City
Saturday Brew: Clinton Unpopular, TTC Relief Line, Miller Accused of Idiocy, Christmas in August, and the End of Kilts at Catholic Schools
Photo: "the rain dance" by tomms, member of the blogTO Flickr pool.
What's happening in the GTA (and sometimes beyond):
Bill Clinton is apparently a tough sell. Hoping to add some big-ticket power to the CNE, organizers made 25000 tickets available for the former president's appearance, but as of my last check only about 9000 had been sold. That's pretty damn low, but it can't come as that much of surprise: carnies and Clinton are an odd match, but the former are probably more entertaining. The biggest PR nightmare this poses is that taxpayers may have to foot the bill for many of the unsold tickets.
Talk is back on about a downtown relief line for the subway, but the question is where will it operate? Will it reach far east so that it can accommodate Beach residents? Can Union station handle another subway station? All of these are important questions. But before they can be answered, I want to know where the money for such a project will come from? I love the idea, and I think it would be an amazing addition to the city, but it all sounds like a pipe dream to me.
Anti-Miller sentiment still runs high, and a group called the Toronto Party is starting an early campaign to unseat the mayor come the 2010 election. The yellow signs, which have been spotted on a few residents' lawns, read simply "David Miller is an idiot." While that may be true, the same could be said of the brains behind the signs. Sure they're funny, but no one's going to take them seriously come election time.
Christmas in August? Now this is getting a little ridiculous. Shoppers at a Costco in Scarborough are getting annoyed by the fact that the retailer has already started to stock Christmas items well before Labour Day. Apparently the decision to do so relates to the cool summer and its low sales, but whatever happened to the 'back to school' shopping frenzy?
And, on a sad note, more Catholic schools are set to disappoint teenage boys across the city by banning female students from wearing the once traditional kilt as part of their uniform. Apparently too many students are hiking the skirts up to 'inappropriate' lengths. My prediction: the 2009/10 school year sees record grades from male students!
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and its adherents.
Name calling is not the domain of the intelligent.
A look at the names of the members of the T P will
uphold that statement.
First of all, people aren't going to the Ex to see someone talk politics.
But most of all, the demographics of most of the people who go to the Ex couldn't possibly be less interested in listening to an ex-president speak.
To the CNE administrators, resign now. When the EX folds up this year and you say to the media that visits were down because of the economy, cold wet weather... it's because CANADIANS stayed away from amerikan politics.
Because of this, we've decided to ignore the CNE this year.
SHAME ON YOU!
You're an idiot
Canadians are also known as bullshit? News to me.
This is hard to take having gone through Tokyo's Shinjuku station yesterday: 2 million people a day, bus stations, six national lines, three private lines, three subway lines and a busy retail environment. I know, I know, that is Tokyo and we can never do anything like that in Toronto... actually, that is my point, isn't it?
A stop at Wellington and Yonge would be within 100 metres of the south end of King Station, and one block (corner-to-corner) to Union. Build a tunnel, and one station suddenly links to two others. A similar picture exists at St. Andrew, where a stop would be one block west and one block north of Union. And here, tunnels are already expected to be built to carry the pedestrians out of Union and up York Street.
How big is Shinjuku station? Compare it to how big Union is, and I think smacking the DRL right underneath Union would be far more complicated, and pack too many people in too small a space. Running the DRL under Wellington, with connections linking the Yonge and University stops to King, St. Andrew and Union could give us the interchange we need within the area that probably doesn't quite encompass the size of Shinjuku station.
The DRL would actually encourage ridership in the Wellesley-College-Dundas axis because it is almost impossible to get on a train in peak directions past Bloor southbound or Queen northbound most business days.