A Bit More Detail

• Former chief planner Jennifer Keesmaat leads the chorus, Jennifer Pagliaro notes, arguing in favour of a full disclosure of Scarborough subway costs before the election. The article is over at the Toronto Star.


• blogTO notes that Bombardier has come up with new proposals to accelerate streetcar construction for Toronto. I suspect few Torontonians will believe in these.


• A meeting of Justin Trudeau with Amazon's CEO is tied to the Toronto bid for HQ2, the Toronto Star reports.


• An asphalt plant in North York is meeting protest from neighbours, residential and commercial, over its pollution, reports the Toronto Star.

• This CBC celebration of the CLRV streetcar, forty years old and still going, was fun to read.


• Toronto Life profiles some of the public art created for the new Line 1 subway stations.


• Steve Munro shared some of his vintage photos of Toronto and Toronto mass transit scenes going back to the 1960s.


• Coming from Toronto to New York City, Andy Byford will find plenty of challenges in that metropolis' subway system. The Globe and Mail reports.

• Edward Keenan bids farewell to the CLRV streetcars of the TTC, over at the Toronto Star.


• Ainslie Cruickshank notes data suggesting just under 58% of TTC users are women, over at the Toronto Star.


• John Rieti notes that the King Street pilot project, prioritizing mass transit downtown, does seem to have led to improvements in timing, over at CBC.


• Muriel Draaisma notes the tentative acknowledgement, by Toronto police, of missteps in relating to Church and Wellesley and LGBTQ people following a series of disappearances and deaths, over at CBC.


• Toronto Life tells the story of Sarah Phillips, a Canadian expatriate who moved to Toronto's Seaton Village with her family following the election of Trump.

• In The Globe and Mail, Marcus Gee looks at how the new high-rise CityPlace district, on the waterfront, is becoming a neighbourhood.


• Steve Munro celebrated the 20th anniversary of the Spadina streetcar, here and here.


• Justin Ling at Vice reports on the new disappearances of queer men in Toronto that have left the community on edge.


• At the Toronto Star, Ben Spurr notes that the bike route at Bathurst and Adelaide, overcrowded, is going to be improved.


• Aeryn Pfaff describes at Torontoist the historic and continuing important of Hanlan's beach for the queer community of Toronto.


• Tenzin Nawang Tekan describes the importance of the mono for Tibetans and Tibetan-Canadians, starting in Parkdale.

• Steve Munro notes the appallingly bad official presentation of ridership data on the Union-Pearson Express.


• Edward Keenan notes that, though external funding news is good, Toronto needs to somehow find four billion dollars on its own. Where?


• Ben Spurr notes that the new King Street plan prioritizing transit will make exceptions for taxis at some times.


• Martin Regg Cohn notes that Metrolinx desperately needs to be insulated from political interference.

• Steve Munro reports on the many problems associated with implementing new express buses, in Toronto and elsewhere.


• Global News was one of many sources reporting on the high rate of failure of the new Bombardier streetcars.


• Ben Spurr notes the astounding failure of the City of Toronto to do basic things at Union Station, like collect rent.


• Transit Toronto notes that GO Transit's seasonal routes to Niagara have started today and will go until 4 September.

• Caroline Alphonso reports in The Globe and Mail about how Toronto Islands students have been displaced to school on the mainland, in Regent Park.
  
• Robert Benzie and Victoria Gibson describe in the Toronto Star a new waterfront park in a revitalized part of Ontario Place.
  
• Torontoist's Keiran Delamont notes how Metrolinx's sharing of data with the police fits into the broader concept of the modern surveillance state.
  
• Steve Munro tracks the evolution, or perhaps more properly devolution, of streetcar service from 1980 to 2016.

• Centauri Dreams looks at the complex prebiotic chemistry in the system of young triple IRAS 16293-2422.


• Language Hat looks at the central role played by Kyrgzystan writer Chinghiz Aitmatov in shaping Kyrgyz identity.


• The Map Room Blog shares Baltimore's new transit map.


• Steve Munro examines the Ford family's various issues with TTC streetcars.


• The Russian Demographics Blog reports on the latest UN Report on the Donbas and the conflict there.


• Window on Eurasia notes that the number of ethnic Russians in the former Soviet Union fallen sharply through demographic change including assimilation.

• Daily Xtra notes that, in the 1930s, the shops of Yonge and Dundas supported a queer community. The tours described sound interesting.


• Torontoist's Tricia Wood arguesthat the proposed high speed rail route in southern Ontario is wasteful spending, reflecting a two-tier transit network.


• Steve Munro crunches data on the Queen Street route to find that buses have an advantage over streetcars.


• The Toronto Star's Ben Spurr notes that the TTC is planning to noticeably expand its express bus network.


• NOW Toronto's Lisa Ferguson writes about potential NIMBYism in the opposition to new high-rises in High Park.

The TTC’s announcement that it will replace streetcars with buses during repairs to Queen St. this summer has jumpstarted conversation on social media.

Facebook and Twitter were flooded Wednesday morning with Torontonians bemoaning the change to their commute, criticizing the timing, and complaining about the construction projects that are causing the conversion.

Some were worried that putting more buses on the road would create more pollution.

“Buses are more harmful for the environment than streetcars, as streetcars run on electricity and not fuel,” wrote TJ Phelan on Facebook.