the World's Asya Pereltvsaig notes the depopulation of the Russian Far Eastern region of Magadan after 1989.


• pollotenchegg maps out the divisions of Luhansk and Donetsk between government and separatist regimes.


• Steve Munro writes about how the TTC should keep statistics about travel more readily available.


• Towleroad notes Morrissey's statement that he is being treated for cancer.


• The Volokh Conspiracy lists more reasons to strike down same-sex marriage bans based on the recent Supreme Court ruling in the US.


• Why I Love Toronto recommends a charming-sounding late-night antique crawl down on Queen Street West.

[URBAN NOTE] On the Liberty Village shuttle supplementing the TTC

CBC reports on a crowd-funded effort to provide private bus transit for Liberty Village, to supplement an overcrowded 504 King streetcar.

I do not think this is good. More funding for the booming downtown core is needed, clearly.

Liberty Village residents tired of trying to squeeze their way aboard the jam-packed 504 King streetcar each morning might want to send Taylor Scollon an email. And a cheque for $25.

In a move to alleviate the cattle-car conditions transit riders in the west-end neighbourhood endure almost daily, Scollon has co-founded a service that will attempt to operate — at least on a trial basis — a private, crowd-funded bus service with daily trips into downtown during rush hour from the fast-growing neighbourhood along King Street West.

"We're trying to empower people in communities where maybe they feel under-served by transit," said Scollon who calls the concept Line 6, in an interview with CBC Radio's Metro Morning. "They just don't have the transportation options that they need or want. We're trying to empower those people to build better transit themselves."

Here's how it will work. For a minimum donation of $25, riders are guaranteed five seats on the bus. Scollon's company will charter the bus using a private company. Line 6 has a $2,500 funding goal before they will launch the pilot. So far, they have raised $1,450.

Liberty Village has seen massive growth in recent years as condos have popped up in the area that was once home to factories and other industries. City services, transit in particular, haven't adjusted to keep up with the growing neighbourhood's needs.

"There's a lot of people trying to get to work every morning and the public transit options are just not efficient to handle that capacity," said Scollon. "We see this as an under-served community."

[URBAN NOTE] On the continuing story of 934 Ossington Avenue and the murder of Allan Lanteigne

Last May, I noted that 934 Ossington Avenue had been sold. That address, a residential home in my neighbourhood, saw the brutal murder in 2011 of its prior resident, Allan Lanteigne, allegedly by a hit man hired by his estranged husband. Daily Xtra's HG Watson notes that said person has been discharged of charges.

An Ontario Court of Justice judge at Toronto’s Old City Hall discharged Demitry Papasotiriou on Sept 11 because of insufficient evidence. His mother and stepfather, two of the few in attendance in the sparsely populated courtroom, gasped in surprise at the decision. Papasotiriou smiled and embraced his lawyer, James Lockyer.

His co-accused, Michael Ivezic, will face a criminal trial for first-degree murder. The case is currently subject to a publication ban on all evidence.

Papasotiriou was arrested on Nov 2, 2012, on suspicion of killing his husband, Lanteigne. The victim, who worked as an accounting clerk at the University of Toronto, was found dead inside his home on Ossington Avenue on March 3, 2011, after co-workers grew concerned that he hadn’t arrived for work. At the time of Lanteigne’s death, Papasotiriou was studying law in Switzerland.

The co-accused, Ivezic, was arrested in Greece on Jan 16, 2013, after an Interpol warrant was issued for him. Upon his return to Canada in June 2013, police described him as a business associate of Papasotiriou’s and alleged that the pair were co-conspirators.

As in his previous court appearances, Papasotiriou was dressed in a suit too large for his small build and frameless glasses. After the judge’s decision he was clearly happy about what he had heard. Both he and his lawyer described themselves as relieved.

“I was sad when Allan died, and I am still sad,” Papasotiriou told Xtra. “I am relieved now that any suggestion that I had anything to do with his death is gone.”

The Toronto Star notes that this opens up the possibility of Papasotiriou gaining access to the financial proceeds of the house sale, currently being claimed by Lanteigne's mother.

[URBAN NOTE] "A brief history of no fun Toronto"

blogTO's Benjamin Boles describes, at length, Toronto's long history as a conservative and repressive community starting with Prohibition. Among other things, Boles demonstrates why an apparently common stereotype that Canadians are less conservative than Americans is, if not altogether wrong, not deeply grounded in history. More interesting things are afoot.

It's no secret that the nickname "Toronto The Good" is more a reference to the city's puritan goody-two-shoes reputation than a reference to just our benevolence. Even the New York Times knows that before Rob Ford we were most famous for being a bit boring. We might not have it as bad as Vancouver (which is officially Canada's "No Fun City," according to Wikipedia), but we're certainly nowhere near as much of a party town as Montreal, which was once known as Sin City, before Las Vegas claimed that crown.

To be fair, much of Toronto's lameness comes from the fact the city happens to be located in Ontario. The province's liquor laws are legendarily strict and often bizarre. Even before the sale of alcohol was prohibited in 1916, the only way to legally purchase booze previous to the ban was by prescription.

When prohibition was finally lifted in 1927, the authorities made sure that it was still quite difficult to buy a drink. The early LCBO stores required that you first obtained a license to buy booze, and then after that still had to fill out a variety of paperwork to purchase your beverages of choice. You could only buy one brand at a time, and also only one type of alcohol in one visit (not to mention quantities being severely restricted).

It wasn't until 1969 that you actually could walk into an LCBO and pick a bottle off the shelf, and another 25 years after that before self-serve liquor stores completely replaced the original counter service style. Strangely, the privately run Beer Store still sticks to the counter service method at most of their stores, but at least you don't need to fill out a form anymore.

In some parts of Toronto, prohibition lasted much longer, though. The neighbourhood now known as the Junction was still dry up until 1998, mostly thanks to the efforts of William Horace Temple (aka Temperance Bill) , a popular local politician and vocal opponent of the demon drink. It wasn't until 2001 that the first beer was poured at a bar in the area. High Park didn't vote to allow bars and liquor stores until 1997, and St Clair West was also alcohol free until 1994.

[URBAN NOTE] "Chow Channels De Blasio in Plans for Toronto Housing"

Oh, Olivia Chow. If only you were more likely to be our mayor. Katia Dmitrieva of Bloomberg tells the story from an international perspective.

Olivia Chow plans to emulate the affordable housing policies of New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and the traffic-fighting strategies of Chicago if elected to run Canada’s largest city.

Chow said she’d seek to allocate 20 percent of each new residential tower to affordable housing in a push to add 15,000 low-income rental units in Toronto, reminiscent of De Blasio’s platform. She would also fight gridlock by raising the fee developers pay when blocking city streets during construction like Chicago does.

“I learned from New York,” Chow said in an interview at Bloomberg’s Toronto office yesterday. “We have similar challenges. We have a prosperous city, but we also have some neighborhoods where people are getting left behind. Bill de Blasio in New York said ‘No one should be left behind’ and a focus on investing in children is where I’m coming from.”

House prices in the city of 2.6 million residents soared 7.7 percent last month to a record and drivers face one of the longest rush-hour commutes in North America. Congestion costs the city and its surrounding area as much as C$11 billion ($9.9 billion) a year, according to the Toronto-based nonprofit research institute C.D. Howe Institute.

[. . .]

After a strong start at the beginning of the campaign Chow has fallen behind, garnering 22 percent of support in a Forum Research poll of 1,218 voters conducted yesterday. [Doug] Ford, who like his brother has emphasized tax cuts, surged to 37 percent support, according to the poll, which had a margin of error of 2.8 percentage points. [John] Tory is in the lead at 39 percent, the poll said.

[URBAN NOTE] "The Ford Family Subway Plan"

Toronto transit expert Steve Munro is critical, at Torontoist, of the latest iteration of the Ford brothers' plan for more subways as recently presented by Doug Ford. He makes the argument that it's unworkable, being too expensive for the city as it is likely ever to exist and that cheaper and better alternatives exist.

Ford proposes subways on Eglinton East, Sheppard East, and Finch West. Building these would require Toronto to accept that transit and road networks should be completely separated—transit can’t even be next to traffic lanes, but only under them—regardless of the financial impact this would have on the City’s capital and operating budgets. That is an oddly profligate attitude for a family noted for its parsimony with public spending. Capital expenses may come out of thin air (more about that later), but operating a subway where ridership does not generate substantial revenue—and these subways would not—can only lead to higher costs for the municipal government, or operating cutbacks elsewhere. Toronto already faces an operating deficit with the Vaughan subway extension, and a much larger network of subways will only worsen the problem.

A common question for any transit proposal is, “Where will the riders come from?” Part of Ford’s funding scheme includes taxes from new development spurred by his subways. However, that development depends on new construction in the immediate vicinity of stations, not along whole routes; if the Scarborough subway is any indication, there will be long gaps where would-be riders would have to hop on infrequent surface buses. What Ford’s plan does not tell voters is the kind of city we’d need to build to support his plan—just how much we would need to increase development in order to produce that new tax income. And “higher density” is a phrase many voters dislike almost as much as “higher taxes.”

[. . .]

Overwhelmingly, Doug Ford’s transit platform is about subways and the benefits of moving people underground. In a clear case of subway envy, he compares maps of Toronto with New York, London, and Tokyo, but conveniently forgets that decades ago these were huge cities with a market for rapid transit, while Toronto was still operating horse-drawn streetcars serving a fraction of their population. Those networks arose from the scale and histories of older, denser, larger cities—something that would be very difficult and expensive to duplicate today. Toronto certainly should have a more extensive transit system, but a subway line under every main street is an unattainable, unreasonable goal whose pursuit only distracts us from what we can and should achieve.

[LINK] "How Nigeria contained its Ebola outbreak"

CBC's Mark Gollom reports on Nigeria's swift and apparently successful response to Ebola. A quick response by a functioning state was key, explaining why Nigeria has been spared the horrors of Liberia and its immediate neighbours.

Nigeria recorded 19 laboratory-confirmed Ebola cases and one probable one in two Nigerian states, and nearly 900 patient contacts were identified and followed since mid-July when the outbreak took off, the Atlanta-based Center for Disease Control (CDC) said in a statement this week. Meanwhile, there have been no new cases since Aug. 31, "strongly suggesting the outbreak in Nigeria has been contained," CDC said.

Marty said Nigeria was fortunate in that the Liberian-American who brought in the disease by plane to Lagos back in July was suspected of having Ebola.

According to the CDC, Nigerian authorities took swift action, putting him into isolation and then determining he had exposed 72 people on commercial aircraft, at an airport and at a hospital. They immediately began tracing those he may have had contact with, and created an incident management centre, which later became the emergency operations centre for the disease.

The disease didn't spread rapidly, in part, because it was mostly limited to the wealthier population of Nigeria, said Marty, who is also director of the Florida International University's Health Travel Medicine Program

"The person who brought the infection was a diplomat," Marty said. "He was brought to one of the best hospitals in Nigeria, and the people who were infected were individuals who quickly comprehended the importance of following our recommendations."

Nigeria is also vastly more politically stable and economically affluent than other West African countries, having not suffered years or decades of civil strife.