[PHOTO] Blues with greens, Lake Ontario by the shore and under the sky

Lake Ontario is a vast sea.

[BLOG] Some Friday links

• blogTO writes about the restaurants of Toronto's Little Tokyo.


• Centauri Dreams reports from Jupiter.


• Dangerous Minds looks at David Bowie's entry into the art world in 1998.


• The Dragon's Gaze looks at how tidally locked exoplanets can be habitable.


• The Dragon's Tales looks at RR245 and examines Neptune's migration history.


• The LRB Blog looks at the prisons of post-revolutionary Egypt.


• Marginal Revolution reports on a study that aims to predict the sea and naval policies of nations.


• The NYRB Blog reports on a movie about gentrification in Brooklyn.


• The Russian Demographics Blog looks at the prevalence of transgender people.


• Towleroad notes the conclusion of the PARTNER study which has found HIV--undetectable people do not transmit the virus to their partners.


• Window on Eurasia warns about chaos in Russia, looks at the potential for Moldova to be a model for Ukraine, and examines one-person rule in Russia's Putin and Chechnya's Kadyrov.

[NEWS] Some Friday links

• Bloomberg notes that Brexit may be good for European criminals, looks at the negative impact of Brexit on Japan's retail chains, examines the way a broken-down road reflects India-China relations, looks at Russia's shadow economy and observes Ukraine's effort to attract shippers to its ports.


• The Globe and Mail notes the mourning in Québec for the Nice attacks.


• MacLean's reports on a New Brunswick high school overwhelmed by Syrian refugees and examines the dynamics of Brazil's wealthy elite.


• National Geographic notes that Brazil's capuchin monkeys have progressed to the stone age.


• The National Post reports on evidence of cannibalism among Neanderthals, notes Kathleen Wynne's criticism of "All Lives Matter", and engages with the idea of a guaranteed minimum income.


• Open Democracy engages with Scotland's strategy for Brexit.


• Wired looks at a New York City park built to withstand rising seas, mourns the disappearance of the CD, and notes that scenes of murder will never disappear from our social media.

[URBAN NOTE] "Who is Toronto’s masked bride?"

Christopher Reynolds in the Toronto Star describes something very odd indeed.

Who is the masked bride?

Spotted around Toronto in a wedding gown and white mask, the woman pens troubled notes about a “prince turned into a monster” and drops them around the cityscape.

The letters, dated and addressed “To Whom It May Concern,” seem to revolve around her former partner and “the drugs, the alcohol, the women” he allegedly abused.

“I fear for the other women you will meet in your life…It gives me nightmares,” reads one letter dated July 16 and written in a downtown coffee shop.

The emotional notes — whether earnest or performance art, or both — speak to the complex nature of abusive relationships, with the author admitting she is “still in love” with her ex.

“You are also the man who draws baths, gives massages, runs errands…invents delicious dishes based on my whims of the moment, watches rom-coms snuggling late into the night….”

[URBAN NOTE] "Toronto police force still much whiter than the city's population"

CBC reports.

While Toronto's police service is one of the more racially diverse forces in Canada, it still does not accurately reflect the population it serves, an analysis by CBC News has found.

Roughly 75 per cent of Toronto police officers are white, while only about half of the city's residents are — while the other half come from a wide diversity of backgrounds.

CBC News surveyed all major police services in Canada to determine their demographics and racial diversity.

That survey found that the Toronto police service matches its population better than do those in York and Peel regions, but less so than that of Hamilton.

And community advocates say the number of non-white officers — one in four — is not good enough.

[URBAN NOTE] "Toronto approves three supervised injection sites"

The National Post reports on the good news.

Toronto city council has approved three supervised injection sites in the city.

Council voted 36-3 Thursday to support supervised injection services at existing health-care facilities in downtown Toronto.

The services are aimed at providing a safe and hygenic environment where people can inject pre-obtained drugs under a nurse’s supervision.

Earlier this month, Toronto’s board of health unanimously accepted a recommendation for three small-scale supervised injection sites.

Between 2004 and 2014 there was a 77 per cent increase in the reported number of people dying from overdoses in Toronto, according to a report presented to the board of health.

The three sites will be set up at Toronto Public Health, east of Yonge and Dundas on Victoria Street; the Queen West-Central Toronto Community Health Centre on Bathurst, south of Queen Street West; and the South Riverdale Community Health Centre, on Queen Street East, just east of Carlaw Avenue.

[URBAN NOTE] "Toronto man accused of selling fake Tragically Hip tickets"

The Toronto Star reports on a very Canadian crime.

A Toronto man has been arrested and charged after fake tickets for one of Tragically Hip’s last concerts were sold on online, Wednesday.

Durham Police said a woman found a listing the band’s Toronto show on Kijiji, and met up with the seller in Scarborough to buy two tickets for the August 12 show that she later believed were fake.

The woman also noticed that the ad for the same tickets remained on Kijiji, and attempted to contact the seller again using a different name.

The seller then sent a picture of the tickets for the same section and seat numbers, where she then contacted police.

Officers then set up a meeting with the seller. Upon arrival, the suspect fled but was arrested after a brief stuggle, the police statement said.

[URBAN NOTE] "Where are they now? A guide to Toronto’s on-again off-again public transit projects"

The National Post reports.

Torontonians can be forgiven for feeling a little confused over their tangle of transit projects, the many light-rail lines proposed, killed and under construction across the city, or the six-year discussion over how to help transit-starved Scarborough.

Two major projects, the Scarborough subway and the growing demand for a new line to relieve downtown crowding, saw major changes following a council vote Wednesday.

City councillors greenlit a one-stop, subway express line from Kennedy Station to the Scarborough Town Centre, rejecting a seven-stop LRT line the province originally committed funds for in 2010 (Mayor Rob Ford later cancelled that LRT line). Council also voted for the first phase of a 7.5-kilometre subway relief line connecting Pape Station to the downtown core via Pape Avenue, Eastern Avenue and Queen Street.

Where do the projects fit in the grand scheme of transit planning in the Greater Toronto Area? There are many projects that have undergone fits and starts in recent years. Here’s where they all currently stand[.]

[URBAN NOTE] "Cash shift might revive Sheppard subway extension"

Ben Spurr's Toronto Star report is eye-catching. Moving the Sheppard line on form being a stub would be nice, but is it viable?

City council may have ended the debate over one controversial Scarborough subway this week, but the dispute over a second one may be heating up.

The Star has learned that the province has asked Ottawa to withdraw $330 million in federal funding from the Sheppard LRT project and reallocate it to the Finch West LRT.

According to a spokesman for Ontario Minister of Transportation Steven Del Duca, the province made the decision in order to meet the new federal Liberal government’s eligibility criteria for infrastructure funding. Queen’s Park insists the $1-billion Sheppard LRT is still funded in its long-term fiscal plan, and the provincial transit agency Metrolinx says it is moving ahead with the light rail project.

But removing the federal funding could spur a renewed push from local politicians who want to scrap the Sheppard LRT and extend the existing Sheppard subway line into Scarborough.

“The decision to reallocate funds came as a result of the Federal government’s request to shift their Building Canada Fund to ready-to-proceed projects,” wrote Patrick Searle, Del Duca’s spokesman, in an email.

He said that the province risked losing the funding if it wasn’t moved to a shovel-ready project and that “the recommendation was made to redirect the funds toward Finch as it is ready-to-proceed at this time.”

[URBAN NOTE] Torontoist on the Yonge and Scarborough subway extensions

Torontoist is unflattering in its description of John Tory's defense of the Scarborough subway extension.

Yesterday was a victory for John Tory and his Council allies. At long last, the mayor passed a series of motions about the future of Toronto’s transit network, and he got what he wanted. This includes Council support for the one-stop, 6.2-kilometre subway extension in Scarborough that will cost $3.2 billion. At the same time, Council voted down a proposed seven-stop LRT in lieu of the one-stop subway, although the LRT would have cost less money, carried more passengers, and would operate sooner.

Although Tory was on his way to certain victory, that didn’t stop critics of his transit plan from taking a stand to articulate their opposition. And just before Council voted to approve the plans, when Tory responded to questions from Josh Matlow (Ward 22, St. Paul’s), the mayor didn’t look good.

Before the exchange between Tory and Matlow, the mayor gave a speech about honest debate, why he supports the one-stop subway, and the mandate for his mayoralty.

“I really believe that a big part of the job that I was elected to do,” Tory said, “is to bring the city together. I really believe that’s fundamentally important.”

Tory then argued that Scarborough residents don’t have the same opportunities as other parts of the city. He mentioned that 40 per cent of downtown residents can walk to work. “Why don’t we want to have a number that even begins to get close to that in Scarborough,” he asked rhetorically. He went on to say that this is “in the interest of the environment, in the interest of fairness, in the interest of opportunity on the part of those people.”

While Tory made an appeal to unify behind the Scarborough subway extension, the underlying facts to support the argument are questionable at best, and flat-out wrong at worst. The one-stop subway extension will decrease job accessibility by 0.7 per cent compared to the existing SRT, according to the staff report. A seven-stop LRT would have served 8,000 people during the peak ridership hour compared to 7,300 for the one-stop subway, and more than 10 times as many people (47,000) would be in walking distance of transit. The LRT route would also better serve the Neighbourhood Improvement Areas that Tory invokes.

It gets worse.

Elsewhere, David Fleischler defends plans to extend the Yonge subway line further north into York Region, on grounds of plausible future demand.

While the Scarborough subway circus is in full bloom, you may miss the hullabaloo surrounding another suburban plan, the Yonge North Extension. It would take the Yonge subway seven kilometres north from its current terminus at Finch, across Steeles Avenue and into York Region. While the subway “to Richmond Hill” does terminate just inside the town’s south border, it mostly runs through Willowdale and then Thornhill, which is divided at Yonge Street between Markham and Vaughan. After a decade of near stasis, York Region politicians are starting to ruffle some feathers. They requested infrastructure funding from the Prime Minister, and now they have launched a petition and website designed to rally support.

[. . . Only the Yonge extension is (condtionally) approved by city council, its Environmental Assessment has gathered dust since 2009. The projected costs are around $4 billion and, as with the DRL, no source is earmarked. Unlike that other suburban subway, the extension is expected to add so many new riders that it will potentially push Yonge-Bloor past the breaking point and overwhelm the system.

[. . .]

Toronto has a series of legitimate concerns, but let’s take a deep breath and try to see things from York Region’s perspective for a minute.

The provincial planning regime emphasizes intensification and Markham, Vaughan and Richmond Hill are among the few municipalities to treat the mandated 40 per cent intensification minimum as something other than a maximum. So, York Region is doing precisely what the province requires, and with less infrastructure than promised. When it comes to the touchy capacity issue, they hang their hats on a Metrolinx report that showed there’s a sliver to exploit, if other things are done correctly.

Whereas Scarborough has precisely zero new residential units planned and whereas even Jennifer Keesmaat proclaims it “isn’t yet ready” for intensification (though the city designated it a node in 1981), plans are already in place along York Region’s subway corridor for more than 50,000 new residents and (hopefully) jobs to match. Markham and Richmond Hill brought in world class urban design firms to harness a unique convergence of transit and create precisely the sort of transit- and pedestrian-oriented centres we say we want to see in the suburbs. Toronto is also updating its Secondary Plan for the area, making this arguably the single biggest potential intensification corridor in the region.

Condo developers are taking advantage of the new zoning rather than waiting for the subway. In response to this demand, 2,500 buses rumble through the corridor every day, spewing fumes, chewing up the roads and making travel awfully inefficient for local transit users. Indeed, for all the concerns about how the extension will make it easier for 905ers to take seats away from downstream 416 riders, there are already thousands every day biking, busing and especially driving to Finch Station already.