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Newsstand: March 16, 2010

roxanne_newsstand_barren.jpg
Illustration by Roxanne Ignatius/Torontoist.


The federal government is cutting the funds for public internet access at youth drop-ins, hospitals, and other community sites. Under new guidelines for the Community Access Program, sites within twenty-five kilometres of a public library won’t be eligible for funding—a criterion that would seem to eliminate just about every non-library CAP site in Toronto.
A TTC driver whose bus was pulled over on suspicion of drunk driving is off work without pay while the TTC conducts an investigation. Margaret Wilson also had her driver’s licence suspended for three days when she showed alcohol levels of 0.05–0.08 in a curbside breathalyzer test. The legal threshold for impaired driving is 0.08. Police stopped Wilson’s vehicle and took her aside after riders onboard called 911 and claimed that she had been driving erratically.
Are you waiting around for 504 King streetcar? Well, according to our computers, it no longer exists. Sorry! At least, that’s the what the satellite-based streetcar tracking system NextBus seems to be saying. Five of the seven streetcar lines being monitored by NextBus have been blank since Monday morning—though, oddly, MyTTC.ca still seems to be picking them up. The TTC was as surprised as anyone else to find the routes missing from NextBus and was looking into the problem yesterday.
City Hall has released a statement clarifying that Toronto will not pay for Corey Haim’s funeral after all, contrary to earlier statements Haim’s mother made to Access Hollywood. While Toronto does have a fund for funerals of extremely poor people, no application was made on Haim’s behalf. The rumour picked up strength when the city, following privacy rules that normally prohibit statements concerning applicants for funeral funds, did not issue a prompt denial.
An MPP from rural Ontario who has had it up to here with Toronto is calling for the city to split off from Ontario (except the conservative-held 905 area) and become a new province—we humbly suggest taking back the name Upper Canada. Bill Murdoch, a PC member from the Bruce-Grey-Owen-Sound riding, says that the province’s government is too Toronto-centric and leaves small-town Ontario struggling with the twin evils of overregulation and coyotes. Of course, why stop there when you could be pushing for us to leave Canada altogether? What’s wrong, Murdoch, are you losing your nerve, or do you really kind of like it in Queen’s Park?
And while we’re moving things around, how about taking a look at this bold proposal, from a Star blog, to rescue the vast boulevards on University Avenue from the four lanes of traffic hemming them in on either side. The idea is to shift the whole strip, which currently serves as Toronto’s nicest set of traffic islands, over to the sidewalk on either the left or the right side of the road, creating a huge pedestrian space for “cafés and small independent artisan-style booths.” Or, you know, maybe food carts, one of these days.

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  • http://undefined Peter K

    If she’s indeed been suspended without pay (I heard on the radio this morning that she was suspended WITH pay), then full marks go to the TTC for doing the right thing.

  • André Bovee-Begun

    TTC spokesperson Danny Nicholson has confirmed that the driver is indeed suspended without pay. And Bob Kinnear, the head of the transit workers’ union, has said only that drivers know that there should never “any form of intoxication” behind the wheel. So far, at least, it does not look like anybody is rushing to the driver’s aid.

  • Darren

    She is as good as gone. The union will not back her on this.

  • http://undefined Darren

    I really dont care for this NextBus garbage. Try enforcing rush diamond lanes (you know…the ones most people don’t even know exist) on King and the 504 would be a lot quicker

  • http://undefined Darren

    The TTC claims to have a Drug Policy. Anyone remember that junkie Almeida?? He was busted, got his job back, and then died on the job in an ‘incident’. Autopsy shown he had drugs in his body at the time of the incident, but the TTC still paid out a sum to his widow

  • http://undefined torontothegreat

    I think Bill Murdoch needs to take a basic economics class to realize how stupid his proposal/idea/outburst is.

  • http://undefined EricSmith

    The National Post (and, by extension, Newsstand) is a bit behind the times with its report of GPS-tracked streetcars disappearing from the NextBus site. They were only there for about a day. Still, the Post did bother to ask why.

    But what’s this about “oddly, MyTTC.ca still seems to be picking them up”? I don’t see any vehicle tracking on the MyTTC.ca site.

  • http://undefined Darren

    She only lost 3 days of pay. As of today she is back on the payroll

  • http://undefined Peter K

    Thanks. This one’s so bad even Kinnear can’t rationalize defending it.

  • http://myttc.ca Kieran Huggins

    You’re absolutely right – myttc currently only displays predictive schedules.
    We have been experimenting with pulling in the live GPS data, but the feeds have been offline for everyone (including us) for the past week or so.

  • Mark Ostler
  • http://undefined Darren

    Thanks for the update. That Star article also mentioned the Almeida case

  • http://undefined rek

    Stupid for Rest-of-Ontario; I don’t see any immediate down sides for Toronto.

  • http://undefined torontothegreat

    We need to rally behind this idea. It may very well be the greatest thing that’s ever happened to this city.