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[URBAN NOTE] Seven Toronto links
Dec. 22nd, 2019 05:48 am- Some of the apartments hit by the Gosford apartment fire have been repaired and opened to their tenants again. Global News reports.
- Steve Munro maps the 70 O'Connor bus route in action as a case study, here.
- Condo developers have created the new neighbourhood of "West St. Clair West" out of, among other established neighbourhoods, Carleton Village. blogTO reports.
- The plans for the controversial new Pharrell Williams condo development at Yonge and Eglinton look interesting. blogTO shares.
- Should Toronto have free public mass transit? NOW Toronto makes the case.
- Brian Doucet at Spacing Toronto takes a look at the Toronto CLRV streetcars in their North American context, here.
- The repeated flooding of the Toronto Islands, as NOW Toronto points out, surely demonstrates the reality of climate change for Toronto.
[URBAN NOTE] Seven Toronto links
Oct. 1st, 2019 06:15 pm- blogTO shares photos from Yorkdale Mall during its power outage Saturday.
- blogTO reports that Toronto hosts, by one measurement, one of the biggest housing bubbles in the world.
- The story of how a neighbourhood project painted over the Ossington Laneway, vandalizing the graffiti there, is a sad one. blogTO has it.
- Judging by his filmed confession, the only chance Alek Minassian has to avoid a very lengthy prison sentence is a perhaps-unlikely insanity plea. CBC reports.
- NOW Toronto reports on the climate strike protests held Friday in Toronto.
- The Toronto Star reports on the mass protests held on Sunday to keep homophobic Christians from marching into Church and Wellesley.
- Steve Munro reports on the statistical sleight of hand apparently used to make the TTC Bombardier streetcars of the TTC look better.
- Jennifer Pagliaro and Emily Mathieu at the Toronto Star look at how 1400 subsidized housing units remain empty despite the housing crisis, and why.
- Does Toronto need another 400-series highway to handle traffic? blogTO considers.
- How can the Toronto Zoo move forward? The Toronto Star examines.
- Dufferin Grove Park is scheduled to face an interesting redevelopment. blogTO reports.
- Steve Munro looks at the factors behind longer travel times on the 501 Queen streetcar.
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- At NOW Toronto, Rebecca Campbell pays tribute to her friend, and collaborator, the activist Justin Haynes.
- Transit Toronto notes the four generations of TTC streetcars on display in the Beaches Easter Parade tomorrow.
- NOW Toronto criticizes the politics of bike lanes in Toronto.
- NOW Toronto noted how badly Scarborough will be served by the Doug Ford subway plans.
- Happily, Toronto is one of the top cities for students in the world. blogTO reports.
- At Spacing, John Lorinc notes that mayor John Tory is allowing waterfront transit plans to get delayed.
- blogTO notes that there is apparently controversy over the correct spelling of Christie Pits.
- CBC Toronto profiles the humble apartment at Bathurst and St. Clair that was home to Ernest Hemingway.
- These photos of stackt, at Bathurst and Front, look amazing. Retail Insider has them.
- blogTO notes that three new Jollibee locations are scheduled to open in 2020, including one downtown at Yonge and Gould.
- Making the King Street pilot project permanent is at least a small victory for Toronto. CBC reports.
- Urban Toronto shares the remarkable plans for the transformation of the Galleria Mall.
Late Wednesday night (more properly, very early Thursday morning), I snapped this photo of one of the new TTC maps appearing on subway cars these days, highlighting not just the subway network but the various streetcar routes and even the 192 Airport shuttle. This map is not perfect; some of the discussion at NUMTOTs criticized how important bus routes, like (for instance) the 29 Dufferin, did not also appear. Granted these criticisms, this map definitely is an important first step towards more useful maps of the Toronto transit grid.
- The Art Gallery of Ontario has gotten its Infinity Room! Global News reports.
- The rehabilitation and renovation of 2 Queen Street East will be a high-profile project. The Globe and Mail reports.
- Steve Munro continues to examine the relative speeds of the 504 King and 501 Queen streetcars, here.
- This warning from the TTC union that Presto cards are too failure-prone to be able to properly take over from the Metropass in January makes me, a TTC user, worry. The Toronto Star reports.
- Toronto doctors can now issue their patients prescriptions to visit the ROM. blogTO reports.
The Okuda San Miguel mural Equilibrium, painted on the east side of the Parkside Student Residences at Carlton and Jarvis, looks quite fine in the morning. The TTC streetcar passing east made this a scene I had to capture.
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- Matt Elliott at CBC Toronto suggests that Toronto has a fiscal crunch ahead, needing to spend more than 30 billion years on various projects over the next decade without knowing where the money will come from. Why is this not more of an issue?
- Enzo DiMatteo at NOW Toronto takes a look at election-related news in Toronto, among other things noting that the campaign of Jennifer Keesmaat does not seem to be taking off.
- The 504 King streetcar route will be split into two, to allow for better traffic flows. CBC reports.
- This 2017 Spacing article on the failure of the pedestrian movement in the Yonge Street Mall is enlightening.
- Katherine Taylor at NOW Toronto writes about some remnants of the past of Toronto, in buildings and signs and neighbourhood memories.
- Gilbert Ngabo reports on the understandable frustration of the many hundreds of tenants of the St. James Town tower of 650 Parliament Street, left to collect their belongings in lines in the stifling heat after a 6-alarm fire and facing months of potential homelessness, over at the Toronto Star.
- blogTO notes that a majority of Torontonians are willing to imagine moving to the suburbs on account of spiraling real estate prices.
- Are the affordable housing programs being put forward by John Tory and Jennifer Keesmaat plausible? The Toronto Star considers.
- Steve Munro notes that the 514 Cherry streetcar route is now no more, merged into others.
- The four Bombardier streetcars damaged by recent flooding in Toronto will be out of service for months as they are cleaned and repaired. CBC reports.
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- Urban Toronto notes that Toronto city council has granted approval for rezoning the Galleria Mall, making plans for a massive high-density redevelopment possible.
- blogTO reports that, finally, a website has appeared that will let people navigate the underground PATH network downtown. (An app will come later.)
- Steve Munro notes how the Bombardier streetcar debacle not only undermines that company, but threatens the presence of the streetcar in Toronto.
- Spacing shares Gabriel Eidelman's explanation of the history of Toronto's Bureau of Municipal Research, and why he decided to bring it back.
- Toronto Life shares photos of the float homes moored off the docks in Scarborough's Bluffer's Park Marina, and the people who live there.
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- blogTO takes a look at Little Jamaica along Eglinton Avenue West, a neighbourhood that persists despite gentrification and Eglinton Crosstown construction.
- Christopher Hume takes a look at The Coffee Lab, a tiny coffee shop on Spadina south of Richmond, and what this suggests about Toronto's urban future, over at the Toronto Star.
- Steve Munro takes a look at the 1973 introduction of Toronto's Tour Tram.
- As Massey Hall is set for a years-long shutdown for renovations, NOW Toronto's Richard Trapunski shares musicians' memory of this venue.
- blogTO takes a look at Claude Cormier + Associés, the Montréal-based architecture firm that has introduced quirky highlights to Toronto like the redesigned Berczy Park.
Last night, I took a leisurely walk home on a warm summer evening, west on St. Clair from St. Clair West station and then south through Regal Heights, down to the northwesternmost corner of Dovercourt Village.
- The demolition of Honest Ed's revealed ghost ads on the walls of the buildings amalgamated into that storied complex. blogTO reports.
- Support for the King Street pilot project is down, polls suggest. blogTO reports.
- That the TTC and Metrolinx are disputing the costs associated with Presto makes the whole thing ridiculous. The Toronto Star covers it.
- This summary of the TTC errors and passenger issues that made the commute of the 30th of January so challenging is disturbing. The Toronto Star reports.
- Steve Munro writes about the capacity crisis on the TTC, especially the subway lines.
- The King Street transit experiment could have been much broader, and much more radical, reports The Globe and Mail.
- Emily Mathieu reports on Toronto's Homeless Memorial, remembering the hundreds of people who died on the streets. Dean Lisowick is the latest addition to the sad list. The Toronto Star has it.
- blogTO has some recommendations for people on interested in spending a night out in Kensington Market.
- A development proposal means that the Commerce Court observation deck, in the Financial District, might be reopened to regular visitors some time in the foreseeable future. blogTO reports.
- Edward Keenan has some fun imagining how, in a Toronto winter, some works of world literature might be adapted to reflect the weather. The Toronto Star has it.
