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......

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. In February of 2006, Toronto police officers arrested Irshad Ahmed and Omar Betty for failure to stop, failure to comply, and obstructing police. Their trial is currently being conducted at Old City Hall, and some interesting evidence......

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. You know that our transportation system is in dire straits when so many cyclists can get so excited about......

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. Illustration by Kevin McBride.......

"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......

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......

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: So an hour ago I'm walking north along York St. I hear a crash ahead of me and see a......

With all that went down this week, we thought we thought we'd cheer everyone up by giving everyone a double dose of dogs. It was a rollercoaster ride of emotions this week at DCist. Like the rest of country, we were floored by the news of so many dead coming out of Virginia Tech, and with so many of the victims and their relatives from the D.C. area, we felt it important to pay tribute......

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? Toronto Star employee buys old laptop on eBay, gets relatively recent Canadian Alliance mailing information. Amusingly, they repeat the figure of $6.48 that Kevin Omura paid as many times as humanly possible.......

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......

Happy December Torontoist readers! The LCBO will start charging an extra 10- or 20-cent deposit on wine and spirit bottles in February in order to encourage recycling. Bottles can be returned to The Beer Store along with your Red Cap empties. Save up enough of them and those bottles can be recycled right back into your hand, chilled and containing a delicious elixer of satisfaction that you are doing your part for the environment. A......

Following the Spacing Votes post earlier today, Torontoist spotted the No-Giambrone-Mobile (unsurprisingly an SUV) driving along Queen Street. A number of anti-Giambrone posters have appeared around Ward 18, claiming that the councillor is too focused on "finding drug dealers and hookers" and "parks and bikes." The poster, however, contains no claim of authorship and has shrunken from the light of the public eye through anonymous cowardice. We have gathered that the individual who may......

Celebrate Ben Franklin's 300th birthday with the Bikini Bandits and Phillyist! (NSFW). Speaking of Mr. Franklin, send in a picture of Ben (or Ed Rendell) with a red tongue and win a free t-shirt. And they might have the next YearlyKos in Philly. 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. LAist's sex advice column on......

This morning's papers are split between a huge fire and carjackings. So first the carjackings. A 44-year old ex-con known to police as the "Buggy Bandit" was at it again this morning. The man successfully stole a SUV from a woman. He proceeded to drive dangerously, flipping the car over several times and then proceeded to try to steal a number of other cars until he was stopped by onlookers and the police. The "bandit"......

For many of us, living in Toronto is more than just exciting and cosmopolitan: It's expensive. Rents are always on the rise, along with the price of tokens and the cost of living in general – and I'm betting your income can’t keep up - if you have an income at all, that is. But when you can't just buy your happiness, and have to consider every dollar you spend, you're forced to be......

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. Art Attack takes place this Saturday, 7:00-10:00pm at the Gladstone, PWYC. Some Art supplies will be provided but please bring your own markers (we really......

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......

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. A woman's body was found in a garbage bag in Etobicoke. Police think someone killed her as long as week ago. Police are also trying to confirm the identity of a teenage boy who was beaten to death and who collapsed in Flemingdon Park near Don......

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. Was there a link between the man who took a shot at police in Etobicoke yesterday and a series of recent sexual assaults? Council wants to make it illegal to harm law-enforcement animals. The law......

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......

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. The TTC is still running despite edicts from the union not to enforce fare collection it seems that......

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. Councillor Paul Ainslie wants to figure out how to honour Toronto mayors not yet honoured, people like Barbara Hall and John Sewell. Some of the ideas thrown around include sculptures or portraits. A third wheel-trans driver has been charged with sexual assault. The TTC is considering installing cameras......

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! "There are only 30 cars," Greg Skinner......

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......

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. Over the last few months the group has been working on a different project that pokes fun at the gas-guzzling giants. They've created and distributed thousands of "tickets" that fine SUV......

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. En route to Sneaky Dee's, we took note of a black fluffy chow chow sitting by a pole at College and Grace. We were immediately alarmed by the shivers of the lost chow, and resolved to at least check her tags. The......

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......