Each Tuesday, Spacing Montreal will share some posts from our sister blog, Spacing Toronto. We hope it will fuel constructive dialogue on the urban issues faced by both cities.
Twitter, Toronto, the TTC & Me (and you)
Shawn Micallef reviews the marriage of transit and technology in looking at how Twitter is used track the TTC. Not only does Twitter allow the public to directly communicate with (and more often than not, complain to) transit officials, a special program combines official data with Twitter passenger updates to show the state of the TTC at any given moment.
City staff discuss the placement of new transit shelters
Dylan Reid recounts a meeting between the City and the Toronto Pedestrian Committee about the encroachment of sidewalk space by new transit shelters. City staff addressed concerns over narrower sidewalk clearways, a result of the latest installation of new street furniture.
Ban smoking at sports fields, too
Adam Chaleff-Freudenthaler writes a spirited piece against smoking in or around public sports fields. Both Toronto’s Board of Health and the Parks and Environment Committee recommended a ban against smoking around playgrounds and other child-oriented outdoor recreation facilities. However, Adam argues that they should go further: “If you want to smoke, it [should be] up to you to find a place where no one else is being inconvenienced.”
4 comments
Toronto makes me sick! Ban out door smoking? Ban people from owning certain dog breeds? Ridiculous. And what’s next?
@ Me: I grew up in Ontario and lived in Toronto for 7, very long years. Everything there, particularly anything remotely enjoyable, has to be controlled, regulated, licensed, limited.. hours are set, lines are drawn, applications have to be made.. you cant do this here, you can’t do that there and you definately can’t do both this and that at the same time either here, there or anywhere!
It’s a soul-crushing, ban everything kind of place. Oddly enough, the majority of people there seem to like it that way.
Best thing I ever did was to get the hell out!
I have never smoked, my dad and two of my closest friends died from smoking, and yet I cannot see the rationale for banning smoking OUTDOORS. The pollution from cars and industry is far worse.
Mr Chaleff-Freudenthaler, who seems to take joy in persecuting people with a tobacco addiction, is an example of the mentality you decry. I certainly support smoking cessation drives and programmes, and more tax money spent on them, but persecuting people with a substance dependency is cruelty and often classism.
I remember getting a stern warning from a cop in Toronto because we had a bottle of wine with our picnic in a public park. We were obviously eating and enjoying ourselves quietly, not inebriated, and didn’t have enough wine to get inebriated.
Even the way they organise recycling, laudable though that is, is unneccesarily anal.
There is a reason why Toronto has rules: it has a much more involved community (at City Hall) than Montreal does. Montreal is the least transparent of Canada’s big cities. I’m not sure if its a language/culture thing, but I’ve lived in both cities and can clearly see the residents of Tornoto have a deeper culture of civic involvement. This may just be a recent development since I don’t know much about the pre-80s Montreal. Or maybe its this way cuz the Mob seems to be entrenched at City Hall. You’d have a riot in Toronto if road construction stopped for two weeks in the middle of summer like it does in MOntreal.
When you have more people involved in the local government you get more rules as people want to make sure less bad things happen in their neighbourhoods. And the type of people involved at local politics tend to be more progressive.
Now, smoking seems to a Quebecois cultural thing that is almost as religious as the Canadiens. In Toronto, you’d find most people are in support of a playground smoking ban (which was passed by council this week).
@ Maria: there is no sorting of recycling for the last 3 years, besides organic. The sorting of recycling saved the City about $50-million a year in costs as the landfill company would charge the city to separate items.
@ Todd Spurrell: while I’m sad to hear your years in Tornoto were soul crushing, I’d be careful using such language: many people from MOntreal and Toronto have come from REAL PLACES where the rules were truly soul crushing. Over 50% of Canada’s new immigrants come to Toronto and I assume many of them care about the same issues discussed here on Spacing MOntreal and Spacing Toronto.