Some book about wizards goes on sale tonight at midnight. Sadly, the media is completely ignoring this potential phenomenon in favour of stories about Hairspray, but that is only fair because clearly Hairspray is the great cultural touchstone of our time, much more so than some piddling book about a boy wizard who sucks. In ten years time, we will all remember the day we first saw Hairspray; that's all Torontoist is saying.
The TTC plans to cut service drastically to assist in fixing Toronto's budget crunch. Torontoist will be covering this story in greater detail as it develops, because there's nothing more pressing than watching political gamesmanship (and this is practically the dictionary definition of political gamesmanship) in action.
Conrad Black ordered to stay in the United States. Just in case he was planning to fly to a country with lax extradition laws or something. I know, I know, you're thinking, "but Conrad Black would never do such a thing, he is a gentleman of honour." We live in a cynical world, people.
Toronto has the second-lowest crime rate of all cities in Canada. Suck on that, smaller cities in Western Canada!
And the Jays beat the Yankees last night. Finally.
Photo by Lone Primate from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.
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I'm going on the assumption this is a drama queen move on the TTC's part to embarass the powers that be into action: "The province and city council drove us to this! This is what it's come to! You're making us do it!"
And if the story does come to pass, the closure and the fare increase and cuts despite ridership on the rise, that's going to be a national frigging embarassment. What right does Toronto have to run for world class events like World Cup or Olympics when we can't support our infrastructure? Just how close is the city to going bankrupt? And out of curiosity, what city's have ever had to claim bankruptcy?
I know you can't turn back the clock, but if only they had gone with Light Rail Transit on the Sheppard corridor instead of that money pit of a subway.
The budget issue is a very real problem. The councilors that voted against the new taxes in favour of begging from the provincial government are disillusioned. I agree there was a lack of open dialog between the mayor, councilors and citizens of Toronto. That said, the taxes being put on the table were inconsequential in relation to the alternatives of raising property taxes.
As for the TTC, it is remarkable that we are the only "world class city" in the world that doesn't get operation subsidization from state (provincial) or federal government. What is more asinine is that our provincial and federal politicians (in power) find it sexier to spend money on subways and tax credits.
Subways cost more to operate, take longer to build (and hence more money) and cover a smaller corridor of riders (still requiring surface routes to fill out the rest).
Tax credits have had the horrible effect (as predicted by many) of increasing ridership but without putting new money in the operating budget. Not to mention that the tax credit is not really useful for many TTC users who cannot justify a metropass but still use the transit system as their option to driving.
What am I trying to say? It's remarkable that the TTC works as well as it does considering it has wonky political support.
I love quoting crime stats to Toronto-haters. Perhaps all that hatred directed towards Toronto makes them more violent.
According to the story, its actually second lowest among large urban areas, not all.