Photo by Lex in the City. With Bike Month on the horizon and a newly launched advocacy group, cycling in Toronto is undergoing a renaissance (as Val Dodge put it earlier this week). The attention is well-deserved: cycling is one of the most healthy and environmentally conscious methods of commuting. The joys are eloquently captured by Ryerson prof Bill Reynolds in the most recent issue of The Walrus. By listing the hazards of urban......

Dalton McGuinty unveiled a new plane yesterday, which will be used by the OPP to deter dangerous drivers on Ontario highways. To encourage courteous motoring, the plane is armed with four Maverick air-to-ground missiles and a 30 mm cannon capable of piercing two inches of armour plate. Actually the plane just reports bad driving to ground units, but I'd bet my idea would be more effective. A proposal to scrap the Lord's Prayer in......

Jarvis Street, circa 1910. (City of Toronto Archives) Torontonians should be ashamed at what happened to Jarvis Street. The city's first paved road was once the grandest tree-lined boulevard around, bracketed by the mansions of some of Toronto's wealthiest movers and shakers. Then, in the 1940s, the stately Jarvis boulevard was transformed: trees were pulled down and sidewalks ripped up to make way for the automobile. Jarvis Street was turned from a gorgeous historical......

Cows cause traffic tie-ups on the QEW. Best line of story: "We have someone en route with rodeo experience." Rodeo experience. To get a cow to move off the damn road. (Did nobody just try waving food in front of the cow's face?) China admits that anti-government rioting has spread outside of Tibet to other provinces. However, the Chinese government characterizes the rioting as "very small," suggesting it is "barely more than a couple......

The last time we looked at accessible pedestrian signals (APS), those chirping and cuckooing crossing indicators for the visually-impaired, it was with some surprise at the city's claim that it simply couldn't afford to install APS at more than a handful of intersections each year. Instead of allocating enough money to improve availability of a fairly basic service to visually-impaired residents, the city instead looked for corporate sponsors to pick up some of the......

Frequent northbound travellers on the Bayview Extension have probably noticed the "Pottery Road" street sign pointing to a glorified supermarket driveway at the top of the hill, just south of Moore Avenue. Some may even have wondered how it relates to the more familiar street of the same name almost 1.5 kilometers to the south, winding up the valley wall to Broadview Avenue. The answer to this puzzle is that the two Pottery Roads......

With parking at a premium this holiday season, shopping malls see an increase in lazy, self-important jackasses who park in Accessible Parking spaces and abuse legitimate disability permits. The mind boggles at the selfish sense of entitlement this takes, and the Toronto Police Service won't care that you "just had to return a video." The Parking Enforcement Disabled Liason Unit have just entered a month-long enforcement blitz, focusing on those who park illegally in......

Photo of Ani DiFranco by Maria Bree. This week, our must-see show is Ani DiFranco at Music Hall Theatre. Having seen her in concert multiple times, Musicologist can vouch for the fact that the Righteous Babe is an amazing live musician. There seems to be some stigma about liking Ani, but don't fall victim to that or you'll be missing out. If you're looking for something free, Ottawa's Melissa Laveaux plays Hart House's Arbor......

Each week, Torontoist shows off the most interesting, creative, and cool submissions to our Torontoist Flickr Pool. We're especially partial to photos that show our city in a new light, highlight a recent event, and remind us why we live here. Join the Flickr pool and show us what you've got. Brickworks PondBY METRIX X The Beach, TorontoBY HARALD BENZ Windows XPBY SEVENNINE King and SimcoeBY CHARLES DH CROSBIE ShaftedBY TAYLOR ZHOU Old City HallBY......

Peeler aficionados and mammary augmentation connoisseurs are breathing a sigh of relief today as news returns on this morning's fire at Toronto's legendary Brass Rail. Traffic was snarled and redirected as police closed Yonge Street from Isabella to Bloor to battle the fire. Emergency workers were able to contain the blaze inside the Brass Rail's notorious façade, preventing it from spreading inside the club and to neighbouring businesses. Article updated 7:00 p.m. Top photos......

Last night, one of Torontoist’s adolescent fantasies came true … no, not that one…we finally saw synth pop group The Spoons in concert! After a few technical glitches onstage at the Parkdale Arts and Crafts Festival, they launched into their 1984 hit, “Tell No Lies,” a song that is almost painful to mention without blurting, “Dit dit ditditdit DIT!” The thirtysomething crowd’s inner tweens sang along, and some sang out loud to their young......

Drake, you ho, this is all your fault. The Ontario Municipal Board has approved a high-rise residential project on Queen Street West at 48 Abell Street, just steps from the Gladstone and everything hipsters cherish about Toronto's arts scene. Developers intend to build 7 condos in total with affordable housing, and the ratio of "normal people" to "artists with cool hair" will be thrown into upheaval. Unfortunately, there's not much that we or neighbourhood-preservation......

Another busy week in the city. Ridiculously busy. Once again, there's something decent to check out every night. We'll be hitting The Decemberists, Imogen Heap, Shout Out Out Out Out (out out out), and possibly a few more. Perhaps even Skid Row (minus Bach). What?! As if you don't miss those power ballads of the 80s! Oh, and it looks like Justin Timberlake is bringing 'sexy back' to Toronto in January. The price? Up......

Sure, there are tons of benefits attributed to streetcars/light rail -- and most of us would choose anything over a bus -- but this morning there was the sort of calamity unique to our city's streetcar system. On Queen Street near Church, one streetcar had broken down, leaving a whole line out of commission. The streetcar I was riding in ended up the sixth one stuck in a row behind the five cars pictured......

Jane Pitfield and David Miller are going to be seeing a lot of each other until November 13. The round of mayoral debates has started and both of them came out swinging for their first debate last night according to the Star. Incineration and David Miller's record were two of the big issues. Jane Pitfield's anti-panhandling bylaw stumbled yesterday when the Policy and Finance committee decided that the city should look into existing laws to......

If nothing else, we like two things at Torontoist: the TTC, and bands about spoons. But before there was Spoon, one of the best bands currently making music (and certainly the best one out of Austin, Texas) there was The Spoons, a new-wave band coming straight from the hip and edgy streets of...Burlington. The band enjoyed some short-lived success in the 1980s, especially on the college circuit, and fizzled out as the decade came to......

With the temperature inching just above freezing this weekend Torontoist might just have to bring out our bike. We miss riding it around town, dodging cabbies, avoiding horse crap (if you're Matt B.) and just feeling the cold Toronto air in our freezing faces. Ah, bike-riding in Winter. That being said it's never too early to think about those summer months when bike-riding is a little less of an ordeal. The Toronto International Bicycle Show......