Morning Brew: March 3rd, 2009
Photo: "Tower in the Fog" by Ste&We, member of the blogTO Flickr pool.
What's happening in the GTA (and sometimes beyond):
There's been a lot of debate surrounding the street racing laws and the new(ish) 105km/hr speed limiters on trucks, but every once in a while some jackass takes things up a notch and gets caught on our city roads doing insane, potentially deadly speeds. OPP clocked a guy doing 250km/hr on highway 400 at Finch, and were able to pull him over and charge him. Meanwhile, in Hamilton police are trying to figure out how a 14 year old kid managed to steal almost 100 cars for joyrides.
Nine City of Toronto employees have been fired after it was discovered that they had been making fraudulent claims to their employee benefits plans. Having a decent job, with decent pay and a decent benefits package apparently isn't enough for some greedy, dishonest people. And the mayor's office is taking a lot of heat for being mum on details.
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New parking fees in TTC commuter lots are set to kick in on April 1st. But some folks who live in the suburbs and work in the city aren't taking the new charges sitting down, instead opting to fight the good fight. In my opinion, a Metropass is too expensive as it is (you really have to use it more than twice daily on weekdays to make it worth buying). Forcing commuters to pay to park may result in more driving all the way in to work, which goes against the fundamental goals of public transit.
As part of the celebration of our city's 175th birthday, CityNews has a series of excellent photos documenting Toronto's urban history. The "then versus now" photographs are a lot of fun to browse (Part 1) (Part 2).
A couple of Toronto Police employees are in hot water. The head of the intelligence unit is facing sexual harassment charges, while another veteran police officer was charged with impaired driving and a third was allegedly caught stealing a bottle of booze from an LCBO. It's been a tough week for public relations, and it's only Tuesday.
