Toronto budget crisis not an issue in provincial campaign, says the CBC. Gee, what a surprise. Who could’ve seen that one coming? Besides everyone in Ontario, I mean.

With metro Toronto split between the Liberals, likely to win another term come tomorrow, and the NDP, who is certain to remain an also-ran, exactly what incentive did anyone have to woo Toronto voters? The Liberals have most of the city locked up no matter what; the NDP doesn’t have the resources to make a whole lot of aggressive moves outside their home ridings; and the Tories will never, ever win many votes inside the downtown core. That means the Liberals don’t have to do much to win our loyalty, the NDP can promise the moon because they’ll never have to deliver, and the Tories can tell us to fuck off because we always tell them the same. No wonder we don’t have any bargaining power in the provincial government. Oh, and consider that the federal electoral situation is pretty much the same, with the Tories shut out of the major cities—including Toronto. We don’t seem to be having a whole lot of luck with the Harper government either.

Seriously, anyone who couldn’t see this coming—like the city councillors that voted to postpone a decision on tax hikes in order to see what the provincial parties would promise us—must be willfully blind.

Harper to Toronto: drop dead. Not only is Toronto unlikely to see any direct benefits from the recent federal budget surplus, but it turns out the feds want their pound of flesh too:

The Royal Canadian Mint, a corporation of the federal government, has now demanded that the City of Toronto pay $47,680 for the public education campaign. Included in this amount is a request for $10,000 for the use of the words “one cent” in the campaign website address (www.onecentnow.ca) and the campaign email address (onecentnow@toronto.ca), and an additional $10,000 for the use of the words “one cent” in the campaign phone number (416-ONECENT). The remaining $27,680 has been assessed against the City for the use of the image of the Canadian penny in printed materials such as pins and posters.

(Prelude: I will gladly take more suggestions for stupid Nuit Blanche puns. Send ‘em in!)

So the word is Nuit Blanche 2007 was a bit of a disappointment. And as a first-time night wanderer, I can sympathize with many of the criticisms. The crowds were fierce, both in number—greatly expanded beyond last year’s attendance—and in attitude—lots of angry people, including one fellow who just kept swearing and going “LOOK AT YOUR FUCKING ART, YOU FUCKING PRETENTIOUS FUCKS! ARE YOU FUCKING PLEASED?” The descriptions in the guide were vague at best and downright misleading at worst. Things wrapped up too early in some cases, leaving the 6am crowd disappointed. And the transit situation was far less rosy than the initial description—all-night subways! shuttle buses! additional blue light service! Exactly one of those promises worked out as expected; meanwhile we walked from Trinity-Bellwoods all the way back to OCAD and then the Eaton Centre without seeing a single streetcar going our way.

Also, I’m still dealing with the strange guilt I feel about taking my shiny new camera to events. Usually I think of cameras as a great way to remove yourself from the moment and create distance between yourself and whatever fun thing is going on at the moment, but that wasn’t really the problem this time—instead, it’s the creeping feeling that I’m some mercenary contract killer, but instead of taking lives I’m stealing souls and experiences. I’m like that kid who collects Star Wars action figures not because he wants to reenact light saber battles, but because those figures will be worth thousands of dollars someday. Instead of just picking Nuit Blanche events based on what would be a fun or intriguing experience, I was often reframing the festival in terms of “can I get a good shot out of this?” Though I did get some great shots, I’m not sure how I feel yet about taking out the camera so much. It’s a lot easier to see that mercenary side of yourself as photographer when you see all the other people with cameras, themselves coldly examining scenes to figure out the best angles and where the light is best. Toronto was full of soul stealers that night.

But that’s not to say the whole thing was a devastating failure; rather, it was a tantalizing glimpse of what could be Nuit Blanche a couple of years down the line (maybe next year?), when the festival matures and everyone gets their departments sorted. And another example of why I need to chill out with the overthinking photography thing. A quick rundown of events:

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There must be another Aqua Teen Hunger Force movie coming out or something, because another American city has completely overreacted to what it thought was a terrorist plot, and is now seeking restitution from the evildoers. Only in this case the “terrorist plot” was sprinkling flour in an Ikea parking lot to mark a running route, and the “evildoers” are two siblings laying the trail for a local beer run club.

Police fielded a call just before 5 p.m. that someone was sprinkling powder on the ground. The store was evacuated and remained closed the rest of the night. The incident prompted a massive response from police in New Haven and surrounding towns.

(…)

Mayoral spokeswoman Jessica Mayorga said the city plans to seek restitution from the Salchows, who are due in court Sept. 14.

“You see powder connected by arrows and chalk, you never know,” she said. “It could be a terrorist, it could be something more serious. We’re thankful it wasn’t, but there were a lot of resources that went into figuring that out.”

If you’re one of those people who’ve been avoiding and shit-talking Boston for their incredible lack of common sense regarding the Mooninite sign idiocy, you can now add New Haven to the list of places to avoid at all costs, lest you inherit their particular brand of lunacy.

Today I received a flyer in the mailbox with an appealing proposition: “Extend the Yonge subway to the 407 now!” Look a bit closer, though, and you start to see some problems.

The Yonge Subway North campaign is riding the coattails of the Ontario Liberal government’s MoveOntario 2020 transit proposal, intended to provide funding to a number of transit projects across the province. One of those projects is a heretofore unannounced plan to extend the current Yonge-University-Spadina subway up past Finch station, all the way to Highway 7/407. Not that such a extension hasn’t been considered before—in fact York Region Transit has always figured a subway extension would be required to handle the massive amount of traffic already flowing down Yonge Street into Toronto. But up until McGuinty’s announcement a couple of months ago, that subway was always seen as a possible “third phase” of YRT’s current Viva rapid transit project, the fruits of which are already visible on Yonge and Highway 7 today in the form of large, shiny blue buses. MoveOntario 2020 turned the extension into a near-future possibility, and as such YRT put their plans to build a dedicated bus right-of-way on hold in July.

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Vancouver transit authorities warn of increased traffic as people return to school and work this week. This doesn’t make sense; why is this apparently a short-term, seasonal phenomenon? Do lots of people suddenly stop going to work or school again in October? Or are there really that many students on transit that wise up and start skipping their morning classes halfway through the semester?

I suppose it could be worse, though. Translink should be thankful they’re not the TTC these days.

The newly launched Monocle Magazine, created by the founder of Wallpaper*, takes on urban villages. Very, very badly. I suppose I should’ve figured it out by the title of the piece, “Perfect High Street,” but talk of what constitutes a good urban village should be followed up by discussions of why certain cities do so well with their urban centres, and what pieces of the recipe they manage to get right. Perhaps I’ve been reading too much Jane Jacobs, but I was under the impression you construct a “perfect” urban village by paying attention to stuff like pedestrian and traffic patterns, mixed-use zoning, where to put parkland and street furniture, and other considerations big and small.

I suppose the mix of businesses you’d want to attract plays a role as well, but to watch the video Monocle put together you’d think all you needed to put together a great urban village was a nice Australian bookshop, an Apple store, and a fancy Italian laundromat. The feature is, in essence, a giant advertisement for a bunch of boutiques around the world. Urban planning this ain’t, unless your urban plans look suspiciously like shopping mall directories. I’ve been told that there are other features about great cities in the issue, but as it’s all locked behind a pay wall and I don’t have a copy of the print magazine, it’s hard for me to say whether the rest of the magazine is as useless as this feature is.

A victory and a defeat. Here in Toronto, our streets have been dominated by stands serving mostly hot dogs and all kinda of sausage foodstuffs. Aside from the chip trucks at Nathan Phillips Square, which sell a slightly wider variety of cheap food, we’ve been living in a very limited street food ecosystem—something that’s not always clear to me unless I spend some time with friends who’ve been all over the world, or grew up in countries where food carts were far more common and served more interesting fare than the 100% beef wiener. But that’s all about to change, as Ontario loosens the regulatory red tape keeping hot dogs king. And while I doubt the likes of Izakaya will be taking to the streets come August, it’s very likely that the multiculturalism Toronto is so known for will lead to plenty of new tasty treats.

Multiculturalism may be the furthest thing from the minds of legislators in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana. You may remember the parish as one of the areas hardest hit by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Since then, the Hispanic population of New Orleans has swelled as workers come to the city for reconstruction work. One of the side effects of the influx—from 15,000 Hispanic people before the storm to an estimated 50,000 today—is the taco truck, rapidly becoming a common fixture on the streets of New Orleans. For some bizarre reason, however, Jefferson Parish officials have decided the taco trucks have to go, despite being embraced by both the nascent Hispanic community and the local Southerners who have come to appreciate the authentic Mexican fare. New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin says the trucks will still be welcome on his streets, though city council president Oliver Thomas isn’t too pleased with the trucks overrunning what’s left of the traditional New Orleans culture. “How do the tacos help gumbo?” Thomas told the Times-Picayune.

If it’s not too far or too cold, I imagine those taco trucks will find a welcome home up here and a chorus of thanks from Torontonians tired of two-dollar hot dogs.

A Toronto institution has been torn down. I honestly don’t remember what stores used to be on that corner, or really anything before the blue walls went up.

Update: Here’s the plan. Pretty much what the Globe heard last night. Man, does the map look shiny (yay Spacing!).

The Globe and Mail edition coming out in a couple of hours has the best guess on what the TTC has in store for us when it unveils its new LRT network plan at 10:30am:

…the centrepiece is a $2.2-billion, partly underground line along Eglinton Avenue, from Kingston Road in the east to Pearson Airport in the west….

—An $835-million line along Finch Avenue West, from Highway 427 in Etobicoke to Finch subway station on the Yonge line;
—A $675-million line on Don Mills Road, from Steeles Avenue East to the Bloor subway line;
—A $630-million line on Jane Street;
—A $555-million line from Don Mills Station that runs along Sheppard Avenue East to Morningside;
—A $630-million line on Morningside Avenue that continues onto Kingston Road;
—A $540-million waterfront west line.

Stay tuned.