News: April 2008 Archives

One year ago today, City Council's Executive Committee approved [PDF] the awarding of the street furniture contract—for the purposes of designing, building, owning, and maintaining bus shelters, garbage bins, ad pillars, and more for a period of twenty years in exchange for advertising rights—to Astral Media Outdoor, despite the fact that the company had absolutely no experience with "street furniture" and maintains dozens of illegal billboards in defiance of City Council.

Because nothing says "I'm sorry" like cash in hand, the TTC has just announced a fleet of refunds for all day passes, metropasses, weekly passes, GTA passes.

In this occasional feature, two Torontoist staffers face off to debate an issue that is important to our city. We invite our readers to join in the debate in the comments section after the post.

The idea of a TTC riders' union is nothing particularly new, but after what happened this weekend, it's quickly—and deservedly—picking up steam.

Ding, ding, grumble, grumble…the TTC is back on track for the Monday morning commute, ushering in a new era of mutual respect, trust and fellowship between riders and employees. Anyway, it turns out that while Torontoist was trapped at home all weekend drinking and shaking an impotent fist at Bob Kinnear's smug televised face, there was non-TTC news going on out there too.

It's 1:45 a.m. now. The TTC strike is done: twelve hours ago, TTC employees were legislated back to work by the provincial government; nine hours ago, TTC service started back up; not too far from now, employees' Monday morning shifts will start as usual, in time to transport the morning rush. But you wouldn't know that from the Star's Strike Watch blog, which the front page of the Star's website still links to, which boasts of having "the latest on the Toronto Transit Commission labour situation," and which hasn't been updated since Sunday morning at 10:30 a.m.

Torontoist is following the TTC's strike, using our own reporting, other local news sources, and any other resources available to us to keep this article updated continually with the latest information. Use the TTC Strike tag to view Torontoist's other strike coverage, or view our list of online resources to see coverage, photos, videos, and ideas elsewhere.

Despite its excellent online coverage from 10:30 p.m. Friday and onwards, not all print editions of Saturday's National Post carried news of the TTC strike. All versions of its Toronto Magazine, however, included the presciently coincidental graphics shown above (Post illustrators' responses to the predictably utopian sentiments of the "My Toronto Is..." tourism ads proffered by OCAD advertising students for their annual let's-generate-PR-for-a-billboard-company contest).

This post will contain a list of links (regularly updated and added to) that might be useful throughout the TTC strike. Follow Torontoist's continual strike coverage at our strike status post, or see the entirety of our coverage by using our TTC Strike tag. You can suggest a link by posting it in the comments or e-mailing tips@torontoist.com.

At 6:45 a.m., Cy Goldsbie spotted a guy spraypainting this message on both of Spadina station's Spadina-immediately-north-of-bloor entrances and was kind enough to snap these pics for us.

The TTC has issued this press release, containing "highlights" of the tentative agreement reached last Sunday—the agreement that the union voted 65% to reject, creating a TTC strike as of midnight Friday, April 26:

For a team that's accustomed to flying under the radar (partly because they're a Canadian team in an otherwise all-American league, partly because they're perpetually mediocre, and partly because they're in a division with two of the most self-absorbed franchises in professional sports), it's been an unusually eventful year for the Toronto Blue Jays so far. Last weekend they announced that Frank Thomas—the team's best slugger, #18 on baseball's all-time home run list and a surefire first-ballot hall-of-famer—was no longer their everyday designated hitter. Twenty-four hours later, after Thomas predictably raised a stink over the issue, he was given his walking papers. It all went down with head-spinning alacrity.

"Next stop, Quarter Pounder" is something you could be hearing on the subway in the future, as City Council agrees to look at selling station naming rights to corporations. However, TTC vice-chair Joe Mihevc calls the study a "waste of time" and says the idea should be rejected, presumably because he's polled all 1.5 million riders and knows that they'd rather pay higher fares than suffer the indignity of a subway stop named after a basketball shoe instead of a 19th century Brit. Say, what if they sold the naming rights to Subway? Everybody wins!

In one of the more surreal moments from Streets are for People’s Tuesday visit to Queen’s Park, Rosario Marchese, the NDP MPP for Trinity-Spadina, donned Captain Planet–style superhero digs, made with a few go-get-’em words about public transit, and took flight into the Legislative Assembly’s inner chamber to save the known universe.

Hillary Clinton has won the Pennsylvania primary. The Clinton campaign remains alive after a ten-point win in the state, thus proving that a campaign currently in debt can win if it runs enough negative attacks and limps along to the next contest. This is also known as the "limping zombie" theory of electoral campaigning.

Several hundred environmentalist activists marched through downtown Toronto on Sunday on "Reclaim Earth Day." The exuberant parade called on the Harper government to implement an about-face on climate change policy and to implement the Kyoto Protocol.

On Thursday night at the Silver Dollar, Jay Reatard's show got ugly. The Memphis band's shows usually do, but almost never like Thursday's: Reatard punched a patron who climbed on stage square in the face and angrily packed up his gear (video above), before Dan Burke, the Dollar's legendary and notorious booker, hopped on stage himself, delivering a tirade against Reatard ("fuck this American...that's fucking pussy shit").

The fear over bisphenol A is understandable. That something as innocuous as feeding infants from baby bottles could cause irreparable harm to their development is scary, and preemptive measures are worth taking if there is sound science to back it up. Concern over the danger of bisphenol A has picked up steam as researchers look at the effects of low concentrations, which had previously been assumed harmless. The decision by the Canadian government to declare bisphenol A toxic is bold, since the research is working towards (but hasn't established) causality between human use of the chemical and harm (obesity, breast cancer, and neurological and developmental damage).

This post was updated throughout the weekend with the current status of the TTC's operations, using our own reporting, the TTC's website, and local news sources as a guide.

As it happened, this wasn't the only ATU ad in the subway car to which this message had been appended.

Photo of Chris Turner at the Greater World Earthship community in New Mexico by Ashley Bristowe.

On April 1, Radiohead asked their fans to remix "Nude," one of the tracks from 2007's In Rainbows. Fans could buy any or all of the five "stems" of the song (voice, guitar, bass, strings/FX, or drums), create a version of their own, and upload it to radioheadremix.com.

Latest transit update from the Torontoist Action News Team Live Info Centre, Your Only Source For All TTC Strike News: if you're a regular TTC rider, GO Transit doesn't want you. A spokesperson for GO has advised that that they're already operating at capacity with their regular passenger load, and don't plan to run any additional buses or trains in the event of a TTC strike.

When we ran our Sprockets preview last week, we tried to give the piece a theme, and we couldn’t stick to it. In all honesty, we probably overstretched ourselves in trying to give a post on a children’s film festival a theme any grander than "children’s films," and when you get down to it, why bother?

In what might not be the wisest move, OCAD—the Ontario College of Art and Design—wants to be called OCAD University. Yes: Ontario College of Art and Design University. Sort of.

Taxi! Taxi!

TTC strike: not today, but probably Monday. If it happens, Torontoist will let you know.

The province has ordered the City of Toronto to stop stonewalling in the face of freedom of information requests about allegedly illegal billboards.

When NOW featured Crystal Castles as their cover story two months ago, implicit in the whole article were three little words that get tossed around again and again when people talk about the band: next big thing.

Have you asked yourself recently "Hey, what happened to the "s" in my local Loblaw's sign?" If so, you probably live in Toronto or Collingwood and are curiously attentive to detail.

Mayor David Miller, anxious to prove the civic value of his trade mission to China, announced yesterday that a major Chinese mining company would be opening an office in Toronto. Well, not necessarily an office. It could be one of those shared rental suites. Or a mailbox, definitely a mailbox, at least. Say, how 'bout that Great Wall?

A slaughterhouse-bound tractor trailer crashed on the 401 yesterday, setting 50 pigs loose on the highway. It's a funny human interest story, because nobody died, with the exception of a few pigs, and they were on their way to the chop anyway. Everybody wins!

The Toronto Sun reports that Toronto has now gone 26 consecutive days without a murder, a streak unseen since the summer of 2006. A spokesman for the Toronto Association of Thugs expressed frustration at the dry spell, saying that their group was on track with shootings and stabbings but that their efforts were being stymied by effective medical services.

Following demonstrations on February 10 and March 15, Anonymous once again occupied the sidewalks across from 696 Yonge Street on Saturday. This time, however, the windowshades of Scientology’s Toronto outlet were drawn, its ground-level offices apparently vacant; with the exception of one lonely camera jockey, Hubbard’s loyal army of hyper-vigilant paparazzi were conspicuously absent.

Copper theft in Toronto has reached record levels. Thieves just can't get enough of that golden-brown stuff. You can do anything with it—sell it for four dollars per pound, or...well, actually that's pretty much all a copper thief can do with copper, come to think.

In a grudging acknowledgement that Canadians are still entitled to some measure of freedom of speech, the Ontario Human Rights Commission dismissed a complaint against Maclean's magazine for articles critical of Islamic fundamentalism, saying the Commission had no jurisdiction over print. However, the Commission—whose members are not required to have training in law, journalism, or, um, anything, really—did say that the articles caused "serious harm" to society with their "destructive, xenophobic opinions." That's nice. The Human Rights Commission is nice. Muslims are nice. It's very nice to live in Ontario.

Tomorrow, our lives come grinding to a halt until mid-June.

China vows to continue the international Olympic torch relay despite lots of protests. The International Olympic Committee suggested that they might do away with the international route in upcoming games, because from now on, all Olympic games will be held in authoritarian dictatorships and they "don't want to look bad" when they award the next few Games to Zimbabwe, Uzbekistan, and the Equatorial Republic of Hate-Land. (The President-For-Eternity of Hate-Land responded by saying, "ooooooh, I hate the International Olympic Committee! And I hate you!")

The wraps finally came off the renovation of Museum subway station at a grand opening today. Amidst the coming and going of subway trains and riders, a large group of press and luminaries, penned in by watchful officials, gathered. Mayor David Miller praised the project as "a shining example of what our public spaces can be." While there has certainly been criticism of the project and its funding, it's hard to not find the finished columns quite irresistible and fun.

Ever since Torontoist wrote about the little house at St. Clair and Dufferin—known affectionately as "Toronto's Little House" (OK, why don't you think of a more creative name, smarty-pants?)—it's received an enormous amount of local and international attention. So much attention, in fact, that it was famously associated with a potential purchase by comic/dancing machine/talk show host Ellen DeGeneres, although tiny houses are presumably much easier to give away than tiny dogs, so what was the problem, Ellen?

Mayor David Miller unveiled a YouTube video asking Canadians to sign an online petition urging Ottawa to ban all handguns in Canada. While most handguns are already illegal, the gesture would serve a powerful symbolic purpose by pushing the blame for Toronto gun violence onto the feds.

Waterfront Toronto considers corporate naming scheme. On the one hand, yes, it's a travesty. On the other hand, does anybody call the Skydome anything other than the Skydome, regardless of what Rogers wants us to call it?

Prime Minister Stephen Harper won't be attending the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics, but says that it has nothing to do with the current situation in Tibet. A cautious Canada walks the middle ground of diplomacy, earning the emnity of the Chinese government without even making a useful political statement.

Today is Tartan Day. This is the day customarily used for the first time ever to celebrate Scots who have moved to North America. Torontoist recommends that you celebrate by eating a deep-fried Mars bar and staggering out of a soccer game, swearing loudly.

Dalton McGuinty has said no to calls from health officials in London Ontario to raise the legal drinking age in Ontario to 21. Drinking at 19 has become a rite of passage for young people, like acquiring a driver's licence or genital warts.

Every year, U of T's student newspaper The Varsity publishes at least one joke issue, and every year in recent memory, it has managed to either seriously offend a few people, confuse a whole lot of people, or just not be funny.

When you publish up to a dozen articles a day, it's sometimes easy to lose sight of the big picture, what really matters. But over the past few months, we at Torontoist have taken a long, hard look at ourselves, and we don't like what we see.

When the City of Toronto issued a press release last week detailing its TTC strike contingency plans, cyclists quickly noticed that alongside the proposals for parking restrictions and pleas for employers to allow workers to use staggered schedules, "cycling" and "bikes" were mentioned exactly zero times. Spacing Toronto's Adam Chaleff-Freudenthaler reported yesterday: