Word out of City Hall today is that Astral, Clear Channel, and CBS have submitted their applications for the street furniture program. More to come, I’m sure. In other news….
TRANSIT
• Vandals add to GO woes [ Toronto Star ]
• Looming strike threatens GO [ Toronto Star ]
• Transit heritage site to be transformed [ Toronto Star ]
• Greenhouse and galleries in old TTC barns [ National Post ]
• First stage of St. Clair streetcar ROW to open Feb 18 [ Toronto Star ]
• TTC to consider new streetcar purchase [ Globe and Mail ]
• TTC to unveil cleaning of system plan [ National Post ]
STREET CAMERAS
• 15 cameras not enough, Yonge businesses say [ Toronto Sun ]
• Police seek feedback on street cameras [ CBC.ca ]
• Police plan for 15 spycams [ Toronto Star ]
OTHER STUFF
• The history of Queen’s Park’s canon [ BlogTO ]
• Toronto’s One Zone best in the world? [ Reading Toronto ]
• Forest improvements for Taylor Park [ Donwatcher ]
7 comments
Related to the street cameras articles:
The Toronto Police Service will be doing community consultations on installing CCTV surveillance cameras in various communities over the next three weeks.
These consultations seem to be the most poorly advertised public meetings in the history of public meetings (the cynic in me says that can’t be a mistake) so just in case you’re interested in having your voice heard, here are the specifics:
February 1, 2007
West Toronto High School
330 Lansdowne Avenue
7 p.m. – 9 p.m.
February 5, 2007
York Civic Centre
2700 Eglinton Avenue West
7 p.m. – 9 p.m.
February 7, 2007
Scarborough Civic Centre
150 Borough Drive
Council Chambers
7 p.m. – 9 p.m.
February 8, 2007
Delta Chelsea Hotel
33 Gerrard Street West
Rossetti Room, 3rd Floor
7 p.m. – 9 p.m.
(Co-hosted by the Downtown-Yonge BIA)
February 13, 2007
Etobicoke Civic Centre
399 The West Mall
Main Boardroom
7 p.m. – 9 p.m.
February 14, 2007
Marc Garneau Secondary School
135 Overlea Boulevard
7 p.m. – 9 p.m.
February 15, 2007
Toronto City Hall
100 Queen Street West
Council Chambers
7 p.m. – 9 p.m.
(To focus on the Entertainment District)
February 20, 2007
St Mary’s Secondary School
66 Dufferin Park Avenue
7 p.m. – 9 p.m.
The Toronto Public Space Committee has taken on a campaign opposing surveillance cameras in public spaces. If you want to get involved you can contact Dan Quinn at dan@publicspace.ca.
Do the police really want feedback on the cameras, or are they just pretending?
The TTC is clean to me. The streetcars get muddy in the winter and people seem to litter more on buses (any explanation for those “litter here” stickers + holes? are there supposed to be trash cans there? or does it just make it easier if all the loose garbage is in one place?)
We should set up a GO strike couchsurfing network.
Regarding cameras, the TPSC has issued the following press release on this matter and we will have representation at the number of the meetings mentioned above. We encourage all those interested in fighting these things to come out and take part in your democracy.
– – –
CCTV On Yonge Whether We Like It Or Not?
“Toronto’s democracy is worth more than $150,000” say public space advocates.
Yesterday the Downtown Yonge BIA met with city officials and police concerning the $2 million dollar CCTV experiment on Yonge north of Dundas. During the meeting, the BIA offered to pay $150 000 for the cameras and in so doing, effectively got involved in the delivery of public works in Toronto. Public works have traditionally been delivered in a democratic fashion, open and accessible to all. This is why we have elected city councils, public consultations, public budgets and a police force overseen by a civilian board. BIAs are not responsible to the public, rather they act based upon their own private interests. Handing over such important public infrastructure to BIAs will only result in their having undue influence in what should be a public matter and serve to further fracture the city along income lines.
In what could have been an inclusive public meeting, the BIA chose to discuss the project in the mid-afternoon while virtually everyone affected by the cameras was at work, unable to voice their concerns.
Those who would have liked to have their voices represented at the meeting would have found it difficult to even know the meeting was taking place, let alone find time to actually attend. The Toronto Public Space Committee (TPSC) finds itself among the public in this situation, left out of the process, uninvited as it would seem.
The TPSC would like to see more transparency with regard to these proceedings and can only conclude that if this sort of exclusionary behaviour is evident so early in the process, “transparency” is unlikely to rank very high as the BIA attempt to roll out new permanent cameras this summer.
Around the world, hundreds of bipartisan studies have been done on the usefulness of cameras, and in nearly every case, the results are the same: CCTV is expensive and it doesn’t work. Even in the camera-saturated United Kingdom, evidence points to the fact that police cameras have been wholly unsuccessful in deterring or preventing crime.
The Toronto Public Space Committee is dedicated to celebrating our shared common spaces, and protecting them from political erosion, commercial influence and privatisation. For more information please contact:
Daniel Quinn
Cameras Campaign Coordinator
dan@publicspace.ca
Angie Boddy
Media Coordinator
ange@publicspace.ca
Here are press releases regarding two of the Street Furniture bids:
Astral Media
http://www.cnw.ca/en/releases/archive/January2007/31/c3368.html
Clear Channel
http://www.cnw.ca/en/releases/archive/January2007/31/c3235.html
I have to disagree with the person that said the TTC is clean. Every time I’m on a subway it’s filthy with litter and strewn Metro News newspapers. The stations are grimy and the escalators are often not working, there are holes in the ceilings that have water leaks so that they’ve got caution signs with pylons to surround the puddles… it seems like somewhere between 1999 when I left Toronto and 2002 when i came back, the system just cracked. It’s a shame. The NYC subways and stations are now often much cleaner than Toronto’s.
Kevin, considering that the TPS has run a strong public campaign in partnership with the BIAs in favour of surveillance cameras I have to think this is the quintessential dog and pony show.
However, for what it’s worth, David Miller was on CityTV saying that he’ll only allow cameras into communities that want them. So if we make a big enough stink there’s a chance to overcome the camera-happy cops.
Also, just so there’s no confusion, these meetings had been almost impossible to pin down. I only got ahold of the list of dates/locations because a sympathetic city hall staffer was unimpressed that their councillor heard of these meetings less than 48 hours ago.
Though I didn’t expect a whole lot from Toronto’s finest vis-a-vis engagement, according to reports produced by the police, public consultation is supposed to be the corner stone of the TPS surveillance camera installation process.
Maybe I just didn’t get the joke?
I attended one of the police “public meetings” and it was a JOKE. The police want to create a police state in toronto that is clear. They dont care what the public think about it.