We had a parking lot described as ❤️ of the community. Now we have new housing, amenities, parks, described as removing "that opportunity for friends & neighbours & your local shopkeepers, where you can actually feel that you're not just in this world by yourself" "a complete massacre to this area"

When housing in Toronto is proposed which removes a tree, remember that preserving that exact tree all but assures vastly more trees are destroyed elsewhere, with drastically less ability to be replaced.

NEW: Epstein survivors release the most powerful PSA I have ever seen. Make this go viral so every member of the House of Representatives sees it.

Preparing for my cross-city multimodal trip, to see how best to save multimodal options for myself and future generations.

that's right

Would this be exactly the spot automated enforcement cameras belonged? The driver may have been helped by Ford banning them. The 52 year old crossing guard, however, won't be around for the eventual acknowledgement that "please pay attention" signs, all Ford might put here, won't help the next one

Yesterday I sat for a lecture by 3 folks from ReHousing. Hosted by UofT's school of Arch, they detailed the history of change in Toronto, how post-war suburbs rubber-stamped neighbourhoods as repetitive as a 100 floor condo does today, horizontally, & how for half a century we've seen near no change

This is what can make advocacy work so hard. On biking, on transit, on housing, it can take serious work to debunk even a single completely false source of material. And even when it is as astroturf as the anti-transit lane campaigns Toronto just saw, councillors will still hold it up as gospel.

I want to understand what's going on in a World Series stadium, hosting Canada's team, and playing a Toronto artist. How many NYC artists did they play last year? I just couldn't. But, I'm OK with where it all sees us right now.

On that inning-ending 6th strikeout, physics and the universe literally forced Ohtani to tip his cap to Yesavage.

This is a nightmare for commentators, how do you handle so much improbable two batters and three pitches in?

Got the closest parking spot possible to both a Blue Jays World Series game, and my rec hockey league at the old Maple Leaf Gardens, in the space of a day this weekend. No sweat, literally, because I rode my e-cargo bike. Feeling like the Canadian I want to be, within our beautifully diverse fabric.

Ford should be aware: when you present a leader with facts, whose entire career is based on them & their base ignoring facts, nothing good comes of it. Alt: they do say in disagreements, it's best to lead by admitting your faults, so on the matter of accepting truth, maybe Ford has some mea culpas?

Huh. Kinda looks like if we had today's rule, the Jays may not have made it to the World Series in 93. Or if Naylor had 93's rules, maybe we wouldn't have been in this year's. Some things change, and some things still echo with familiarity. On the right side both times ⚾️

As an advocate, I have years of experience talking privately and publicly about homelessness. So, I'm pleased to have worked with Social Planning Toronto on this resource to help people and orgs communicate across divides about homelessness! www.socialplanningtoronto.org/talking_abou...

I was just told by a friend that there won't be another total solar eclipse in North America for decades. Watching the Jays game, I said I'd take a full moon shot right about now. The very next pitch... 😳😅🤷

Like, no classics are perfect, but... the Addams universe has held up its end of the bargain exceptionally well. Millenial magic. Happy October viewings, to those who celebrate.

What I Like About You - The Romantics

This notes what studies show (ppl on bikes/foot/TTC spend more than drivers) & shares success of places like Paris adding bike lanes, w/o admitting this means bikes are best on streets (w shops), cars on roads (w/o destinations). Note Paris puts lanes w shops (beige), none in shop-free gray. See🖼Alt

Am I surprised that it isn't just law-breakers (speeding & destruction of law enforcement assets) Ford is on the side of, but also not the 1%, but the 0.5%? That's what fraction of drivers receive tickets, a mere 10th of the people doing 30%+ over the limit. Just...wow.

One of the best date nights is a public consultation date night. As engaging as you want it to be; you can read, write, draw, converse. And the keepsake, a ways down the line, is you might see yourselves reflected in the new shape of an improved community.

I would enjoy a reporter asking what Ford thinks these should be. #1 would include, in a 30kph zone, driving 163% of the limit, increasing odds of pedestrian/child death in collision from 10% to 90%. #2 would include driving 197% of the limit. #3 would cover speeds not legal on any non-highway road.

I'm pretty darn close to starting a thread rewriting the verses to this classic... 🎶Doug waits for us to die... So many Doug ways to die... Doug weighs: we should die... So drivers can more recklessly drive...🎶 youtu.be/IJNR2EpS0jw

When hundreds of us legally protest, saying "let us live", Doug makes laws ensuring more of all of us die. When a few vigilantes attack law enforcement, saying "let us kill", Doug proposes laws ensuring more of all of us die. At least he's consistent.

A thing that may surprise. I biked yesterday. 10km. To get to hockey. I got there faster than if I'd driven, and more warmed up than prior years, for which I have much experience. This could be pretty neat. E-cargo bike, you are growing on me.

Why can't we have this, Toronto?

The European buildings this physically emulates were originally painted, colourful. Only centuries later, after the empire had fallen & crumbled, ceased to hold its place in the world, were they colourless; standing as outdated in style as the norms of their age, in an advancing world.

Which is the city more determined to do? Ensure a piece of art bringing calm to residents which is nonetheless non-permitted is not allowed to stand? Ensure a law-enforcement tool which brings justice against law-breakers is present and not allowed to be illegally removed? (Parkside speed camera)

Feeling really close to taking the e-cargo bike plunge, and it's come down to the core design choice: Tern GSD, or Urban Arrow. Have borrowed both, have hauled gear and guest in both, having a time of it, deciding whether ease of max haulage, or agility on road and storage, will win. Help? 😅

24h of leisure biking: -SUV bumps me aside, to pass 1 car, to be first to the next red light. -Separate motorcycle does same, in my bike lane, later on. -SUV honks & drives aggressively at me so it could more quickly get to someone's grave, inside a no thru traffic cemetery. But I'm the danger. 🙇😮‍💨

It has not been easy to carve out time to write anything these last few weeks—but also, whenever I do get a chance to step out to be present with immediate human need on the streets, I’m reminded of what matters most… even if what I consider to matter most might read as brain damage to others.

Wait, Ford is worried about releasing economically sensitive information? The same Ford who seemingly had a trove of developers show up at his daughter's open-bag wedding fundraiser, whose properties wound up ideally located for provate greenbelt & highway plans, some who bought only moments before?

Man, can you imagine having a bus corridor with 28,000 riders in a city of 8 million not getting to its senses and giving bus lanes? Imagine if you somehow had another ten thousand or more riders, in a city a third the size, and still said the relative pittance of car drivers should be king 🤔.

Has anyone fed up with councillors kowtowing to astroturf groups about bus lanes ever considered this? I do remember onetime standing in a lane of traffic with others to make a human-protected bike lane in a key core retail corridor where none was present, but now is about the best in that city.

Interestingly, like so many others, the Stone Soup folk tale is European. Ich hoffe, er liest Kindern nie Steinsuppe vor.

Zero. That’s the number of kilometres of new bike lanes proposed by the City for this quarter of 2025. 1/

Proposal on NW of Caledonia & (1492) St. Clair W. I wonder if the W & N edges of this build could connect to a bike-refriendlied McRoberts? With Rogers/Eglinton lanes, it'd really open up north-of-Davenport safe biking thanks to Davenport Diamond Greenway connecting adjacent Earlscourt Park to Bloor

By "compromise", would they mean poison pill? Or something else that the feds would yet again have to step in and say "that wasn't the deal, you continue to get no funding"? And all the while, the crisis ratchets ever-higher around the comfortably housed council.

TIFF. At Queen/Bathurst Strange Love coffee shop. At the intersection, looked up and saw someone riding bikeshare at me. Recognized them fast enough to get a photo. Upon checking the shot, the "why can't I escape you fans even 1 minute" sighing look in Iain Glen's eyes made me delete it instantly 😅😬

Using St.Clair West from Lansdowne to Caledonia on TTC. We are moving at less than 1km/h. Because soccer. (Go 🇵🇹!) Please don't complain about bike lanes slowing you down in future though. Also, about neighbourhood retail creating noise violations; this sounds like a shotgun/chainsaw salute.

Beecroft south of Park Home is a crossing to...a parking lot, for an aquatic centre. Says a lot that the main users of a crosswalk are drivers, directly next to the cars they just parked, and as soon as they exit their vehicle, all priority, respect, and safety is gone from other drivers.

Which owner instinct is stronger? Developers "lose" profit as they don't profit from Development Charges if they're paid by buyers instead ("boo high developer home price/profit!")? Or a home being 5% cheaper, mostly interest savings, doesn't buoy their home value as much ("boo lower home values!")?

Finally got to read this, and I loved seeing the holes in our communities. As one advocating for better housing, active transportation & public transit, parks, local businesses, the intersections are simultaneously amazing and unsurprising. Also as a queer person. Makes our city choices pile up. 1/

If Ford ripped stitches, sutures, and casts off of people when they left hospitals, you would correctly assess that he was intentionally seeking to cause suffering and any and all consequences that ensue, and he should bear full responsibility for what happens, not one doctor or patient.

I really want to know how any member of council can pretend to stand up to Ford or care about people making personal choices, if they unanimously without a word erase plans to make an off-main-streets key bike connection that takes away zero car lanes. @alejandrabravo.bsky.social, is this a joke?

Housing nerds: Not a spoiler for The Last of Us. But. The porch conversation, except while thinking of local control.

This'd hurt Ford. Want side street bike lanes? Data already tells us intersections are #1 limiter for car throughput. Now you'll need frequent reds for a street adjacent *every* to-be-former bike street? Prove to Ford his idea is a fail by switching those light cycles, non-beg, now. Real gridlock.

We can't be looking south of the border & thinking "obviously X should be immediately sacked for Y comments incompatible with their role & a functioning society, & then have the new housing minister start off by saying housing should not become more affordable under his watch, & have no response.

Im going to assume, since Ford wants to rip out bike lanes that compromise safety, because "only 3% of Ontarians bike", he's surely on Toronto to remove all TTC parking lots, since only 2% of *TTC riders*, let alone Ontarians, use them. 🤔

❤️ politicians honestly talking how high housing costs hurts us all, even those w low rent/mortgages. I'd add: rent/leases pay mortgage costs. Want/have high housing price/values? You get high rent/lease costs. Period. So a business needs to charge more to cover it, & you kill your own budget/equity