Unless you see Toronto housing prices as criminal, crime stats show us getting even better. StatsCan released a report saying that our shootings are down by 30% and crime across Canada is the lowest it has been in 25 years. Despite a lot of violence in the news, we've had 41 homicides so far this year (Chicago has had 211 homicides in the same period with a slightly larger population).

The police are saying it's because we have more police on the street, criminologists are saying it's partly because of our aging population and others point to the crime problems that still exist (like an increase in violent crime, the rise in crime for kids age 12-17, and under reporting of domestic-abuse crimes).

Despite these 2006 StatsCan numbers, we still get the reputation of a big dangerous town. I've known visitors from Winnipeg who needed to find the safest parts of downtown Toronto in the middle of the day (despite Winnipeg ranking 2nd in homicides and first in robbery, violent crime and auto theft). I told them they can relax here and take a break from big bad Winnipeg.

View the StatsCan report here.

Photo: stock.xchng

Almost every regular streetcar patron has a story of an exiting rider and an unobservant driver.

Last winter, I saw a kid getting off at College on the Bathurst car. When I glanced up the road, I saw a car barreling up the street without slowing down. Fortunately, a rider standing behind the kid also noticed the car and pulled him back to safety by his backpack. The car only grazed a trumpet case the kid was carrying. The driver hit the brakes a few feet ahead, paused for a second, and sped off.

And that was only a close call. One person every month gets it much worse by being hit while leaving a streetcar! A one-week TTC blitz started this Monday is reminding drivers that going past an open streetcar door (you know, that door with a STOP sign on it!) can get a $100 fine and 3 demerit points.

I hope the blitz does some good but my guess is we're not going to see any reduction in the over 100 drivers that daily pass streetcars illegally. I'm a pretty hard-core pedestrian and I'm all for laying the blame on certain moron motorists, but ever since I moved here the idea of getting off of a streetcar in the middle of a busy street seemed a bit risky and not that logical for both transit riders and motorists.

In an effort to save water, Mayor Miller is looking to get a bunch of cities to cut water use by 15% in seven years. To start with, he's asking the province to ban the sale of less efficient toilets that use three times more water than more eco-sensitive low-flush toilets.

21 cities around the Great Lakes, including Toronto, Chicago and Buffalo, have signed on the plan and eleven of these municipal governments have already started reducing water wastage.

Speaking of toilets, I finally saw one in a Toronto office that uses a totally brilliant but simple method of water savings - different water flushing amounts for different, uhm, toilet duties (or more scientifically, a full flush for poo, a half-flush for pee). I don't know why these half-flush toilets are not all over the city, especially in new homes and buildings.

There are a lot of other water saving techniques we should all be practicing, including giving dirty looks to those neighbours that are constantly cleaning/watering their sidewalks (they know who they are!).

Photo: stock.xchng

TTC chairman Adam Giambrone will be requesting a feasibility report on using the lake to ferry people downtown from the east and west ends of the city.

The idea, which is only roughly outlined at this point, would involve docking facilities in Etobicoke (near Humber Bay Park) and Scarborough (near Bluffer's Park Marina) and allow Toronto suburbanites to hop on a high-speed ferry that could get downtown in 15 minutes.

If fast moving boats taking Torontonians to and from work is getting you all transit-nerd excited, you may have to calm down for a while - at this point, they're only talking about a memo written to propose a study to actually do this. A similar plan twenty years ago went nowhere, but because of better ferry technology, and a more pressing need to find alternatives to getting people around the city, who knows, this may get more support.

As a city next to a big body of water, we may eventually come around to the idea of using the lake to move people around - water mass-transit has been around for a while in Vancouver and NYC. Logistics and money aside, taking a ferry into the downtown core would be an amazing way to greet the city every morning.

Photo: News46 from the Flickr pool

Hilton Toronto is offering themed hotel rooms this summer for kids (and probably some unfortunate adults) that are really into Barbie or Hot Wheels.

Hilton Buenos Aires has been doing these themed rooms for boys and girls since 2004, but now the wait is over for Toronto hotel-stayers who can shell out $229 a night for the same Mattel marketing experience. These rooms will have adjoining suites for parents that don't want to sleep in an all-pink Barbie room or a car-shaped bed.

Overpriced room service will be provided on Barbie or Hot Wheels dinnerware and lucky kiddies will leave with fun gift bags filled with Barbie or Hot Wheels paraphernalia. Rooms include a bunch of Barbie or Hot Wheel activities and DVDs, along with a closet full of Barbie costumes and car themed bath products.

While it's not really my thing (I have my own car-shaped bed, thanks), Hilton and Mattel are reportedly giving some of the money made from these rooms to the SickKids Foundation, so that's good. And if this is your kind of thing, but staying at the Hilton seems a bit stupid when you live here, don't worry - The Brick will sell the same Mattel-inspired furniture beginning this month.

If you're complaining about the high cost of living in Toronto, it's understandable - we are the most expensive city in Canada. I live here because I choose to live here and the cost-of-living is something I accept (like I accept crowded streetcars, over-priced coffee and that nasty garbage smell on Queen West in the morning).

Now, there's another reason to not mind how expensive we are - turns out, we're not that expensive. According to the latest report from Mercer Human Resources Consulting, Toronto ranks 82 out of 143 cities around the world. The study, which is used to figure out how much compensation employees living abroad should get, compares the cost of over 200 items like rent, entertainment, and food in different cities.