City
Morning Brew: Diet Soda at Schools, Row over ROW, Darwinian Stunt
Photo: "ground broken!" by Flo's Diner, member of the blogTO Flickr pool.
What's happening in the GTA (and sometimes beyond):
I live just south of St.Clair Avenue, and I must admit it - I've been avoiding the retail areas undergoing unsightly and disruptive TTC streetcar lane construction for a while now. And I'm surely not the only one who's doing this. Do merchants who are seeking compensation in the form of class action lawsuit stand a chance against the city? I mean, the project is almost 4 years behind schedule, and some business are reporting 40% drops in business. I wonder how much of their loses are due to the recession alone.
The Toronto District School Board is mulling over the idea of either removing all soda pop machines from their schools, or replacing all the high-calorie (i.e. liquid candy) sodas with artificially sweetened products. Aspartame tastes disgusting, but the more disturbing issue is that the TDSB stands to lose $0.5million if they break a contract they hold with Pepsi.
Two oil paintings that were donated to Goodwill in Etobicoke last year turned out to be 1895 classics by Peruvian-European painter Federico del Campo - and sold for a combined $160,000 at auction yesterday. The surprise cash windfall, to be donated to a good cause, is great!
Liberal MP Bob Rae, due his outspoken views on the Sri Lankan civil war (but despite being granted a visa to visit), was given the red light when he tried to enter Sri Lanka last night. I guess Rae gets to experience the notion that freedom of speech doesn't have equal meaning everywhere.
A Darwinian stunt in a parking lot, involving a car, a homemade sled, and a rope unfortunately also involved a tree and a teen in critical condition. It's amazing how far thrill-seeking can take people.
And according to the Global Liveability Survey published by the Economist Intelligence Unit, Canadian and Australian cities dominate the list of "most liveable" (whatever that means) cities in the world. Toronto ranked 4th, behind Vancouver, Vienna, and Melbourne.
Discussion
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That story just makes my day. Ain't nothing like a nice surprise.
Probably somebody was redecorating, inspired by some TV gurus like Steven and Chris, and decided those frumpy old paintings had to go.
Nice result, though.
Oy. Cash grab much?
While the stink raised by opponents may have caused a delay in the start of the project, you can't blame the amount of actual downtime on the street itself on the Save Our St Clair bunch. There have been delays due to such stuff as Hydro work, various construction delays and the famous removal of electrical work from concrete in St Clair West Station.
Many of the new trees are dead or dying, the shelters look like crap, the road damage caused by the work is barely repaired, I would go on. From the community consultation to whenever the first streetcar runs, this project has been a step by step example of how not to do a transit project. I hope that they've learned lessons from this when they implement other parts of Transit City.
Note the guy in the picture is able to stand in the middle of the ROW. They built the ROW in that area before they built the ROW closer to the subway. Buses are using and getting stuck in traffic on the non-ROW part of the road. Right now nobody is using that part of the ROW except for, ironically, the odd parked car.
Rennovations and construction are never pretty. Do some rennovations on your house and you'll see how impossible it is to do that kind of work without delays and mess. You end up waiting for the guy to finish the custom countertop in your kitchen so you can start work on the plumbing, but then that delay causes a scheduling issue with the plumbing forcing you to push that back. Meanwhile you find out that the electrical work in the living room wasn't done properly and then have to add extra time to deal with that (because it would be expensive and stupid to tear down your wall again at a later date and fix it then)
Sometimes you get lucky and everything works according to the plan, but you have to realize that the construction on St. Clair involves dozens of different groups and city services and the chance of things running perfectly smooth are probably the same as winning the lottery.
http://www.burgerking.ca/RTEContent//Document/nutritionalGuide_webFormat.pdf
Scroll down to the drink section. Fruitopia is higher in calories than Coke, Sprite and Root Beer.
Personally, I don't drink any of these products... and it isn't because of the calories.
As someone who just finished a home renovation, I can assure you that is very possible to be satisfied with the final result, know you had some unexpected surprises and still recognize that you learned how to do things much better for the next reno. I would suggest that the TTC and its various partners have learned a lot this time. I hope that they remember what they've learned as Transit City rolls out.
http://www.vancouversun.com/Cambie+Street+merchant+wins+damages+Canada+Line+construction/1635935/story.html
I would think taking far longer than scheduled would qualify as more disruptive, especially as some businesses might have chosen temporary relocation earlier if they were made aware of the longer construction period.
As for the snarky comment re: lawsuits above - the fact is that TTC, Toronto Roads and Toronto Hydro have regularly failed to properly coordinate which has led to some of the delays. Fleet Street's rebuild had no lawsuit and they screwed that up mightily. There also have been issues where a lack of proper record keeping led to the discovery of live electrical when St. Clair West station loop was rebuilt (Mihevc even made a youtube about it)
Why can't kids drink water or real juice?
(No, I haven't yet read Squeezed.)
*head explodes*
Is this really about kids needing a drink though? Weren't the machines brought in to make money?
I think that if the TDSB is going to give my kids any kind of food or drink they should be offered the healthiest available option. We can get our junk food kicks outside of school... because we all have different ideas about what is "junk".