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Newsstand: November 5, 2014
After purchasing the trip of a lifetime to take with his ex-girlfriend and then subsequently breaking up, a man is looking for a woman who has her exact name and to assume her plane ticket so that it won’t go to waste. Her name? Elizabeth Gallagher. So close, yet so far… In the news: the end of free parking for motorcycles and scooters approaches, more crowdfunded bus routes on the way, and a Tibetan culture week is accused of being a propaganda tool of the Chinese government.
Motorcycles and scooters have been allowed to park for free on city streets since 2005; now it appears the end is nigh. Soon, Green P parking meters will be retrofitted with touch pads that let people input their vehicle license plate number to pay for parking. A new Green P app will also be released to allow users to pay for parking using their smartphone. Once the new system is rolled out, the City will transition all motorcycles and scooters into pay-for-parking customers. While free parking for these two-wheeled commuters was conceived as an idea to ease gridlock and encourage eco-friendly commuting, the city evidently can’t say no to the $250,000 that is expected to be generated annually by the parking fees.
The crowdfunded bus route that looped commuters from Liberty Village to Union Station during rush hour was such a success that another route is currently in the works. This time the Beaches is slated to get its own crowdfunded bus. While details on the route have yet to be released, the Toronto Transit Commission has said that it does not plan to take steps to protect its city-wide transit monopoly from the expansion of this type of private transportation service…yet. “We’re not taking any action with respect to this service from a legal perspective,” said TTC mouthpiece Brad Ross yesterday. “We’re continuing to monitor the situation and if there’s something that we need to do or look more closely at, we’ll do that.” Line 6, the parent company offering the private bus routes, says that even if service expands, it will never be in direct competition with the TTC, since it essentially offers communities a chartered service. While the initial Liberty Village route is no longer in service, Line 6 says that the pilot project was considered a success, with 60 people each paying $25 per day to fund the cost of service to and from Union Station for a week.
Critics of an exhibit on Tibetan culture that opened at the TIFF Bell Lightbox yesterday are saying it is nothing more than a propaganda campaign by the Chinese government. The Canadian China Tibetan Culture Week celebrations in Toronto are part of an international touring exhibition that is co-sponsored by China’s State Council Information Office. Urgyen Badheytsang, Canadian director of Students for a Free Tibet, says it falsely portrays Tibet as a happy, exotic country when in reality it is one of the most oppressed nations in the world. Representatives for TIFF have distanced themselves from the controversy, saying that it was simply contracted out as a venue for the festival and has not contributed programming to the event.