CITY HALL
• Citing security, city cuts trees in park [ CBC.ca ]
• Crombie to ask trustees for summer pool solutions [ National Post ]
• City delays action on plan to buy more local food [ Toronto Star ]
TOURISM
• Winning poster celebrates ‘the best city in the world’ [ Toronto Star ]
• Comedian appointed T.O. tourism ambassador [ Toronto Star ]
• Funnyman Peters to talk up Toronto [ Globe and Mail ]
• Ambassador turns T.O. into a joke [ Toronto Sun ]
TTC
• Accessibility means more access to cash [ Toronto Sun ]
• TTC hybrid bus batteries losing their power [ Globe and Mail ]
• $100M more to keep TTC wheels turning [ Toronto Sun ]
INDY
• A lap closer to return of T.O. Indy [ Globe and Mail ]
• Toronto Indy event will return in 2009 [ CBC.ca ]
ARCHITECTURE
• Buildings designed to feed life into the city [ Globe and Mail ]
• Toronto to attract 25,000 architects to convention [ National Post
• How waterfront dream became a misty memory [ Toronto Star ]
13 comments
I love Russell Peters. That said.. jeeze. The guy’s humour is all about race. Unless he’s toning it down for the city, don’t they think that some oversensitive outsider (as in, a tourist, a non-Torontonian) isn’t going to get it and get all worked up over it?
Why doesn’t that Indy undergo an Environmental Assessment?
Russell Peters is a really out of the box idea for Tourism Toronto and I think its great. People getting worked up about Toronto would be a nice change. In many ways Peters is more popular outside of Canada and I think he will reach new audiences and even Canadians turned on about Toronto again.
THe newer TTC buses are the among the most uncomfortable public transit buses I have ever been on. I walk or take a street car any time to avoid them.
“The other solutions were increased patrols  and the police tried that. It wasn’t working. But people in the community were very strongly in favour of safety for the community. When you think about it, our children are not replaceable, trees are,” said Jenkins.
Nice work, Jenkins. Chops trees, bring up a save-the-children cliche. Residents up there need to organize and get angry about this kind of thing (looks like they are). Hell-to-pay if it happened downtown.
Why doesn’t that Indy undergo an Environmental Assessment?
Why doesn’t Pride undergo an Environmental Assessment?
Why doesn’t Caribana undergo an Environmental Assessment?
Why doesn’t the EX undergo an Environmental Assessment?
Why doesn’t hamish undergo an (…) Assessment?
“Why doesn’t that Indy undergo an Environmental Assessment?”
I TOTALLY agree… I am so sick of car-centric people and policies in Toronto!
It isn’t enough we get bombarded by stunt-racing car commercials that promise nirvana if only you buy the newest pollution machine… we in T.O. have to breathe gas fumes and worship the Indy, cause after all, it’s all about the tourists….
Regarding the cutting down of trees to make a park safe. Now that’s an idea! Let’s think big here! I hear High Park is unsafe in places (beer drinking!) so here’s the solution folks; cut down every tree in High Park. Then we’ll have the safest park in Canada! Hey, we can even promote it to tourists: Come to Toronto and see the safest park ever! They’re come by the thousands just to see it!
What really gets me is that, because the Indy is such a money-loser, the province would be ponying up a cool million every year, and another half a million from the city. Fantastic! My tax money is being used to subsidize a horribly noisy smog-a-thon, just because a bunch of tourists lack anything better to do with their time.
As a teenager if you cant drink and smoke in the park then what’s the point of being a teenager? Bayview Village Park, thanks for the memories.
I seriously cannot understand how people are trying to play the environment card here. There are 27 cars that will use at most 50 gallons of 100% ethanol fuel. So that means they will burn at most 1,350 gallons of fuel. From ethanol. In Toronto.
Toronto residents burn that amount of fuel in a few minutes. Come on people!
As for the financial argument, if the province + city put in $1.5 million (which is most likely entirely just in breaks on rental/licensing/etc. fees) and the city on the whole gets back $50 million, that sounds like a pretty sweet deal to me.
Not everything that people enjoy is bad you know. Some things that are fun are actually…wait for it…good.
So I was thinking some more about my “Toronto residents burn that amount of fuel in a few minutes” statement, and realized that I was being WAY too generous.
Even if you assume 100% of the fuel burned by these race cars is emitted as greenhouse gases, given that the average Canadian produces 23 tonnes a year in greenhouse gases, and given that there are 5,555,912 people in the GTA (as of 2006), that means that on race day, these cars emit 0.0000019280% of the day’s greenhouse gases, or 0.17 seconds worth (that’s less than a second).
So really my statement should have said “Toronto residents burn that amount of fuel in less than 0.17 seconds”.
My point is simply that arguing against 27 cars running on 100% ethanol fuel for a couple of hours based on nvironmental concerns is a pretty bogus argument.
“nvironmental concerns is a pretty bogus argument.”
what about NOISE pollution?
what about the diversion caused to normal traffic?
what about that diverted traffic smog going to residential areas?
what about promoting speeding, car culture, etc?
what about just hating anything promoting car-centric lunacy?
not every argument can be determined by a slide-rule challenge…