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Weekend Newsstand: February 19, 2011
Illustration by Jeremy Kai/Torontoist.
Oh Saturday, it’s so good to see you. And with you, some news: Metrolinx buys the trains that will go to the planes, Rob Ford personally mails out vehicle registration tax refunds, Kaberle says “good day” to the Leafs, two ten-year-olds, and a tale of lotto woe.
Metrolinx has sealed the deal on twelve new trains to run along the rail line linking Union Station to Pearson Airport. Coming in under budget—thanks to a bidding partnership with Sonoma-Marin County in California—the twelve “clean diesel” trains will cost fifty-three million dollars, with an option to buy six more for an additional twenty-two million dollars. Although the regional transit authority has tentative plans to electrify the rail corridor, Metrolinx wants these babies up and running and chewing up diesel in time for the 2015 Pan Am games before they even start to think about overhauling the system in favour of electric trains. The first train should arrive in 2013 with the rest of the fleet chugging into town by fall 2014.
In other news from the Metrolinx board meeting: the agency approved multi-million-dollar contracts for the undergroundification of the Eglinton LRT line.
Rob Ford faced the abyss and fearlessly stuffed it full of money. No, not the city’s looming 2012 budget hole, but the waiting flap of a mailbox in City Hall’s lobby. Ford began mailing out the sixty dollar vehicle registration tax refunds on Friday (months early! rejoice!) with nary a thought to the sixty-four million dollars the City will lose as a result of the refund or next year’s estimated 774 million dollar budget shortfall, saying “I take one year at a time, so we’ll cross that [crumbling, rickety-ed.] bridge [over a gulf of shark-eating alligators-ed.] when we get to it.”
After almost twelve seasons, Tomas Kaberle is leaving the Maple Leafs’ roster. The defenceman was traded to Boston on Friday afternoon in return for Calgarian Joe Colborne (who was drafted by Boston in 2008 and currently plays for their AHL farm team), a first-round pick in the 2011 draft, and a conditional pick. At twenty-one, Colborne still has plenty of room for improvement in his game, and according to the Star, “It is believed that he could be ready to play in the NHL next season.” Sounds like he’ll fit right in with the Leafs.
Water cooler chats must be getting pretty awkward at the Bell Canada office, where nineteen co-workers won the lottery and nine others claim they did too. The original nineteen were paid out a portion of the jackpot earlier this week, and now that they have a bit of cash they’re being sued by the nine that claim they were surreptitiously removed from the pool.
That reminds us, everybody get your tickets for tonight’s big lotto draw.
Police are reminding parents that laser pointers are not really a great gift idea for kids (or anyone that doesn’t want to get punched for pointing them at the screen during movies) after a ten-year-old boy momentarily blinded a helicopter pilot. The police chopper was responding to a call when the light shot up from the ground and into the eyes of the pilot. The crew directed ground officers to the source of the light where they found the kid. Apparently this sort of thing happens fairly often, with four reports of laser pointers interfering with aircraft already this year.
And now to restore your faith in ten-year-olds, a little girl from Toronto is the new-next-new-great YouTube sensation/phenomenon/prodigy/Justin Bieber. Heather Russell sings songs about ice cream and charmed Simon Cowell, so, presumably, she’s a super nice kid. So all we’ll say is good for her.