While we're on the subject of TTC maps (as we often are), we might as well include the most wildly ambitious one of all. Reader Ryan Felix sent us his subway map, which he describes as a "fantasy map of the TTC" in 2050. Felix says it was "created in hope to influence people to become pro-transit, and to give a vision that Toronto can have a world-class transit system." The lines depicted on......

City backs away from plan to buy its own sidewalk food carts. And to think, it only took about ten thousand "what the hell is the city doing buying food carts, just let people buy their own damn food carts" comments and articles for the City to get the message! Toronto is getting more responsive every day, it really is. Canadian Border Services Agency says that Vancouver International Airport needs more patrols and security......

Some Canadian cattle will now be allowed into the United States following a 4-year ban in the wake of several cases of "mad cow" disease. American Homeland Security regulations will still require that any bovines wishing to cross the border carry a valid passport. The latest UN report on climate change says that global disaster is a safe bet if we don't change our carbon-emitting ways by 2012. It's all good for Canadians though, as......

Pearson Airport reduces landing fees. The move was cheered by airlines, who can now drop their prices accordingly. Oh, wait, they won't do that, they'll only drop their prices by maybe about ten percent of what they could with the savings, and pocket the rest. Capitalism works! Stéphane Dion says Canadians don't want another election right now; thus, the Liberals won't challenge the throne speech. More accurately, the Liberals don't want another election right......

Employees of the Alcohol and Gaming Commission, which now oversees the Ontario Lottery Gaming Corporation, will not be permitted to buy lottery tickets in Ontario. A representative of the affected staffers complained, "why do you think we wanted to work here in the first place?" before shotgunning a 40-ouncer of Absolut and collapsing to the ground. Who says you can't go home again? Well, if you're former Canuck Conrad Black, Judge Amy St. Eve does.......

One of the pillars of the TTC's plan to trim its budget is to cut some twenty-one "poor performing" bus routes. But what, exactly, is a "poor performing" route? As it turns out, transit whiz Steve Munro claims, it sure isn't what the TTC says it is: "in a flat fare system," he writes, "it is impossible to allocate fare revenue in any way that makes sense and produces meaningful comparisons between routes." There......

Toronto had a violent weekend with nine people shot and four of them killed, including an 11-year-old boy at a birthday party. Two more people were stabbed. Cue relatives wailing, Police Chief Bill Blair saying "this is unacceptable," and headlines like "Saturday Night Bloodbath." We’ve seen all this before. Solutions, anyone? On Sunday, about 8,000 people attended the opening of the Shri Swaminarayan Mandir, a spectacular 94,000 square foot Hindu temple near Finch and......

Every weekday, we pick an image from the Torontoist Flickr Pool and feature it here on the site. It's our way to give the many excellent photographers in our pool the attention they deserve! At 3,340 metres, Runway 23 is the longest airstrip at Pearson International Airport, and watching jets land and take off from Airport Road is an awe-inspiring sight. A lounge in a nearby hotel was named for it, and "two three" was......

Torontoist has seen its fair share of Google Maps mashups. For geography nerds like us, maps are always fun to play around with, but most of the mashups we've seen so far have not been particularly useful. That is, unless you're dying to know where they keep all the Timmy's or bust all the grow-ops. Enter Taxiwiz. The site is far from slick, but the idea behind it is great. Taxiwiz takes Google's driving......

Cause we're all about photos of Toronto from airplanes, we were super-pleased when reader Timofey Yuriev sent us these shots, taken yesterday as he flew around the city from the Island Airport. So pretty—clear, deep blue sky with only the slightest traces of clouds, and a strangely-empty-looking Toronto below. Click any of the images to view them larger.......

Ever since the creation of the Greater Toronto Transit Authority (GTTA) last year we have been eagerly awaiting some information about what it is they actually do and/or when/where they will actually do that thing. So, last week when Dalton McGuinty announced that (if re-elected) he would invest $17.5 billion in transit programs to be administered by the GTTA we decided it was time to do some serious research (i.e. Google them). Alas, we......

Nine months into their existence, Porter Airlines chugs along, still under the radar of most. As the Toronto Star recently reported, the young airline is still struggling to find a steady stream of regular business customers. With traffic on the 401 at an all-time high, getting to Pearson during rush hours can potentially take as long as a flight to Montreal. On a weekend getaway, the give-or-take ten hours spent traveling to La Belle......

New Brunswick native Mary Martell knew something was weird when the baggage scanners at Saint John Airport asked why she had packed a turkey in her suitcase. On her way through to YYZ for a business trip, Martell had no fowl to declare, so airport officials curiously sent her luggage through without much further scrutiny, despite seeing a tiny skeleton on the x-ray screen. After an uneventful two-hour Air Canada flight to Toronto, Martell's luggage......

Another weekend of trade shows is upon us. The belle of the ball this year is the Green Living Show, but there are two other significant expos for which you should make room in your schedule: the Good Food Festival and the Yoga Show. This is the 15th year of the Good Food Festival at the International Centre on Airport Road. For $12 you can enjoy cooking demos, free samples and great prices on all......

Every weekday, Torontoist is facing off local memes and blog drama in a tournament-style ladder and you, the reader, decide the outcome. View the full ladder here. Some highlights: ROM Crystal's sharp edges cut Miller's Hair (104 - 101): In the closest and most depressing match of the tournament so far, a napkin sketch gone wild shears the mayor's golden locks from atop his head. The late game upset may qualify for a recount......

Each weekday for the next two weeks, Torontoist is facing off local memes and blog drama in a tournament-style ladder and you, the reader, decide the outcome. View the full ladder here. Some highlights from Saturday's matches: 416 trounces 905 (95-12): In perhaps the most dramatic victory of the evening, the Toronto area code showed up the surrounding suburbs in a true show of telecommunications muscle. Miller's Hair buries Zombie Walks (59-47): The closest......

There was an unexpected windfall for Green P as a major dump of snow, along with high winds and freezing rain, turned much of the GTA into a parking lot during the evening commute yesterday. Apart from the traffic mayhem, fallen trees and power outages have also been a problem throughout the city. It sure looks pretty, though. The Toronto District School Board will meet with provincial officials today after trustees rejected a recommendation......

At 9:30 PM last night, Pearson Airport's drab but functional Terminal 2 saw its final departure take off for the United States. In April the process of tearing down the building will begin, first with its concrete crushed to be used as the sub-base for a strip of new tarmac. The closing of Terminal 2 and it's Mayan temple-like parking garage marks the end of Pearson Airport's lengthy and expensive Airport Development Plan (or......

Torontonians were once again woefully unprepared for the first major snowfall of the season. 500 traffic accidents in one day, people. Do we really want everybody else making fun of us again, like that time Mel Lastman called in the Army to help out after a snowfall? It's winter. It comes every year. Just because we've had a freakishly warm winter thus far is no excuse for complacency! At the Golden Globes, Dreamgirls becomes......

Who likes lists? Everybody! As we creep up on the new year, we thought we'd reflect on a few of our more popular (and our more controversial) posts of the past twelve months. Thanks to our revamped Favourites page, it's a little easier. If nothing else, this post will give you some reading material to glance over while you're busy getting spiffy for this fine evening. 1. Our TTC Swag Suggestions (144 comments, October......

Earlier this week, Torontoist received word of an alarming recent event at Pearson airport. It centers around an Austrian Airlines flight to Vienna, departing from Toronto on Monday night. During takeoff, the cockpit reported a problem concerning the plane's fuel filter. Alerting Pearson traffic control of the issue, the plane circled over Lake Ontario, dumped its fuel, and landed. According to Livia Dandrea-Boehm, spokesperson for Austrian Airlines, the dumping of the fuel was due to......

It's the story that keeps on giving, folks - the Island Airport! Yesterday, the Toronto Port Authority's shiny new ferry took 30 minutes to traverse the 120-metre gap between Bathurst Street and the airport. It took longer than the expected 90 seconds because the pilot (who the TPA won't name) seems to have driven smack into the dock. The CBC talked to TPA head of operations Ken Lundy who said that the pilot had......

Watching the battle between the city and the Toronto Port Authority is like being stuck in a bad horror flick. Just when you think the stake has been driven into the necrotic heart of the Island Airport expansion plans, the undead issue rises from the grave to terrorize citizens yet again. The stranglehold that the TPA holds over the City is entirely unconscionable. A federally-controlled agency, the TPA isn't forced to be accountable to Toronto......

The Toronto Waterfront Revitalization Corp. is still in turmoil. The Corp. has been without a board chair since the summer. What's worse, Queen's Park, Ottawa and the City couldn't decide who should be appointed to the chair. What's worse Federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty has been meddling in the affairs of the TWRC. The city is getting a new $29 million arena. It's the first new arena built in the city in 25 years. The......

Sure, we all know John Travolta's in town after the notorious man-kissing episode at Hamilton Airport two weeks ago. But he's not here for the film fest. Instead, he joins Queen Latifah, Christopher Walken, Amanda Bynes, and Michelle Pfeiffer as part of the cast of Hairspray, a 2007 remake of the 2002 Broadway musical remake of the original 1988 film comedy. (Whew! We recycle the past quickly, don't we?) Torontoist went to see the......

Maybe they're just tired of Howard Moscoe but the TTC committee unanimously voted to approve the Bombardier deal. The $499 million deal still has to go through council where we're sure there'll be an acrominous but ultimately futile debate. Pressure from Ottawa got an Iranian Canadian former U of T prof freed from an Iranian prison. The man had been accused of espionage and kept in solitary confinement. Ok drivers, get it while its cheap.......

If it's an election year it must be time to discuss the future of Toronto City Centre Airport. But you can't do that unless someone wants to build a bridge or, say, start a new airline to fly out of there - enter Porter Airlines. If you didn't catch the extensive article in The Star on the weekend, here's the deal: The commuter airline, set to start flying between here and Ottawa when they......

After a day wherein people arriving at Pearson International Airport had to throw away their bottled water and coffee before being allowed on their flights because of an alleged British-born bomb plot, this incredibly crucial update was released just before midnight, and flashed on Pulse24's screen throughout the day: Alfonso Ribeiro, who played Will Smith's preppy cousin Carlton on TV's 'The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,' is splitting from his wife of four years. Our prayers......

We're sooo confused by the actions of the Toronto Port Authority that we don't even know whether Jazz's decision not to resume service into the Island Airport is a good or bad thing anymore. All we know is that Jazz, which has used the Island Airport for over 16 years, has been denied service by the TPA. Nonetheless the TPA is still allowing Porter Air to start its raccoon-inspired service in the fall. We don't......

So obviously no one listened to us yesterday and as a result we broke a power usage record. People cranking their A/C, turning on fans and sticking heads into fridges caused us to use over 27,000 megawatts of electricity. That's over 800 megawatts more than our previous record set last July. We may even break that record again today, fingers crossed that we don't. The Star notices that in two homicides last month there was......