Morning Brew: July 24th, 2008

Photo: "Roy Halladay's A Tad Rattled I" by frigante, member of the blogTO Flickr pool.

Your "Toronto sure loves to talk transit" morning news roundup for Thursday July 24th, 2008:

Transit City can't be realized until we get past our many Debate City hold ups. The TTC wants cheaper light-rail surface routes but Metrolinx wants more expensive underground subway-like thingys. Torontonians will settle for anything better than over-packed buses that get caught in and cause major traffic delays. We may learn today how much cash the feds will be tossing in for these initiatives, but it's expected that Prime Weaselster Harper will save any Toronto subway expansion funding announcements until the next federal election rolls around.

Everyone's abuzz about the scramble crossing that's being installed at Yonge & Dundas, which is projected to be active in August. Yonge & Bloor, Bay & Dundas, and Bay & Bloor will be next, and hopefully by then the comparisons to Shibuya, Japan will stop being made (it's really not that exciting, folks).

--

The major bike theft sting operation in Toronto has now recovered over 2000 bikes, the latest being found in a series of garages in Parkdale. Has anything of this magnitude ever been seen in other cities? Does the accused have a compulsive collecting psychological disorder or something?

Ever pull up to a city-run parking spot, only to find that the electronic parking ticket machine is not functioning? Think that's an excuse for not having a ticket displayed on your dashboard? You're not the only one. A $30 parking ticket could result in a $26million class action lawsuit.

Using the self check-in kiosks at Pearson airport may not be a good idea. One method for identifying yourself as a passenger is to enter your credit card number, but reports out yesterday indicate that Visa is investigating the system for the potential for fraud. I'd rather wait in line than have my money or identity stolen.