City
Morning Brew: October 28th, 2008
Photo: "oh Canada, oh brother..." by Lyndsay Jobe, member of the blogTO Flickr pool.
What's happening in the GTA:
Should the Yonge St subway line go all the way up to Highway 7? Vaughan city councillors say yes. With that affirmation in hand, I'm sure nothing at all could derail the plan that involves getting nearly $18 billion from provincial and federal coffers.
Oh, right, except for the economy. Bay street banker's heads are spinning and it's not vertigo in the tops of those towers. Nope, that nausea comes from the latest TSX freefall, this time down 756 points to the lowest closing price in over 4 years. Looking to capitalize on the latest thrill ride, I hear Canada's Wonderland has decided to sponsor the TSX this winter.
Of course with all the economic turmoil, one effect nobody seems to be complaining about is gas prices. If the mighty prognosticator of pump prices Dan McTeague is right, you should be able to fill up for about 93 cents/litre today. I'm glad I held off filling 'er up last night. I honestly thought sub-$1 prices were a thing of the past, you know, since way back in, well, last year.
Looks like Ontario will take a step closer to banning cell phones while driving - and texting, emailing and GPS - today. If you're like me, you forgot McGuinty & Co. were looking into a widespread ban on driving distractions. Makes sense to revisit it now, though, when there's not much else to debate in parliament.
If online petitions are any judge, there seems to be renewed momentum to declare the TTC an essential service. More pressing, and perhaps even more essential, is to deal with the crappy hybrid busses now in operation. And as long as I'm piling it on, apparently new TTC signs are confusing to visitors. Something tells me we'll be hearing from Adam Giambone later telling us the TTC is great, this is just normal business operation. I gotta believe there's a Better Way...
Charles Dubin passed away yesterday, which for most 89 year olds with pneumonia would be unremarkable. But it was Dubin, in the wake of Ben Johnson's gold medal disgrace, who headed the 1989 "Dubin inquiry", which exposed a culture of doping that was until then a secret. Nothing funny here; Dubin was a good man and good citizen and deserves the posthumous recognition he is is receiving. Nearly 20 years later and doping is still rampant in sports at the elite level, and track and field still hasn't really recovered.
Toronto-based playwright Daniel MacIvor won the $100k Siminovitch prize last night. His theatre company, da da kamera, started by MacIvor right of George Brown, went dark for good last year and this money will go a long way to getting MacIvor financially stable again. I don't know his work (or maybe I just don't know that I know his work, you know?), but good for him.
Discussion
17 Comments
Sort By Oldest First / Newest First
Subscribe
Just a few thoughts:
1) Why should any subway be extended north to Vaughan when there are more than a million people in Peel region and congestion usually occurs going East to West (and vice versa), not North and South.
2) Of all the things going on in the world, a cell phone/electronic device ban is the most important to the ppl at Queen's Park - what about $500 million deficit? What about infrastructure and transportation issues?
3) The ride at Wonderland brings back memories of the Simpsons when Homer rides the "Enron" ride. I wish Wonderland did something like that, even for a weekend.
re: Hybrid Busses - In the TTC's defence, they didn't ask for or want them - they were a condition of getting the funding from the Feds.
Wait a minute... where's Jerrold?
@ Maria
I'm in sunny San Diego watching the sun rise and reading the Morning Brew :) Big thanks to Joshua for filling in for me. As much as I love Brewing, getting up at 5am (due to time zone difference) just wasn't in the cards.
So who wants to fill up my car with cheap gas? The keys are under the mat. ;)
@Jerrold: I'll be sure to have it washed, waxed and filled up for you.
I'll be looking for the loophole that will enable me to continue talking on the phone while emailing on my blackberry and changing the satellite radio watching a dvd and checking the GPS.. and shifting gears... at the same time. Just so long as I don't do one at a time. (other than the dvd part, the rest is pretty accurate)
I was first introduced to Daniel MacIvor when I watched "Twitch City" - he clubbed Al Waxman to death with tins of cat food. (I can assure you that it was quite hilarious.)
I'm really thrilled to hear about his latest (and very deserved) success.
@ Rob,
You're wrong. There's a lot of congestion North and South. Try to drive on Yonge, Bathurst, Dufferin, Keele and Bayview north of Finch during rush hours. Try to go on 400 or 404, or Allen Road. The average speed is 10 km/h.
The subway extension to HWY-7 is a bless to all the people of Vaughan (260,000 and growing rapidly), Richmond Hill (180,000 and growing), Markham (280,000). We can add even Aurora and Newmarket (130,000 combined). This brings us to 850,000 which I'd say is pretty enough.
@rob 1) Why should any subway be extended north to Vaughan when there are more than a million people in Peel region and congestion usually occurs going East to West (and vice versa), not North and South.
Hi Rob here's 2 reasons I see,
2 reasons.
1. because the go train goes east west along the southern line. As does the 401 easy to drop people off at the go train.
2. becasue the go bus goes east west along hwy 7 and vacinity having away down from there seems more benificial.
Thanks for choosing my picture
re subway to Vaughan, from the article: "There are also plans to include a 1,900-car parking lot and passenger pickup and drop-off point north of Longbridge Road." I suspect that means there are plenty of commuters. :)
I think the bigger issue will be what to fund first... another E-W line (including something to the airport) or this.
@Joshua
Maybe the easiest link would be a shuttle from the airport to the HWY 7 TTC stop. Then get your own self all the way down the line...
@Joshua
Maybe the easiest link would be a shuttle from the airport to the HWY 7 TTC stop. Then get your own self all the way down the line...
Mates,
How do you like this: http://www.citynews.ca/news/news_28564.aspx ?
@Yan
I think that possibly anything is possible.
Tax this!! Actually you know what, Tax these!!!
@YAN
Kevin Gaudet really is the scum of the earth. He gets paid by the industries that make those products so he has to say that stuff.
So they want to ban the use of navigation devices?
Is that smart, eh?
How smart is it to have people rummaging through paper maps, stopping without notice and all that?
gimme a break.