Results tagged “suv”

As the Toronto Police Service prepares to expand CCTV coverage in the GTA, this security camera footage of a BMW SUV going alpha-dog on top of someone's hatchback, recorded last Thursday at an Extreme Fitness parking lot in Thornhill, has made us realize a few things:

What kind of people don't like riding their bikes in a Toronto winter? People who have never tried it, that's who. Even as more and more people choose not to get off their bikes when November comes around, many non-cyclists still view winter cycling as unwise, dangerous, or impossible. So as part of its first Bike Winter campaign to raise awareness of cycling as year-round transportation, the City of Toronto is hosting the Coldest Day of the Year Ride on Wednesday January 30, which they say is statistically, uh, the coldest day of the year. Riders will meet at City Hall at noon and filter down University Avenue toward Metro Hall, where hot refreshments will be awaiting the cyclists, sure to be exhausted after their 10-minute ride.

In case you were wondering, it's probably not a great idea to be hanging out in the entertainment district at 3:15 a.m. Especially if you're in a luxury SUV. And especially especially if you've got a ponytail.

Torontoist is ending the year by naming our Heroes and Villains of 2007––the people, places, and things that we've either fallen head over heels in love with or developed uncontrollable rage towards over the past twelve months. Get your dose, starting Boxing Day and running into the new year, three times a day––sunrise, noon, and sunset.

Road rage in the city is nothing new. Torontoist covered incidents of road rage violence between motorists and cyclists in 2006 and 2007, and the Sun reported on Monday that a cab driver was shot at in a road rage incident. Most coverage focuses on road rage and adults, but new research from Ontario suggests that adolescents are more likely to be victims of road rage. In a study recently published in the Journal...

Torontoist has had it up to here with tripping over the damn red carpets! You may have heard a thing or two about TIFF, a little film festival that's been happening in town over the past few weeks. The festival has ended, which means no more being hassled for our autograph, blinded by paparazzi, and losing our stretch SUV in the line of limos. At least until 2008.

"Good frickin' lord, it's too dang far to walk to the corner store to buy me a frozen yogurt," you might moan. "I'll just have to be a global warmer and gas up the SUV to drive there." Not so, my friend! Not only is it good exercise, but it's just well, great to perambulate. With this Walk Score, a nifty calculator, you can determine exactly how walkable your address is on a scale of zero to one hundred, with zero being you stranded in a car-only desert and one hundred being you having ascended to a pedestrian paradise. Taking into account factors like a main neighborhood centre, accessibility, parks, and public space, the nearness of schools and workplaces, speed controlled streets and pedestrian friendly design, Walk Score uses a whizbang algorithim to figure the feet friendliness of your 'hood.

The Toronto Star recently started wrapping its front section in ads, à la Metro (except the fold only extends halfway across the front page). Today's was a stark entreaty: "Don't buy an SUV." Okay, an environmental message, huh? We can live with our paper being wrapped in dispatches from the Suzuki Foundation. Then we unfolded it: "(Until you've seen the [brand and model].)" Beyond that, it's a pretty standard SUV ad, except one and a half times as wide as the paper itself.

Remember Jean Chrétien? We haven't heard much about the former prime minister in some time (dude's been off the map ever since Paul Martin forced him off it). Well, Mizalaina of the Toronto LiveJournal community spotted Chrétien earlier today in downtown Toronto, and has one hell of a story to go along with it:

With all that went down this week, we thought we thought we'd cheer everyone up by giving everyone a double dose of dogs.

Doctors urged to use tape measure to see if medical advice is necessary due to excess abdominal fat. I'm all for anti-obesity measures, but surely this is counterproductive? Did we really need another reason to dislike going to the doctor for a checkup?

Yesterday was day two of Canada’s Bridal Show at the Metro Convention Centre (still on until 6pm today). It’s apparently “The Big One” for brides-to-be in our city, with over 400 vendors coming to peddle all kinds of stuff you didn’t even know you needed to have in order to publicly express your love for another person. Just walking in the door you're handed a bag containing, among other things, a package of "slightly spiced" chocolate-covered croutons. Yum?

Happy December Torontoist readers!

Following the Spacing Votes post earlier today, Torontoist spotted the No-Giambrone-Mobile (unsurprisingly an SUV) driving along Queen Street.

You know who's going to be upset about those Bikini Bandits? The Houston school system. Houstonist also reports on some redevelopment shenanigans over a landmark theater.

This morning's papers are split between a huge fire and carjackings. So first the carjackings.

For many of us, living in Toronto is more than just exciting and cosmopolitan:

The Toronto Public Space Committee has revived Art Attack, an evening where members of the public are invited create works of art and then place them over advertising in our public spaces. So if you're sick and tired of looking at that SUV ad go and do something about it.

Mayoral Candidate Jane Pitfield is as fed up with the shenanigans at the TTC committee as we are but we think her idea of appointing members of the public to the committee is even worse. Pitfield wants four out of the nine members of the committee to be drawn from the public. On one hand we could get someone like James Bow on the TTC on the other hand we could get someone who is an SUV driving, bus hating idiot. More importantly, if we're having this much trouble reining in people we elected what's it gonna be like when we start dealing with people who are appointed?

This summer is looking as bloody as last summer. Early this morning a man was shot dead on a rooftop patio in the club district. Two others were wounded.

The province has given municipalities the power to set closing time for bars. Toronto even gets the power to add additional taxes to booze. The province might even give this power to other municipalities if it works well in Toronto.

Despite criticism from the media, many councillors and Rick Ducharme's public admission that his actions as TTC chair made him quit, Howard Moscoe made it clear he won't be stepping down from the Chair. That is until he talked to his wife. Gloria Moscoe, his wife of 46-years, would like him to spend more time with his family which means Moscoe might step out of the TTC Chair's role but not until after the November election. Many say that's not soon enough.

Council voted 39-2 in support of the City's 2015 Expo Bid. The next step involves courting the Provincial and Federal governments for funding. Queen's Park and Ottawa are expected to foot a huge chunk of the bill, including $2.8 billion for cleaning up contaminated soil near the lakefront, and a possible $700 million deficit after the event.

Cabbies were attacked last night. Two of them were stabbed and one of them is in critical condition. A third cabbie was held up at gunpoint.

Torontoist is crying in our large double doubles after reading this little piece about Tim Horton's rabidly popular Roll up The Rim contest on the CBC News site. It turns out that southern Ontario Tim Horton customers have the worst odds of winning the major prizes in Timmy Ho's contest; one in 11 million versus one in four million in Quebec and one in eight million in BC!

Nielsen numbers came back from Sunday's big show and the numbers aren't good. Some 38.8 million Americans watched, which is 8% lower than last year and only the second time audience numbers dipped below 40 million. Some will pin it on the serious and indie-aspects of almost all the major films (Crash, Brokeback, Syriana, et al) others critiqued Jon Stewart. Torontoist blames Gothamist for doing such a hilarious job liveblogging the thing. Who needs TV when you've got Gothamist film gurus Jen Chung and Karen Wilson?

ATSA (Action Terroriste Socialement Acceptable), the Montreal art collective, responsible for the burnt-out SUV installation at Dundas Square last summer is coming back to Toronto. They won't be blowing up any SUVs, but drivers of gas guzzlers might want to watch out anyway.

The awesomely observant Ann witnessed the following bizarre episode a couple of days ago at the intersection of Broadview and Danforth. Man in a silver SUV, stopping in the middle of the intersection and yelling out the window: BRAVO! Girl 1, crossing the street: He must be French! Girl 2, crossing the street: That's so hot....

It's a familiar story: boy walks down street, finds stray dog, NDP canvasser comes to the rescue. In last night's version, that stray dog was a chow chow and that boy was Torontoist.

A sip of cultural anthropology for any of Torontoist’s American cousins who might be venturing this side of the border for March Break. Today’s lesson: Tim Horton’s, known variously by locals as Timmy’s, Uncle Tim’s or Hortie’s, depending on the region in which you find yourself. Our caffeine nation’s signature coffee joint opened its first shop in Hamilton, Ontario in 1964, and is eponymously named for its late founder, NHL hockey star Tim Horton. At 5am most winter weekends, you’ll find bleary-eyed soccer moms and hockey dads in line, fuelling up for a cold day at the rink watching Pee Wee practice (and ordering up an assortment of Timbits, those delectable bite-sized donut holes). Beyond the typical orders for a double-double (double cream, double sugar), close observers will notice another, more peculiar ritual exclusive to this time of year, wherein before discarding their waxed cardboard take-out cups, customers suck or gnaw at the lip of the cup. This is not some bizarre Northern mating ritual (or a prelude to throat-singing); it is the annual instalment of the chain's Rrroll Up the Rim To Win promotion, a craze which débuted in 1986 (chances of winning a prize under the rim, from free java to SUV, are 1 in 9). One caution: in Torontoist’s experience, it is best to drink all the contents first.