Photo: "Above City Hall" by jonathancastellino, member of the blogTO Flickr pool.

Your Toronto morning news roundup for Tuesday August 26th, 2008:

Commuters looking to drive to subway stations and take the transit to work from there may lose their free parking privileges, as the TTC is thinking of cutting the parking perks from their Metropasses. I'm fairly confident you'll be able to find a follow-up post on this issue on the Metronauts blog today.

The listeriosis death toll has climbed to 12, and now you've got more to worry about than just pre-packaged deli meats: restaurants like McDonald's, Mr. Sub, Tim Hortons, and Boston Pizza have all had to remove items from their menus in response to the tainted meat crisis.

Still shopping around for a stable career with lots of perks? Well, with hundreds of police officers able to retire in the next few years, it might be time to visit your local police academy and start getting a bit more fit for a career in law enforcement.

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It may not be everything that we need, but the GTA is expected to receive $529 million from the provincial budget surplus to help fund our infrastructure needs. Granted, that money probably still won't cover our transit expansion goals — much less any other major projects — but it at least sounds like a good start.

A new study by Ekos shows that more and more Canadians are dropping their land lines and opting to solely use their mobile phones. An old study by me showed that none of my friends had land lines two years ago.

With all this talk about the TTC cutting parking perks, it might be easier just to take a cab to work. Especially if that cab releases no emissions like Louis Palmer's solar taxi, which is at the CNE in Toronto for a few days to promote the use of solar technology.

Drug abuse charges, crashed planes: it looks like the Barenaked Ladies are looking to stay in the news this summer, no matter what it takes. In all seriousness, thankfully nobody was seriously hurt when BNL singer Ed Robertson crashed his Cessna on Sunday.