From a comment on Steve Munro’s fantastic blog about GTA transit issues:

People laugh at the TTC’s web site, but obviously haven’t seen the City of Vaughan VCC web site Joseph C links to (www.city.vaughan.on.ca/newscentre/projects/vcc.html — for extra fun, click the four links across the top one right after the other). It makes the TTC site look highly professional and very restrained.

Dear lord, the VCC site is horrific. I didn’t think Flash existed in 1994, but this is ample evidence to the contrary. For extra extra fun, click the four links across the top repeatedly in whatever order you like, over and over until your ears bleed.

I feel better about the York University subway expansion already!

Man, I really like David Miller and I’m rooting for the One Cent Now campaign to work, but I just don’t see it happening:

“We’re going to where the power is, which is with the people,” Miller said in an interview with CBC Radio’s Here and Now, explaining he hopes citizens will help him pressure the federal government.

That’s great, except the people of Toronto elected you because they thought the power to pressure the federal government lay with you. The Conservatives sure as hell aren’t going to listen to “the people,” since no one in the GTA elected a Conservative candidate; even with one GTA MP switching his allegiance, it’s still pretty clear that the Conservatives aren’t interested in Toronto or any of the other urban centres that overwhelmingly voted against a Conservative government.

This campaign is a tacit admission by Miller that he can’t pressure higher levels of government effectively where it counts: funding. Not that we needed any more evidence:

In his re-election victory speech last November, Miller called on the federal and provincial government to give Toronto one cent of the sales tax collected in the city, saying he wouldn’t take no for an answer. Both levels of government said no.

I can finally say that someone has, indeed, been stabbed just a few blocks away from where I used to live. The weird thing is, I thought I remembered there being a police presence at Haro and Bute. An hour of Google searching later, and I can’t find any evidence of a community policing centre or anything else there, which has me seriously spooked (didn’t I walk past it all the time? wasn’t it just across from the Bread Garden?).

In any case, the stabbing actually isn’t a very big deal; what’s one isolated stabbing incident compared to the ominous-sounding “crystal corner,” named for the apparently rampant use of crystal meth? I lived a lot closer to Davie and Bute than Robson anyways. Oh, and what’s that about Nelson Park again?

I went to Canzine today and discovered my dream hangout: Popfuel, a 24/7 co-op screenprinting studio at Queen and Dufferin. I have never been so immediately impressed and excited about anything in Toronto as I was about this, and the only thing stopping me from signing up is the sheer distance separating my home from the studio. One day, Popfuel, one day…

The only party that comes out looking spiffy in the debacle that was today’s wildcat strike? GO Transit, who probably amazed more than just me with their newfound commitment to transit outside commuting hours. Union-Richmond Hill service starts at 9 a.m. (!!) and ends just after midnight? (!!!!!!!!) Those are some mighty impressive operating hours right there.

The rest of you—the union that decided an illegal strike would win the hearts of commuters and the TTC management that refused to tell anyone what the hell was going on before it was too late—can go to hell.

“Jane Jacobs, a world-renowned writer on urban planning issues, died in Toronto on Tuesday morning. She was 89.”

Spacing Wire has more on the story.

One: 24. I’m officially revising my opinion from “guarded optimism” to “best season ever?” Very few miscues, some spectacular episodes, and yesterday’s double-episode hit was the best two hours of scripted television I’ve seen so far this year. Jack is officially BACK.

Two: Toronto Hydro has unveilled plans to blanket the downtown core with Wi-Fi access by the end of the year.

I had no idea other people did this. Though my high school friends and I usually went to stations with the express purpose of collecting transfers (which would be, according to this guy, cheating), it was a pretty fun way to explore the TTC. Coolest find: the hidden apartment complex exit that gave out special Eglinton transfers that said “Eglinton Heights” on them. We snatched up a bunch of transfers, but if you remember the old machines, they were noisy, mechanical buggers. The TTC guy heard us and deduced correctly that all was not as it should be. He probably couldn’t figure out why we’d want a stack of transfers from a remote part of the station, but he made us toss most of them into the garbage anyways.

I think my stack of transfers is still around here somewhere. I don’t remember if I ever got Downsview, though.