Results tagged “valdodge”

The appearance of yet another traffic camera in the city is hardly remarkable. But it is a little unusual when that camera is watching traffic on the Don River just south of Pottery Road. Although it was used extensively for transportation in its almost-forgotten past, the Don is not exactly known for its 21st-century traffic jams and accidents.

If only keeping thieves at bay could be that easy.

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 used to be one, connecting Broadview and Moore Avenues, roughly following Cudmore Creek for much of its length.

Throughout vast swaths of the South, no veranda is complete without an old codger kicking back with some hooch and making passersby uncomfortable. Riverdale, where this front porch denizen passes the days, seems to be just close enough to the Mason-Dixon line to qualify. A local resident insisted that this handrafted handyman, equal parts kitschy and creepy, moves with the weeks and the seasons, assuming different positions every once in a while to ease his creaky joints.

While most people hid inside during yesterday's deep freeze, the few who chanced the icy sidewalk of the Overlea bridge near Don Mills Road received a little smile if they happened to look down: some overly cheerful person had stomped out a big happy face between the cross-country ski tracks in the Don Valley 30 metres below the bridge. Although we can't condone overt cheerfulness—especially when the wind chill is minus a jillion—we'll admit to briefly twitching a frozen cheek in approval at the sight.

What's the most fun you can have in the days following a big snowstorm?

Most people wouldn't associate Toronto with abandoned roads, but a few of them dot the city if you know where to look. One of the better examples is this surviving portion of old Don Mills Road as it climbs north out of the Don Valley. The current Don Mills Road is to the right in the picture above. The original road was realigned and widened in the 1950s to connect the new community of...

The next time you're walking along the wooded trails near the marsh in E.T. Seton Park, you may find a weathered sign overlooking a wet meadow. Still barely legible, it reads: Trees in this area were planted by the Outing Club of East York in honour of Charles Sauriol who was instrumental in the preservation of this valley August 1980 The Outing Club of East York's Diane Vieira told us that in its early...

A few weeks ago, we wondered about the presence of electricity meters placed randomly around the city, measuring power consumption for, well, something or other. We'd grown so perplexed by these meters that we felt compelled to ask Toronto Hydro for more information.

Our modern urban infrastructure is so pervasive that most of it goes virtually unnoticed. But every once in a while, something appears just out of place enough to make you stop and wonder what it's doing there. For example, an electricity meter strapped to a light pole directly above a pedestrian "push to cross" button, its familiar flat disk spinning slowly and recording usage of, um, what exactly?

While trying on clothes in the fitting room of a well-known department store two weeks ago, we were a little vexed by a common oversight: the lack of a cushion or dish in which to stash the pins as we removed them from the neatly packaged dress shirts. The attendant was overly apologetic and vowed to take action after we brought the deficiency to her attention.

As the early days of autumn bring cooler temperatures and colourful displays of nature, many city folk long to get onto some of the GTA's best hiking trails. If you think that a solitary drive out to the Bruce Trail is your only option, think again.

From the "Who knew it was such a rampant problem?" department comes the warning painted inside this dump truck. Surely it makes much more sense when the dumper is horizontal and the truck is in a quiet parking lot at the end of a long day of work.

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, and a little bit biased. In short, it's not enough.

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.

A lot happens in and around Toronto, but we can only write about so much in a week. Here's the best of the rest, in a new weekly feature we're calling Superfluist. Superfluist will appear every Friday night.

A mystery is afoot in Riverdale. The residents of Cambridge Avenue near Broadview & Danforth have grown familiar in recent years with the roaming gangs of monkeys—a dozen at last count—that dangle from the utility wires above the street.

Peter Riedel could hardly have chosen a better location to ply his trade. We've seen rock balancers in the eastern beaches, in the western beaches, and even at the Ex, but this is the first time we've seen one working the Humber River. Literally in the river.

Torontoist sure does after a visit to the Magic Building on Sumach Street, south of Queen. The pediment over the doorway is graced by what may be both the sexiest and creepiest cowboy hat-wearing gargoyle we've ever seen. Or is that a witch's hat? Either way, she's marginally less inviting than Father Time at the old Don Jail and one-of-a-kind in Toronto.

Tucked into the northeast corner of Scarborough near the Zoo, Toronto's only vehicle-carrying suspension bridge straddles the Rouge River. A small handful of other suspension bridges dot the city, but carry only pedestrians and cyclists. Transportation Services was taken by surprise upon our first inquiry and couldn't immediately confirm that this was a true suspension bridge. But John Bryson, Structures and Expressways Manager for the city, verified that it is indeed a "suspension bridge with the side trusses as stabilizers for the deck."

The old sales pavilion and welcome centre at the superfluouslyy-lettered Minto Skyy condo on Broadview went for a brief flight of fancyy this morning before settling into its new home at the opposite end of the construction site.