Historicist: "The city that nobody loves"
Elsewhere in the Ist-a-Verse
The Daily Photoist: November 23, 2009
Urban Planner: November 23, 2009
It's not Toronto news, but everyone's talking about it: Anna Nicole Smith is dead. We were fascinated with her train wreck of a life while she was in it, and doubly so now that she's gone. Was it drugs, or cholesterol? Did she have a will? Who gets the money? When will my subscription to People Magazine start if I sign up today?
Yesterday's budget committee meeting announced that 51% of Toronto's capital budget for 2007 will be spent on transit, infuriating councillors like Kyle Rae. "We're no longer operating as a city, we are operating as a transit authority with a little bit of stuff on the side," says Rae, who hopes to redirect funding to parks and upkeep.
The Ministry of Transportation has confirmed that it is looking to build a new 400 series highway from Toronto to Guelph, running from highway 6 to highway 400.
All I want for Christmas is a Yonge Street sign. The City of Toronto will be selling off old street signs for $10 apiece after signposts get an overhaul.
The southeast corner of Yonge and Bloor is soon to be the home of a 60-storey tower that will house both residential and retail space.
At the Ontario Science Centre, a bean-counting kid kicks ass and takes names/prizes. Man, scientists, you sure did drop the ball on this one. That kid is making a monkey out of you.
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There's quite the outright lie in the Post's street sign article:
"Mr. Stopnicki said city staff and residents at public meetings all endorsed the new design.
'This design was the one that everyone liked,' he said. 'This is very functional, it looks very modern.'"
I was at the last (poorly advertised) public meeting and there was not a single positive comment about the design by residents; certainly nothing that could be mistaken as an "endorsement". The chosen design was brought out as a fait accompli, and every question and criticism was essentially dismissed.
The ever-grumpy Joe Clark has a description of the evening and transcript of the Q&A that really drives the total dissatisfaction with the design home.
http://blog.fawny.org/2006/09/27/streetsign-viewing/
Those signs are hideous.
I was wondering what they did with the old ones - we were thinking about acquiring a Dowling Avenue one for our house :) The City website doesn't seem to have details - hopefully some kind Torontoista will post when it appears!
Hmmm...I should check out what the operating budget is, but we all should note that it is a capital budget. The TTC does have to build, lease, maintain, and repair a lot of real estate. There's elevators for wheelchair access, replacing rails, repairing streetcar tracks, etc. It would be nice to see these as line item breakdowns.
If you want one of Toronto's metal street signs you'll prolly have to grab them the way they've always been grabbed. And in turn help move along the sign-replacement program a little.