June 20, 2008
BMO Field Maybe Expanding, City Hall Maybe Cutting Back Expenses, Blue Jays Maybe Finding New Heights of Futility
With Toronto FC having sold out two straight seasons, the City is discussing expanding BMO Field. Bitter fans of the late Toronto Blizzard were heard muttering, "Where were all these so-called soccer fans fifteen years ago, huh?"
The Liberal Party revealed their carbon tax plan yesterday. From an environmental standpoint, the plan is solid, but unfortunately, it has one fatal flaw: Stéphane Dion is the one trying to sell it to Canadians. Plans are underway to make sure that Dion attends all press conferences in an elaborately large fake mustache in the hopes Canadians think he is someone else.
A new policy initiative from City Hall would sharply cut back on discretionary expenses for city councillors. Please insert a boring budgetary joke here. (There are no really good budgetary jokes, unless you are an accountant.)
Toronto Fire Services issued a letter saying that the St. Clair West streetcar track redesign is unsafe and will cause delays in emergency vehicle responses. This might mean that the track might take even longer to build, but your great-grandchildren will love taking the streetcar to the alien slave market!
And despite scoring six runs in the ninth inning last night, the Blue Jays managed to lose again. Manager John Gibbons: "We don't quit, we never do, but we don't win games." Somebody put that on a t-shirt!
Photo by 35mmMonkey from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.
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Remember, way back, like two years ago, when everyone who comments here (except for me) said that a football club in Toronto was probably a stupid idea?
Yeah?
Remember that?
Good times.
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I've had it with Fire Departments dictating urban policy. How do emergency services in European cities function with their narrow roads, traffic and public transit?
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Careful now... do we want a 20,000 stadium packed and bouncing or a 30,000 stadium with thousands of empty seats. BMO Field is intimidating now - they should offer people deposits on season seats and only if they sell 75% should they proceed, leaving 25% for visiting team supporters - especially if Eugene Melnyk gets another Ottawa franchise for us to hate.
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A cab driver told me that the Fire Depts are in the middle of suing the city to remove all residential speed bumps because they hamper response times. Don't know if that's true or not.
I've seen fire trucks scream down the Spadina tacks just fine so what's the problem? Suck it up, you stupid firemen.
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Why are Toronto FC games not shown in HD?
The Montreal games are in HD on Radio-Canada.
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The only time I saw a TFC game in HD, was when The Score used ESPN'S feed.
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Apparently, the centre-pole design of the St. Clair West ROW is part of the problem. Steve Munro has complained about them in the past, and in this article mentions that even the TTC's own buses had trouble using the streetcar right of way during construction because of the poles. Darn centre poles!
It's a clearance thing. If there were no poles in the middle, the right of way would only have to leave enough room for clearance between passing vehicles. With the poles, each "lane" has to be wide enough for a vehicle to clear the pole safely. Mr. Munro figures that the right of way overall is a metre wider than it would have to be with side poles.
For vehicles that don't run on rails, avoiding clipping a centre pole is less of a sure thing, even with that whole fifty centimetres of extra clearance. While fire trucks could stand to be less monstrous, having one be the size of a bus doesn't seem unreasonable.