What people had in their heads when pitching the Finch LRT... vs. what we got.

Refreshing to see the conservative side of Toronto politics flailing around looking for a candidate to run against an incumbent mayor for a change.

true. both are needed to provide faster streetcar service in Toronto.

My hot take is that the battles over TDSB control are basically downstream from the fact that Toronto City Council forced rust belt budget problems on the TDSB by pricing out families with children through their policies. thelocal.to/ontario-scho...

Whatever old city races there are (BEY plus whatever) will be fighting over small differences. The action *should be* in the suburbs where there are many bad councillors who need the boot and at least 2 good councillors who need defending.

To Colleen's point I went back to the oldest Housing Now progress report I could find from May 2020. Green are currently under construction, yellow have planning approval but construction not started, red are no progress at all. Note the estimated construction start dates. Also still 0 units built.

I have a hard time keeping track of the various city owned housing sites and what's happening with them. So thankfully CreateTO has an update report they're giving the board on Friday with attachments listing all the sites secure.toronto.ca/council/agen...

A lesson learned for advocates: 1. Sometimes studies clear the runway. But sometimes they just waste time and resources. 2. If you're going to pass a study bill, have it be done by an agency with (a) research capacity and (b) an ability to make objective assessments.

Favourite part here is the "regardless of statistics". Translating to plain language the reasons for not running are: 1) the election would be about my affair with a staffer and that sounds like a bummer 2) the lines of attack that people want me to run on are kind of weak and contrary to reality

Are conventions so valuable? The main business of Toronto's Exhibition Place is conventions, and they claimed $600-million a year in economic impact. On 192 acres of land in the middle of a prosperous city. That is not a lot of money. www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis...

One of the most consistent findings in public polling is people want "more transparency". But I assure you they don't actually want more transparency about Development Charges. How do I know? Because no one $!#@ing reads the existing Development Charge reports produced by the City of Toronto.

Damien Moule thought breaking through to the masses. (Just kidding the surveys reveal the public to have extremely low understanding of municipal taxes and incoherent views on public policy).

On the one hand the crosstown operation has started off well and I'm glad we're already extending it west. On the other hand it was a massive expense and took forever and I can't believe we learned nothing and have already dug a tunnel under this enormous road instead of going elevated.

I do get a little annoyed by the photo selection in articles sometimes. Left is what they went with while discussing residents complaints that a tower development is out of character with the neighbourhood. Right is the Google street view 50 metres east.

It's great that the City deferred the transit that they didn't want to pay for. It really gives them and residents associations a nice excuse for opposing the housing that they didn't want to build.

Doug Ford throwing back a beer tailgating before an Argos game at BMO field, "Wouldn't it be cool if we could use this enormous parking lot 3km from the centre of the country's largest city for a dentists convention?"

I'm a longtime critic of Exhibition Place, because the fields of parking lots stay unused nearly all the time and make it a wasteland. I think a (larger) convention centre would also be a wasteland. You need a reason for normal residents to travel to/from/through. www.thestar.com/politics/pro...

Much of what Toronto needs to improve on the downtown streetcars (and Line 6) can be learned from the 507/western 501. The combination of fewer cross streets, island platforms, wider stop spacing, and no forced slow zones across intersections is enough to provide good speed with weak TSP.

Something to ask John Tory if he runs for mayor again as he decided to dedicate a massive portion of Toronto's budget to this rebuild.

Was reminded to the Bellwoods circulation study on the weekend and my biggest piece of feedback is they haven't proposed any design measures or circulation strategies to protect people or the park from trucks. They're designing to make it easier to drive through. www.toronto.ca/city-governm...

With phase rotation, however, the left turn phase can either come before (leading) or after (lagging) depending on estimated streetcar arrivals. This *significantly* reduces delays for transit riders!

3/4 stories and 6/7/8 stories are breakpoints you find in every code, but *what* they’re a breakpoint for is very different in NA than elsewhere. In NA, the former is where a stretcher elevator, standpipe, and second stair are required; in Europe it’s often the latter – or taller.

A storey in four acts as captured by local news media: 18 storeys is too high, we’d be fine with 4-6 storeys 6 storeys are too big, we'd be fine with multiplexes Multiplexes are monstrosities, we are fine with existing post-Second World War bungalows ...

I still don't really get it. We're hosting 6 games, so we're expecting a bit more than a full Sky Dome concert worth of people per game. What's the big deal? Just that maybe a higher fraction than normal will be coming from out of the city than normal?

No real surprises about where rental deserts (by this definition) are located in Toronto. Though of course the city itself is much more mixed than any of the surrounding suburban municipalities.

He also says "I live in a decent neighbourhood, you know, families". I know we've all heard this so many times that we're a bit numb to it but I just want to say this is a call for the city government to segregate and only govern for a certain class and it's not compatible with liberal democracy.

“It’s the end of the city. Toronto sucks.” “This is the beginning of a quiet decent neighbourhood in our city being destroyed simply because it’s on the new subway line.” Totally normal reaction to a six-unit, three-storey residence being built near transit.

Good to just have the occasional restatement of the basics: housing regulations are a big effing deal. www.theargumentmag.com/p/stop-calli...

Obviously an issue with Scarborough committee of adjustment itself here but the higher level issue is we still have lots of restrictions on lot coverage and setbacks and building code issues on single stair, elevator size etc. that make it too expensive to build without variances.

A pretty incredible example of an unelected committee of adjustment member just flat out saying they would ignore the city's by-laws in order to reject housing. It's frustrating to fight these little personnel battles everywhere but I guess that's life. www.thestar.com/news/gta/six...

No surprise who. No matter where you try and put housing, in this case on Major Streets (which he voted for), councillor Kandavel still comes around and says "not here".

Half hour to Islington. A small improvement but not great.

Agree with the choice given Bradford's continued slide. My biggest worry about a Tory-4 term would be that the mushy middle of council (where Tory eventually moved) now consists of much less YIMBY and much less competent councillors. His coalition would be worse than last time.

Waited 2 months for Q4 2025 APTA ridership report and the TTC didn't even send their data in time and aren't in the report.

The Adelaide/Richmond/University bike lanes are finally all clear enough. Back to biking for me. 501 streetcar you're dead to me again.

Ah, ok, someone from the Fatal Light Awareness Program is here to speak about a proposed TCHC development. It's going to be one of *those* days.

It'll be a day at Planning and Housing Committee today. More Neighbours wrote in support here, as well as the affordable housing site at 150 Queens Wharf Road.

The HAF got cities to change but making it stick requires the feds to follow through. "Of the 182 communities that signed deals in 2023 to be part of the program, 36 had kept less than 50 per cent of the promises they made in their individual agreements as of last spring, according to the tracker."

Flooding, unstable foundations, toxic chemicals in the groundwater, and next to a provincially significant environmental area. Sounds like people shouldn't live there. Oh, what's that? The people submitting this think *they* should live there, just not a TCHC building. Who could have guessed?

I didn't think I would need to write in to try to convince the city not to impede its own affordable housing project with a heritage designation but here we are.

Path in Bellwoods just completely collapsed due to Parks Division trucks. There's no reason to drive a Parks truck on this path. Just pointless destruction of the park.

Helpppp it doesn’t stop… People: Stop building so many shoebox condos! We need livable family sized units! Developers: Here are family sized units! People: it’ll tank the neighbourhood ✨vibe✨! What’s more important? Family sized units or “vibes” hmmm torontolife.com/real-estate/...

Since I'm riffing on development charges today I just want to say: education development charges are a travesty. Education isn't a burden a new household should pay for imposing on a community, it is a right owed by all of us to our children that we should all pay for collectively.

I know they're municipalities so they're just by nature panicky about their budgets but I have a lot of trouble with the idea that municipalities should be compensated for not shooting themselves in the foot with high development charges. They always act like they have no choices but they do!

At today's meeting from the Infrastructure and Environment Committee, there's an item reviewing the tree by-law, and I can't help but notice the recommendations include absolutely nothing about improving trees on city streets.

Has anyone heard what the enhancement is supposed to be? I want to be optimistic but well... I'm sitting at a red light on a streetcar with supposed priority right now.

Whatever else you want to say about SmartTrack, it drives me nuts that Perks thinks it would have gone any better under the control of the City of Toronto or that the TTC has controlled costs better or has higher accountability than Metrolinx. Head in the sand.

For folks on the housing justice side of things in Toronto, there is a TCHC redevelopment in Swansea that's applying for rezoning at the Planning and Housing Committee. MNTO will be writing in but the local NIMBYs are mobilizing and it could use support. secure.toronto.ca/council/agen...

In terms of money for project complexity the SmartTrack stations might be the most overpriced transit project on the planet. King Liberty GO, which is a simple surface station with 1 platform, was expected to cost $590 million, which led to it getting cut. www.thestar.com/news/gta/met...

Yes, yes, fun election year sparring about Tory's legacy. Woo. So excited. We'll just ignore that Metrolinx (and the TTC) are now near totally incapable of the basics, forecasting hundreds of millions of dollars to build surface regional rail stations. www.thestar.com/news/gta/met...