Seven in 10 Torontonians support bike lanes generally and a majority approve of the new lanes on Bloor St. W., according to a new Forum Research poll revealed this week.
The survey showed widespread support for bike lanes from multiple demographics that were surveyed, including people who drive, take public transit, bike and walk to work or school, those in different income and age brackets, and men and women alike.
Downtown Toronto and East York, where most bike lanes are located, had the highest approval rates, at 79 per cent in each region. North York’s approval rating was the lowest of all the regions surveyed, at 61 per cent.
“These lanes have obviously been something of a success, and even the majority of drivers favour them. This bodes well for more bicycle infrastructure if as ambitious a project as this can meet with so little opposition,” said Forum president Lorne Bozinoff.
Fifty-six per cent of those polled approved of the new bike lanes on Bloor between Shaw St. and Avenue Rd., a pilot project installed in August. The approval rating was slightly higher in the case of those surveyed in downtown Toronto, who were 63 per cent in favour of the bike lanes, and in East York, where 72 per cent were supportive.
The graceful six-bedroom house in a Vancouver neighbourhood flanking one of Canada’s top universities and a massive park would usually have been met with a slew of offers above its $4.5 million asking price.
That’s if its July listing hadn’t coincided with the week the government announced a 15 per cent tax on foreign buyers intended to cool the market. The grey wood-frame house was soon pulled and relisted for $100,000 less before finally closing seven weeks later at just over $4 million, 9 per cent below its original price.
A 33 per cent drop in Vancouver home sales in September from a year ago signals North America’s once-hottest real estate market — where the average home was appreciating by more than $1,000 a day — has reached a tipping point. While the average price of a single-family detached home rose 29 per cent to $1.58 million, sales fell 9.5 per cent in September from August, according figures from the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver on Tuesday.
As Vancouver tops a list of global cities most at risk of a housing bubble, authorities are taking steps aimed at the froth. On Monday, the federal government unveiled new rules to end a tax break on home sales by owners outside Canada and to tighten mortgage insurance eligibility requirements, even for borrowers with large down payments. That follows the new foreign-buyer levy British Columbia introduced in August and Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson’s plan for the city to start taxing vacant homes next year.
Gone are the days of frenzy when buyers placed bids without inspecting properties and sellers collected all-cash offers. Properties are taking longer to sell, transactions are plummeting, and in some cases, prices are coming down in a city where the cost of housing has doubled in the past decade.
Because of Conrad Black’s historical ties to Postmedia, and because there are still Canadians out there who respect Black as some sort of intellectual paragon—despite, you know, the crimes and all—he still occasionally writes columns for the National Post. He uses this space to remind us that he’s an Important Historian in addition to being a felon (and Black’s historical writing is fine, so long as you don’t mind there being certain… issues… with his discussion of Indigenous peoples). We are all expected to pay homage to his bloviating about modern politics, receive his wisdom, and take his arguments seriously.
There is a central problem with this thesis statement, which is that Black’s personal biases taint his work. Or, to put it another way, Black has a nigh-terminal case of Old-White-Man-Forgives-Other-White-Men-Their-Foibles Disease; this was particularly evident in his infamous televised interview with Rob Ford on ZoomerTV. It’s also prominent in Black’s columns about the American election, of which his latest is a sterling example—Conrad Black is forgiving of Donald Trump (and there is so much to forgive), and thus needs to explain to us all that, no, the presidential debate between Trump and Hillary Clinton was in fact “even” instead of what actually happened, which is that Trump melted down in front of a massive national and international audience and acted like an incontinent toddler. But never fear: when a conservative contrarian is needed to tell the public what actually happened, Conrad Black is always at the ready!
There is so much to unpack here, but let’s try to go through the lowlights:
Trump, though given to tangents and grating egocentricities, was sensible and his views were not immoderate.
During the debate Trump claimed that the Federal Reserve was abandoning its nonpartisan duty in order to assist the Democrats and Barack Obama. He repeatedly described the United States as a “third world country” and particularly—and nonsensically—complained about American airports in this regard. His justification for being sued in the 1970s for discriminating against Black people was to point out that he had settled the lawsuits and that lots of people were being sued for the same thing. (Which is not really a great defense because there was a lot of discrimination against Black people then.) And this is before you consider all of the insane things Hillary Clinton pointed out that Donald Trump has said during the campaign where he simply lied and pretended he had never said them.
Toronto's city council unanimously approved $2.4 million Wednesday for design work on Rail Deck Park.
However, some amendments were added to bring skeptical councillors from suburban wards onside, including improving suburban parks and funding other parks similar to Rail Deck Park.
There's been some division around the 8.5-hectare park proposed for the waterfront railway corridor, estimated to cost $1.05 billion to build, as some suburban councillors question how its creation would benefit their residents.
Ward 7 York West Coun. Giorgio Mammoliti told his counterparts Wednesday morning that he would only support the project if more money were invested in maintaining suburban parks.
"I'll make the city a deal," he told council. "If we in the suburbs can get our playgrounds cleaned up every day, get needles that are left behind from drug addicts cleaned up ... then I will support [a] park in the city of Toronto."
The City of Charlottetown has lifted its annual summer water restrictions, but the group that monitors the city's water supply is urging residents to think twice before they leave taps running.
"I would still always encourage that people continue to conserve water," said Sarah Wheatley, watershed coordinator for the Winter River-Tracadie Bay Watershed Association.
"Even though it feels like fall, it's a little while yet before the water table actually starts to go up."
An unusually dry summer has put a strain on the water system, she said.
The group has been monitoring the Winter River system for the past four years. There are two springs between the two major wellfields that go dry every year, she said. But in the past week, two springs near the Charlottetown airport have gone dry for the first time since they began monitoring them.
The P.E.I. government’s controversial e-gaming venture was riddled with inappropriate secrecy and an overall disregard for taxpayers’ interests, says the province’s auditor general.
Jane MacAdam’s special audit into the province’s e-gaming scandal was released Wednesday.
It is a scathing indictment of the venture pursued by the former Ghiz administration, which aimed to make Prince Edward Island an Internet gambling regulator for the country.
“Throughout this report, there are numerous examples of non-compliance with legislation, policies and controls,” MacAdam says in her report.
“A number of decisions and actions demonstrated a lack of due regard for transparency and accountability.”
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