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Newsstand: March 12, 2010
Illustration by Roxanne Ignatius/Torontoist.
Councillor Michael Walker (Ward 22, St. Paul’s) plans on retiring this November, saying that, after twenty-eight years, it was “time to pass the torch” to a new councillor. One reason why, according to Walker, is that there is now a good candidate to replace him. Surely he didn’t mean Josh Matlow, the often controversial TDSB trustee who has mounted a challenge for Walker’s seat? Ah, no he was referring to his executive assistant, Chris Sellors, who took the opportunity to step up and declare his support for an Eglinton subway line.
When Google Maps opened a section devoted entirely to bike routes in a large selection of (so far) U.S. cities, Toronto cyclists felt a little left out. It’s pretty safe to assume that Google Bike will reach Toronto sooner or later, but in the meantime, Toronto has an online bike trip planner that sports a few options Google Bike doesn’t. Ride The City uses cycling-specific road-and-trail information to pick out routes for you. It offers users the somewhat alarming choice between “safe,” “safer,” and “direct” bike paths. We like to read these as “easy,” “very easy,” and “challenging”! Users with an account can also rate the routes.
And now a word on the never-ending quest for the perfect tree house. Sooner or later (often it is “sooner”), most people realize that everything they want out of life is right in their own backyard, in a tree, with ladders, and only their friends are allowed in. Globe columnist Dave LeBlanc found himself unexpectedly thrust into the role of tree house guy when his plan to find the best tree in Toronto and pair it with an outstanding, if hypothetical, structure as a “gift to the city” metamorphosed into a mad dad scheme to build his eight-year-old son a clubhouse for the ages. LeBlanc has challenged three of his favourite architectural firms to design the ultimate home-very-close-to-home. Specs call for ninety-nine square feet of floorspace or less, no rope ladders, and extra points if it’s “held [up] by cables of some sort.” Also: should be appropriate for thinking about flying saucers.
Toronto will soon have an official process for banning abusive individuals from public parks and other city property. If that sounds a little overbearing, consider that the new, central protocol is being devised largely to make it hard to impose bans and to allow people to appeal them. After the city’s ombudsman published a report criticizing a decision to ban an unnamed man from all 1,473 city parks permanently, future bans are expected to be time-limited and require approval from Parks and Rec General Manager Brenda Patterson. Once an offender’s “sentence” is up, though, they will have to go through a “re-entry” interview. But that should be a walk in the park, eh? Eh?
You know what sucks? West Toronto. No, wait, East Toronto. Well, they’re always getting faced off against one another, so one of them must suck, right? Hard-hitting stuff. NOW Magazine set aside one week, starting yesterday, to put this question to rest for good, laying out the case for East (pedestrian space, “divine neglect”) and West (cool shoes, night life). Then they get down to brass tacks and try to sort out which side has the best of what, from politics, to ice cream, to reinvented space, to “unidentifiable Italian restos.” The stuff they didn’t teach you in urban studies. The stuff that matters? Each camp spends about as much time slagging the other side of the city as they do promoting their own, so we won’t bother to ask if we can all just get along. Oh, and since they’re being democratic about it, if you vote for just one river today, vote Don. I mean, come on, we might feel badly for the Humber, but we’re just never going to get excited about it. And that’s how it is.