Entries from Torontoist tagged with 'adamgiambrone'
April 27, 2008
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. Russell (Connaught) Carhouse, Sunday, 12 p.m. Photo by somebody_ from the Torontoist Flickr Pool. Current Status: Strike Over......
Continue Reading "TTC Strike Status: Strike Ends Sunday Night"April 16, 2008
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? Almost time to get out our walkin' shoes? The Globe and Mail says that TTC talks......
Continue Reading "Miller Lovin' China, TTC Unions Madder Than Usual, Feds Raid Feds"March 26, 2008
Last week, undergraduate students at UTSC (University of Toronto Scarborough) rejected the U-Pass by a stunning margin, with full-time students voting against it 1674 to 622, and part-time students spurning it 53 to 16. Minus the abstentions and spoiled ballots, that worked out to 73% No for for full-timers and 77% No for part-timers. When last we wrote about the proposed offer—a compulsory $60-a-month transit pass for all students, with no potential to opt......
Continue Reading "U-Passion of the Bikes"February 18, 2008
Sarah Lazarovic––curator of the garage-based Montrose Portrait Gallery of Canada––is painting a portrait of a Torontonian (be they Mirvishes or Meashas) every day. Each Monday, we'll feature one of those portraits here. Last week, TTC Chair Adam Giambrone said we should be feeling the better way's better service imminently.......
Continue Reading "Portrait Project: Adam Giambrone"February 14, 2008
"The Better Way Gets Better," yesterday's TTC press release proclaimed, teasing the media for today's big announcement of service changes. And, really, it'd be hard to disagree. As anticipated, today at the TTC's Arrow Road Garage, David Miller and Adam Giambrone announced a fleet of changes to the TTC's fleet of bus and streetcar routes, designed to decrease crowding and increase service across the system: 75 bus and the Queen, King, and Carlton streetcar......
Continue Reading "The Betterer Way"January 16, 2008
Left to right: TTC market research director Mike Anders, TTC Chair Adam Giambrone, irate civil engineering Engineering Science student Ryan Campbell, and Giambrone executive assistant Kevin Beaulieu. "Isn't this just a quasi-communistic redistribution of wealth?" asked a student at the microphone, receiving hearty applause from a good chunk of the audience. He was inquiring about the new U-Pass being proposed by the TTC, which Mayor David Miller, TTC Chair Adam Giambrone, and Vice-Chair Joe......
Continue Reading "480 To U-Pass"January 16, 2008
Selected quotes from "Toronto's Type and Tile Heritage" by Edward Keenan, from the November 14th issue of Eye Weekly: Joe Clark: "The trick is trying to prevent the destruction of the subway system as we know it. What are these [TTC] commissioners doing, exactly? Through malign neglect, they are beginning a 35-year process of destruction. Because if they make over Pape station so that it doesn’t match any of the other stations, if they......
Continue Reading "Tile Over Substance"December 7, 2007
Per a suggestion by chairman Adam Giambrone, The TTC has voted to provide free service after midnight this New Year's, along with extended subway hours until 4 a.m. The free service—an attempt to deter people from drunk driving—hasn't been offered by the TTC since the late 70s, and you'd think it might be a costly venture. But it's not exactly setting them back that much; the free admission offer will only cost the TTC an......
Continue Reading "As If We Needed the Incentive"November 24, 2007
When we interviewed TTC Chair Adam Giambrone in August––at the height of anxiety over potential cuts to his system––he told us that the TTC has "an acceptable level of advertising. Could it be less? Absolutely. At this point any reduction would be a budget reduction, and I'll tell you I'm not really prepared to reduce the budget of the TTC to reduce the advertising. At the same time, I think we certainly have enough......
Continue Reading "How Much Is Too Much?"October 23, 2007
They're in cabs, ATMs, and the Entertainment District, and they're about to be in all TTC vehicles. By next June, every one of the TTC's 1.5 million daily riders will be photographed multiple times over their journey. A part of the TTC's $18-million security plan, the commission will install up to 12,000 cameras throughout the system—in key station areas and on streetcars, buses, and subways. The intention is to provide police with evidence if......
Continue Reading "Tryin' To Catch Me Ridin' Dirty"October 16, 2007
After intense public backlash over a boneheaded plan to expropriate the storied Matador Club and obliterate it into a paved slab, the Toronto Parking Authority has backed down. Thanks in large part to the Save The Matador movement, today's afternoon TPA meeting experienced some expropriation of its own when about forty supporters descended upon Meeting Room B to vociferously protest the the Council-sanctioned demolition. The matter will return to City Council to be officially......
Continue Reading "The Matador Will Stand"October 13, 2007
Photos by mishkaoutofcontrol from the Torontoist Flickr Pool. Except to its frequent clientele, Toronto's legendary Matador Club is best known as the setting to Leonard Cohen's "Closing Time," which laments a place that "got wrecked by the winds of change." The Matador's been around since 1914. Built as a dance hall for WWI soldiers, it then became home to a bowling alley, and finally ended up as a quirky, late-night hangout with strong country......
Continue Reading "Rogue Pave"September 24, 2007
Adam + the TTC KNOW how to purchase buses that don't run off gas, "quite" trains that play soft music (like they have in Montreal), they ship the bills to Stevie Harper! If his friends complain sue them for negligence harming million in T.O. (they are protecting "their" friends + "their money" -> (your money) and lying all the time. "Its EASY" Then bug Adam Giambrone about holding an Architectural Contest (he can't see......
Continue Reading "Because It Wouldn't Fit In The Survey Box?"September 12, 2007
Just over an hour ago, the TTC concluded its meeting to discuss and vote on measures to deal with its budget shortfall. Based in part on the results of its survey––which, in spite of widespread distribution, received only 17,000 responses––the Commission members voted unanimously in favour of raising fares over cutting service. With the exception of the new jump in Metropass prices, the cost increases per fare are relatively modest and around what most were......
Continue Reading "Cents and Sensibility"August 29, 2007
On Monday, the TTC unveiled a survey that, in lieu of other public consultation, would be used to help the organization determine what cuts it may need to make this year. (For more on the TTC's potential budget shortfall, see our interview with Adam Giambrone, the TTC's documentation included with the survey, and Steve Munro's excellent summary of the situation.) The problem is, the survey really isn't that great: it's too vague, too incomplete,......
Continue Reading "A Better TTC Survey"August 28, 2007
When the TTC started mapping out its new future under Adam Giambrone, this probably wasn't what it had in mind. A few hours ago, Ian Trider left a comment on Jonathan Goldsbie's post about the TTC's survey, with a link to a TTC map that reflects the potential cutbacks. We've seen a fair share of TTC maps, from a superb Google Maps mashup to a glorious anagrammed subway line. Trider's map is simple, effective,......
Continue Reading "A HarderAugust 27, 2007
Reader Cy Goldsbie (yes, relation) sent us the above photos of a box that popped up in St. Clair station over the weekend. Marked "DEPOSIT PUBLIC CONSULTATION SURVEY HERE," the box is at the "end of the southbound platform tucked into the alcove of the non-working elevator." (In other words, they're about as conspicuous as what Joe Clark calls the TTC's "intentionally hidden online complaints form.") So what's the deal? At the TTC's emergency......
Continue Reading "TTC Service Cuts: Great Fiasco, Or The Greatest Fiasco?"August 16, 2007
Eight months after Torontoist, Reading Toronto, Spacing, and BlogTO all banded together to solicit reader comments to improve the TTC's website and after Adam Giambrone agreed to re-open the Request for Proposal (RFP) to allow for "a more ambitious and exciting project," there has finally been some news to report of late. Last week, Adam Giambrone told Torontoist that the website would launch sometime in the fall, and would definitely feature everyone's top request––a......
Continue Reading "What TTC.ca Might Be"August 13, 2007
The CBC is reporting that the provincial government announced an ambitious new project today to revamp Kipling Station and turn it into a major transit hub for Etobicoke and Mississauga. The announcement came from Transportation Minister Donna Cansfield and Environment Minister Laurel Broten early this afternoon. The new station, which will be owned and operated by GO Transit, is set to have an inter-regional bus terminal and will connect Mississauga Transit and GO buses......
Continue Reading "Rockin' the Suburbs"August 12, 2007
We publish a lot of articles here on Torontoist, and sometimes it's hard to keep up with all of them. Populist is a weekly recap intended for the casual Torontoist reader, featuring some of the coolest, most interesting, most commented, and most recommended posts from the past week on Torontoist. Populist will appear every Sunday night. This week on Torontoist featured bleepin' boobs, Brass Rail burn-outs, coulrophobia, Guitar Girls, Giambrones, and Alsop architecture. Here are......
Continue Reading "Populist: August 6–12"August 11, 2007
Photo by Jason Thompson Photography. As TTC Chair, Vice-Chair of the Works Committee, and Ward 18 Councillor—among an ocean of other positions that he holds now or has once held—Adam Giambrone's influence spreads far across the city of Toronto and to some of its most contested issues: transit, the environment, and development, to name a few. Depending on who you ask, he is either the city's best archaeologist-turned-politician or its worst. His term as......
Continue Reading "Tall Poppy Interview: Adam Giambrone"July 20, 2007
Photo of a locked-out Keele Station during last year's strike by David Topping. Yesterday's announcement of budget cuts to the TTC garnered a visceral reaction from just about everyone (and not just angry Globe & Mail readers): a normally cool-headed Adam Giambrone proclaimed that "this is a horrible day...This is going to have a dramatic effect on Torontonians, not just TTC riders." Transit advocate Steve Munro weighed in, too, in a piece detailing what......
Continue Reading "TTC Cuts, We Bleed"July 19, 2007
In a truly spectacular exhibit of vitriol, readers of The Globe and Mail have weighed-in on an article concerning beleaguered TTC chairperson Adam Giambrone’s recent announcement about the impending cuts to city transit. (The emergency meeting of the commission is set for Friday, and possible means of accommodating the new budget restrictions include a 25-cent fare hike, and the closing of the Sheppard subway line.) Two scant hours after the article appeared online, the comments......
Continue Reading "The Country Takes Aim"July 13, 2007
The bus platform of Pape station was engulfed in a whirlwind of mops and microphones early yesterday afternoon as workers scrubbed the walls and windows till they sparkled and the media mingled with curious commuters, all of them eager for TTC chair Adam Giambrone to arrive and kick off the Station Modernization Program. This whammy of a project, which will include the restructuring and redesign of nine subway stations, was set into motion at......
Continue Reading "You've Always Got Time For Pape Hortons"July 5, 2007
All It Takes Is A Ferry, "Girlfriend" Suit, Scarborough Weapons Cache Discovered, Is Nuclear Better?
What if suburbanites could commute to downtown Toronto on the H20 highway? TTC chair Adam Giambrone says high-speed ferries could ease road traffic and cut commute times in half. David Miller thinks the idea has merit, but is concerned the $25 million price tag on boats and docking facilities may be too high. The Star is skeptical, but Torontoist rarely turns down a nice boat cruise. On Tuesday we mentioned that music critics have......
Continue Reading "All It Takes Is A Ferry, "Girlfriend" Suit, Scarborough Weapons Cache Discovered, Is Nuclear Better? "June 18, 2007
This morning at about 10 a.m., Ken Wood and some of the other residents living on Lansdowne Avenue heard buzzsaws. Today was the day when construction on their street was to begin, with the aim of narrowing it down from four lanes to two. The move is already contentious: residents are unhappy about, as the Globe put a few days ago, "increased congestion and...a lack of consultation [with councillor Adam Giambrone]," and every other......
Continue Reading "Tree Hassle"May 31, 2007
Every day, since October of last year, Michael Takasaki has been photographing a door. About a year ago, the TTC installed an automatic door at the Pleasant Boulevard entrance of St. Clair station. Progress stalled, however, and, for months, the doors were functionless, existing solely as decorative glass with masking-taped X's on them. Around the same time, Takasaki bought a camera and decided that he wanted to do "one of those picture-a-day-for-a-year projects," and......
Continue Reading "Let Mike's Love Open The Door"May 17, 2007
Yesterday, the province gave Toronto $52,000 to test recycling programs in apartment complexes as part of the goal to divert 70 per cent of waste from landfill by 2010. King Street is still closed off because of the falling marble slab. Developer Harry Stinson says that it was a bad idea using marble in the first place. Police shot a man in the chest near Kingston Rd. E. and Lawrence Ave. early this morning.......
Continue Reading "Apartments Should Recycle More, The Marble Slab Saga, Did Giambrone Survey Lansdownites?"March 15, 2007
The Star's website is reporting that at 10:30 a.m. tomorrow morning, the TTC will announce details of a plan to blanket the city in a network of sixty to eighty kilometres of Light Rapid Transit (or LRT, as it's affectionately called). The cost, according to Giambrone, will be an anything-but-light $30 million per kilometer, which puts the price range for the new lines between $1.8 and $2.4 billion. The TTC hopes to get the......
Continue Reading "LRT 2 B 4 REAL??!?"March 7, 2007
Toronto city council has approved a new design for the city's street-name signs. The city replaces roughly 2,000 to 2,500 signs each year anyway, so the new design will be phased-in gradually. Fortunately, it looks like this may not be as large a waste of taxpayer funds as one might expect. Federal Court Justice Carolyn Layden-Stevenson ordered the release of Toronto terrorism suspect Mahmoud Jaballah. Jabllah was held for more than five years without......
Continue Reading "New Street Signs, We Need Streetcar Lines, Middle-Aged Woman Commits Crimes"