A Bit More Detail

• blogTO notes the legalization of Uber in Toronto and reports on city council's approval of Bloor Street bike lanes.


• In a very personal essay, the Broadside Blog's Caitlin Kelly explains why she does not celebrate Mother's Day.


• D-Brief notes research into whether bears are put off by drones.


• Dangerous Minds looks at Japanese pop star Kahimi Karie.


• Joe. My. God. notes that the governor of North Carolina said he might be looking for a new job.


• Language Hat notes multilingual libraries. (Toronto has quite a few, of course.)


• The LRB Blog tackles the question of Labour anti-Semitism.


• The Map Room Blog shares maps of Canadian wildfires.


• Peter Watts posts some evocative art.


• The Planetary Society Blog shares images of Mars' giant volcanos.


• Window on Eurasia notes declining social mobility in Russia.

In his closing remarks on the proposed Bloor Street bike lane pilot project on April 25, Public Works and Infrastructure Committee member and Councillor Stephen Holyday (Ward 3, Etobicoke Centre) suggested that cycling advocates were “trying to build a wall” around downtown—to keep certain people out, I guess. People like Councillor Holyday, who clearly wasn’t on board with the proposal.

As a fortification, might I suggest, this wall has been something of a bust. A tunnel burrows right beneath it, bringing undesirables from all four corners of the city directly within its confines every three to five minutes during peak times. It’s so porous that it can’t even keep the likes of Holyday from a successful incursion to set up shop right in the heart of things at Queen and Bay.

There really should have been little to no debate about this 2.5 kilometre bike lane pilot project running along Bloor Street West from Shaw Street to Avenue Road. It had overwhelming support from local residents and businesses. The two city councillors representing the wards the project would run through, Joe Cressy and Mike Layton (Ward 19 and 20, the Trinity-Spadinas), were big proponents. This should have been a slam dunk.

But that’s not how things work here, not in Toronto, not for more than five years now. Change, especially when it comes to allocating road space, must always be challenged, contested. Drivers’ time is the most valuable time. A three- or six-minute delay while behind the wheel of a car is like 45 minutes stuck on a bus. You just don’t mess around with drivers and their cars without expecting serious pushback.

That driving might not even be negatively affected, as study after study shows of places that have provided more room to other road users, did not faze pro-car skeptics. The most succinctly dismissive was former chief of staff for Rob Ford, Mark Towhey. When confronted on social media with this possibility, he simply and succinctly responded, “Bullshit”.

Residents along the train tracks may have lost the fight to stop Metrolinx from building a three-storey rail overpass near Davenport Rd. north of Bloor St.

But that doesn’t resolve the broader issue of reconciling the tight deadlines of the province’s massive GO expansion with Toronto’s city-building agenda, says the local councillor.

Metrolinx will move ahead with the approvals process for the 1.5-km rail bridge in January, rather than the spring as the city had expected. The provincial agency says its schedule for the electrified regional express rail program won’t permit further delay.

The bridge — which has been referred to as a Gardiner Expressway for GO trains — will allow all-day, two-way service on the Barrie line by eliminating the Davenport diamond where those tracks intersect with the CP freight corridor.

Even if CP and CN agree to move freight off the corridor in favour of a new freight line north of the city, Metrolinx says the Davenport rail-to-rail crossing needs to be eliminated to make way for more commuter trains.

Toronto’s newest Fabricland—and at 16,000 square feet, also its largest—is located in the basement of Honest Ed’s, at the corner of Bloor Street West and Bathurst Street. Go past the kitchen supplies and the jumble of tiny gold Buddhas, and head downstairs to where the Polish cookies used to be. Now, there are rows of buttons, neon thread, and pink urethane cushions available for sale. If you’ve been inside any other Fabricland, you know what to expect: the lighting is fluorescent, the music is canned, and the fabric is plentiful.

There are fabrics for clothings, for home decor, for handicrafts, for finishing touches. There are gossamer tulles and heavy brocades. There are fun furs and feather boas, a million different buttons, and the same depressed-looking knitting section that every Fabricland store offers. There are some surprises, like a quilting cotton printed with a map of the Canadian rail corridors and sleek examples of public transit (which gives the impression that Calgary might have a bullet train!), and a huge roll of zebra-print fleece. The salespeople are friendly. The clientele is mostly women, mostly middle-aged. There are no windows.

There’s a certain brio inherent in opening a store with a limited lifespan: this Fabricland will close at the end of next year, when Honest Ed’s vacates the corner block it has dominated for 67 years, and a new condo development moves in. We’re used to thinking of pop-up stores as being in service of the new and the hip, but this particular short-term tenant is trend-proof. The pattern books suggest items like blousy jackets that would look at home on the set of The Cosby Show, and wide-legged pants particular to the late-1990s raver style. Leafing through one of those books is like hopping into a time machine you have to assemble yourself. There are a few designer gems, like Rachel Comey and Donna Karan, but those require some serious digging to find.

If it sounds like I’m being hard on Fabricland, I’m not. Growing up with an interior-designer mother, I spent more than my fair share of time wandering among the bolts of Stratford, Ontario’s Fabricland. (Fabric stores often rival hardware stores for places that are utterly uninteresting to children.) Fabric is the raw material of creativity: a seasoned eye can look at a bolt of fabric and see a couch, a new pair of pants, or a quilt. But these stores offer no toys and no books, and there are only so many patterned flannelettes one can fondle before even the most well-behaved child will slide onto the floor and throw a temper tantrum just for something to do.