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Morning Brew: Ford meets and greets his smiling public, LCBO plans express kiosks, new year's babies, GTA from space, the new heritage preservation, and hiding roads
Despite almost canceling the event, Rob Ford attended the traditional city hall new year's levee where members of the public are allowed to rub shoulders with the mayor and members of council. Ford met a man who declared him "the greatest mayor Toronto has ever had" and received a panama hat from an Ecuadorian-born couple.
Toronto could be getting beer and wine in its supermarkets, or something close to it, if a new LCBO pilot project gets tested out in the city. As a counter proposal to the PC's plan to put beer in corner stores, the Liberal government has announced a scheme to put LCBO "express" counters in 10 stores on a trial basis. Customers will still have to pay a separate clerk but is this a step in the right direction for Ontario boozing?
With each new year comes the obligatory "first babies" news stories, and yesterday was no exception. This year's first boy was delivered at St. Michael's Hospital at exactly midnight to Jane Maggs, the partner of Casey Laforet, frontman of local indie band Elliott Brood. The first girl arrived out in Credit Valley Hospital in Mississauga at 12:07.
Journalist Michael Vaughan believes it's time to join other cities that have buried (or are burying) their downtown highways. Sinking the Gardiner and adding tolls, he argues, is the only viable option for the aging and crumbling concrete el. Is this the best way of fixing the problem - is it too early for us to contemplate removing the road entirely?
Climbing land values and new planning policies in Toronto seem to be having an impact on how the city preserves its heritage buildings, according to a piece by Raja Moussaoui in the Toronto Star. Developers are increasingly sweet to renovating important buildings in exchange for dense, high-rise towers on the same site (think the James Cooper Mansion on Sherbourne and the proposed Massey Tower condo.) Is this a good way of saving the city's past while encouraging development?
Finally, Canada's representation on the International Space Station, Commander Chris Hadfield, Tweeted a picture of snowy GTA from 400 kilometres above the Earth's surface on Dec. 30. Uncleared hydro corridors, Downsview airport, and the city's sheltered ravine system stand out clearest on the monochromatic image. Lovely.
IN BRIEF:
- 7-year-old killed in Highway 401 collision [CBC]
- Fatal stabbing at Keele St. bar; police seek two men [The Star]
- Shooting victims drive to hospital [The Star]
Chris Bateman is a staff writer at blogTO. Follow him on Twitter at @chrisbateman.
Photo: "Untitled" by Stephen Sokolov from the blogTO Flickr pool, and Twitter.
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Remember that Seattle's new tunnel is being paid entirely by the state of Washington, and that Boston got $8 billion in federal money for their $22 billion tunnel.
It is much more realistic and productive to talk about the San Francisco/New York/Seoul model of replacing the elevated highway with a quasi-highway, landscaped, ped-friendly at-grade boulevard and putting the rest of any available funds into upgrading GO services. This is how these projects are done these days, and it is actually feasible.
http://www.cnu.org/highways
Replacing it with something at street level just doesn't make any sense though. It would cause insane congestion. If we want businesses to locate in the downtown (and pay hefty taxes to us) then we need to make it easy for their employees to get to and from work. Toronto is so expensive to live in most people simply can't afford it, so we do need either an elevated or underground expressway. A few more tracks/funding for the GO Trains would also help out.
- Know how to work a catchphrase and trash-talk your opponents.
- Rebel against "authority figures."
- Get into endless feuds, constantly changing alliances.
- Come out on top with the help of uneducated crowds chanting their support.
And yet traffic is elastic, life goes on. Traffic into Manhattan was terrible before, it is terrible now. Successful economies generate a lot of traffic and demand will always exceed supply. So what? Besides, the Gardiner barely moves at rush hour because the cars coming off it cannot be absorbed by the downtown streets. It's not like the current setup is three lanes at 120 km/h straight into a parking spot. These are super complex ecosystems, hard to know exactly what would happen if you only had Lakeshore and no Gardiner once you got past, say, the Ex. It just might work, at a cost we can afford.
And yes, the Gardiner serves the suburbs, not the city. Better/cheaper GO service is the answer here, not the TTC.
Sheppard station is a great example of what kind of joke this city is. What a fail subway line.
It is not like we would be getting any...
The province has already said it plans on creating 10 Express LCBO stores in areas that the LCBO does not serve properly.
Last time i checked, Toronto is pretty well served by the LCBO and The Beer Store. Therefore we would not see any of these stores in the city.
Also in true Liberal Government style, they say that the first store should open in about a year an a half. Only this Government would take a year an a half to open up an express LCBO store in a store that already exists...
Way to go Dalton! Each decision you have made for this province has been a terrible one...
Nice way to characterize an electorate.
BTW, downtown resident, U of T grad, Ford voter. Asshole.
If, after all that has taken place since Ford was elected you are still a Ford supporter, I would say you are probably uneducated.
He's just trolling here. He doesn't have arguments he can back up, so he deflects and tries to point everyone in another direction. (like towards Olivia Chow)