Morning Brew: June 11th, 2008
Photo: "Toronto the buggy" by Global Hermit, member of the blogTO Flickr pool.
Your Toronto morning news roundup for Wednesday June 11th, 2008:
TTC transit heads up (6:50am):
Two streetcars collided at Bay & Dundas this morning, injuring a number of people and prompting road closure while the streetcars are put back on the tracks and removed. Because pigs don't fly and because $400,000 doesn't buy much these days, you'll find no timely info about any of this on ttc.ca or the new beta.ttc.ca websites.
UPDATE (8:10am): at about 8am ttc.ca posted an alert on their front page. Way to go! :)
UPDATE (8:30am): CBC Radio1 says the streets were reopened just after 8am, rendering the TTC's update kind of... uh... useless. It's been removed in a timely fashion.
What does a million pennies look like? Students at Bedford Park Public school had the opportunity to learn the answer to that question, after meeting their goal of collecting $10,000 worth of one cent coins. The coins were loaded into an armoured car and sent off to Children's Wish Foundation in style.
A couple of drunk guys had a major lapse in better judgment, broke into Casa Loma, and stole some antique guns. In the process, one managed to cut himself pretty badly, leaving a 1km long trail of blood and enough DNA to make a clone army of imbeciles.
--
The taped interview with incarcerated psycho killer Paul Bernardo (pertaining to the unsolved disappearance of Scarborough's Elizabeth Bain) was released to the media despite the Crown's attempt to keep it out of the public eye. Last night I found it difficult to avoid catching unwanted glimpses of the video footage as I flipped through the evening television news. The Globe and Mail dissects the video without actual visuals, which may make it slightly easier/difficult to get through.
Scarborough City Council finally got their photo taken and displayed. One councillor's mom forgot it was picture day and he showed up in his Clifford the Big Red Dog t-shirt, another cried because she had to sit cross-legged in the front row, and another wouldn't stop making googly eyes the whole time. Then at recess Johnny wouldn't let anyone else have their turn at tetherball.
Comments (15)
Definitely an improvement over never posting info, however I'd hate to be one of the people affected by it in the two hours it took them to put it up.
Bah...let's be serious. It isn't like anyone seriously checks the TTC website for service disruptions anyways.
City News at 6 played the whole uncut, unedited Bernardo interview from like 6:30 to 6:50 or so. It was boring and disturbing. I changed the channel.
At night, it was the lead story for the 11 news, I just turned off the tv and went to bed. Ridiculous, really.
Oh, TTC, so clever. Yesterday on the Spadina line, I discovered there was a streetcar diversion that had started Monday and would last all week. There were no "temporary stop" signs at College, leading people to confusedly stand at the regular stop to wait for buses. I couldn't see signs at Dundas or Sullivan either.
Guess what I found at Queen and Spadina? Some TTC guy casually taping up signs. Really? A diversion that started Monday and it took them until 8PM Tuesday to put up signs?
I also thought the Clone army of imbeciles line hilarious... Good one!
I find the airing of the Bernardo tape completely unnecessary. I couldn't avoid it last night, and it made me angry. I hope we are done with it and i can safely watch the news again!
I've never understood why the TTC uses old fashioned rails on their subways and street cars.On the metro in Montreal, all the trains are instead equipped with rubber tires (not certain if they're solid or inflated though), and run inside and on concrete rails, while still using electricity.They're quieter, more efficient in getting around tight curves and I don't recall EVER hearing of one jumping the track.I also know for a fact that there are other cities that have spurned the rail and gone instead with this method for their LRT and street cars, except where it's quaint and historical (San Francisco).All rails do is seem to cause accidents for anyone not in a car. Toronto should seriously consider making the change.
"I've never understood why the TTC uses old fashioned rails on their subways and street cars."
Cost of conversion would be... a lot. TTC barely has enough money to clean the bathrooms.
"I don't recall EVER hearing of one jumping the track"
Not many transit services report of such things... Especially if you don't live in the city itself.
Can Paul Bernardo just die or something? ugh.
the rubber tires are used in montreal cause the system has many curves, and needs to go up and down hills - montreal is not flat. The tires allow for quicker + quieter turning, faster deceleration + acceleration. The engine used to power tires is louder than the engine used to drive rails. I think in Toronto's case, since the system is flat, and has relatively few curves, the rails are fine.
It's more energy efficient too. Rubber tires have a lot more traction and requires a lot more energy.
The rubber tires used in MTL and other places don't work in snow, so the system would need to be 100% underground..
The streetcar came off the rails because it was hit from the side by the other streetcar. It's pretty damn obvious what happened and that cops now looks like an idiot.
Yes, the line was resurfaced last year, but the automatic track switches are still the same and they use technology that's about two years post vacuum tubes. 95% of them are already broken, now it's 96%.
I've been scratching myself since I saw that photo-incredible shot.
The line about making a clone army of imbeciles is one of the better ones I've seen on here. Thanks for the chuckle :)
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