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Newsstand: July 11, 2013
Well if it isn't Thursday again. In the news: Potential movement (for real, though) on the Scarborough subway extension, experts say Canadian cities like ours probably need to upgrade their storm systems, Wheel-Trans was watching you (in a bad way) but now they're not, and GO Transit is giving $100 in Presto money to some of its passengers stranded on a train Monday.
There may actually be movement on a firm deal to build a subway extension in Scarborough. Despite the provincial transit agency Metrolinx stating last week that the city would be on its own if it wanted the subway, the Ontario government and the City of Toronto are apparently in talks to push ahead with it, and to cancel the previously approved light-rail line.
Engineers and municipal planners say that this week’s storms in Toronto, as well as the floods that happened last month in Southern Alberta, demonstrate that superior urban storm systems are needed in Canadian cities—ones that take into account the anticipated increase in severe weather occurrences. Fun.
A sketchy transit surveillance program that you almost certainly didn’t know existed has been suspended. Apparently, surveillance cameras were added to Wheel-Trans vehicles between 2006 and 2008 as a means of increasing safety. Two years later, the cameras began to be used as a way to determine if passengers were legitimately disabled, or just pretending to be. You’ve never heard of it because the so-called “Questionable Rider” program came about, apparently, without any public consultation. And now it’s over. It’s kinda like when your friend tells you they swiped your phone to see if you would notice, but you didn’t, and you feel weird and violated, but also relieved.
GO Transit is giving money to riders who were stuck on the Richmond Hill train that got flooded and stalled during Monday night’s storm. It’s not cold hard cash, mind you, but $100 in credit on their Presto cards, or, if they don’t yet have a card, a chance to get one filled with $100.