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Newsstand: August 21, 2012
Soak up your Tuesday time now, because it won't be around forever. In the news: a plan to stop bike tires getting caught in streetcar tracks, protests over Ripley's aquarium swell up, Ontario legislature going back early to talk labour in the education system, councillors may or may not accept pay raise, crane collapse closes road, and new food options at Nathan Phillips Square.
Denzil Minnan-Wong (Ward 34, Don Valley East) is proposing a solution to wily streetcar tracks that snag bicycle tires: just ban bicycles. In response to the accident on Wychwood Avenue that killed Joseph Mavec earlier this month, Minnan-Wong suggesting cutting down on parking spaces on Wychwood or simply banning cycling on that road altogether and then, he said, “You wouldn’t have accidents because people wouldn’t be allowed to cycle on the road.” That logic does check out. And Minnan-Wong should know, since he is the chair of the committee in charge of infrastructure.
Those giant aquariums over at the new Ripley’s Aquarium may be built to hold lots of water and sea creatures, but they’re quickly filling up with a different thing these days. And that thing is controversy. Some protest groups and petitions are cropping up as news about the future inhabitants of the aquarium becomes more well-known. One of the main protests circles around the aquarium’s plan to obtain some wild sharks to plop in the tanks. But Ripley’s says they’re allowed to capture things like wild sand sharks even though they’re a protected species, because it’s for “educational purposes.” More like educational porpoises. Badum-cha!
Back to legislature, back to legislature, to prove to dad they don’t like striking educators. MPPs are heading back to the legislature two weeks early in order to table a bill limiting teachers’ ability to strike and locking them into a two-year deal. Contracts for the teachers are set to roll over September 1, and the government says it can’t afford to automatically pay up. And so, they attempt to legislate.
Speaking of automatically paying up, so far no city councillors have officially announced if they will pass on a recent pay raise. The three per cent increase is retroactive from January 1, and it bumps councillors’ annual salaries up to $102,608. Mayor Rob Ford has already said that he won’t accept the raise, which would put his annual salary up to $172,803.
The road around a crane collapse that trapped 28 passengers on a TTC bus may be closed for days for clean up. The crane fell over, bringing power lines with it onto the street in the Kipling Avenue and Rexdale Boulevard area. The bus passengers got away without any injuries.
Ever skated around the rinks at Nathan Phillips Square and wondered, where is the nearest Druxy’s? Well that question may be pretty easy to answer soon, as the deli chain is one of the companies competing to serve the new snack bar pavilion at the Square. Among the other contenders are the people behind the [insert woodland creature here] and Fiddle pubs, and Compass Group Canada, which already serves some arenas. Whoever gets the contract, so long as they have that arena-flavoured hot chocolate in a styrofoam cup, they’re OK with us.
