City
Morning Brew: Queen Streetcar Split, Italian Seniors Only, Hand-held Device Ban, Deficit Announcement, Hockey Fraud, and... Snow!?
Photo: "please stand back from the yellow line" by turnip[turnip], member of the blogTO Flickr pool.
What's happening in the GTA (and sometimes beyond):
It starts on Monday but anticipation is already in the air for a pilot project by the TTC, that will involve splitting the dreaded 501 Queen streetcar route into two routes that overlap in the core. Will it be awesome, or double trouble?
You can only live there if you're of Italian heritage, but taxes from all of us contribute to their coffers. The Friuli Terrace in Vaughan has been around for 20 years, but only now that we're seeing a chronic shortage of spaces at publicly funded seniors homes has its exclusive resident acceptance policy been called into question.
A proposal to allow dogs to be walked on public swimming beaches during the winter months is up for a city council vote soon. This would be a no-brainer if dog owners were responsible and cleaned up after their pets. Hopefully, if this passes the vote, we don't see related water contamination problems in the summer (when swimming is back).
Anyone who has been driving on the GTA's highways recently (unless they've had their faces buried in their cell phones) has likely seen the info board reminders about the October 26th implementation date for the new hand-held device ban on our roads. Police tell CityNews that they are ready to enforce it.
Brace yourselves: Ontario's fiscal numbers are going to be announced next week. Anyone want to wager on how much more than the predicted $18.5 billion the deficit it will actually be? I'm going to toss out a number: $23 billion.
Brace yourselves: there's been talk of snow in the forecast for the GTA. Yes, SNOW.
And a Mississauga man is facing a slew of charges for allegedly defrauding some 100 young hockey players. Imagine paying a local scout to set you up for an opportunity to play and be seen over in Europe, only to arrive in France and learn that there's no such tournament?
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I'm glad they have the streetcars overlaping across the downtown. Initially I think they were going to have them overlap only at Parliament, which would have been awful for east enders when trying to get downtown.
Go Leafs Go
http://www.weatheroffice.gc.ca/city/pages/on-64_metric_e.html
There's some lag for sure, but you should see "don't drink and drive" or "buckle up" when the highway is at a crawl resulting from an accident ahead.
One more time:
Westbound Streetcars begin at Neville Park and go to Shaw and then turn around.
Eastbound Streetcars begin at Long Branch or Humber and go to Parliament, and then turn around.
Stops between Parliament and Shaw are served by streetcars going to all destinations, you just have to wait for the right one.
There's been a lot of confusion about the route splitting, but if you are waiting at Queen & Spadina, just get onto a Long Branch or Humber bound car instead of a Shaw-bound one.
Also new express service from Keele Stn to York U.
Reminds me of Ernie waking up Bert to tell him it's time for a nap.
We keep forgetting this is NOT Florida. These parks and beaches are rarely used for 5-6 months of the year.
Take cellphone photos of dog owners who don't scoop, upload them to a website, print out photos, put 'em on posts on beach so everyone knows who the assholes are.
BTW: iPhone Google Maps now shows accurate real-time traffic info for the GTA ...just in time for it to be illegal to look at your phone while driving. Ironic?
http://www3.ttc.ca/Service_Advisories/Service_changes/October_Service_Changes.jsp
The most important point is that it only makes 12 stops between Keele Stn and York and it runs via Weston and Rogers at the Keele jog instead of St. Clair and Old Weston. That should make the trip much much faster.
Other than the cabal of left-leaning, all-things-automobile-are-bad brigade, it is plain to see that streetcars, in fact, block traffic and are horridly 'stupid' in our over-crowded downtown streets. However, they have become a sacred cow within a certain very vocal minority, especially the TTC union itself. Oh, yes, yes - the tourists love them. [Rolls eyes]
We should bring back trolleys, which this city used to have. It makes absolutely no sense to have a streetcar blocking both lanes of traffic as stop to pick up passengers - clearly, we all know this but it is longer conventional to admit this. Even friends of mine who do use the TTC regularly hate the streetcars and prefer either buses or the subway for getting around.
Anyway, it won't matter: soon enough the downtown streets will be so choked that nobody will be able to get anywhere at anytime.