Thursday’s headlines

8 comments

1. Its amazing how often in stories Metrolinx officials Like O’Mara and Pritchard make bold statements then don’t have or won’t reveal any information to back them up. I think they are making it up as they go along because it doesnt make much sense any other way. As many residents who have seen Metrolinx’s presentations their viewpoint on electrification seemed to change week by week as if they were looking for the magic PR bullet that would make it go away. One week it was technically not feasible, then it would cost “billions”, then it would “cost a lot but we dont know how much”, followed by “we need to study it”, followed by “we did study it but forgot to tell you that” followed by “Lets do yet another study”, followed by ” lets electrify an existing line”. For some unknown reason Metrolinx has developed a dirty diesel (and folks Tier 4 is still new pollution to an already smoggy city) addiction that common sense and reason cannot seem to shake. The more news stories you read, the less sense Metrolinx makes.

2. Let us hope the City’s media mouthpieces will not lecture us on the effect of a car park on the waterfront would be, considering how they incepted Ireland Park without proper public pedestrian access.

   That said, I would oppose an expanded car park at CYTZ because of the likely effect of Queens’ Quay traffic.

   A streetcar loop with service from Bathurst and Union would be sufficient (Bathurst/Ireland Quay is about 200m from the tracks at Queens Quay) and would integrate into the existing TTC routings as either a short turning 509/511 or a combined Bathurst-Union service. The loop could be built on the existing car park with a drop-off area, with a “long stay” car park to replace lost spaces built in what is currently Urban Forestry Services to serve both the airport, Little Norway and Ireland Parks and whatever is done on the Maltings land.

3. Mayor Miller says Joe Pantalone would make a good Mayor.

   That about says it all.

4. What Giambrone? How else will we bring barely-faster-than-bus transportation to all parts of the city all at once?

5. AR: shut it.

   By providing 120km of dedicated ROW for LRT to parts of the city that need it is a good idea. Constructing ROWs means that it will be impossible to remove transit from any of these corridors. Whereas, you can cancel a bus route in a day and not a trace of it will be left.

   I’m not the biggest fan of Giambrone, but your short-sighted jab at LRT is just silly. And petty.

6. A great comment on the Star’s article RE: airport parking:

   “So parking would increase from 200 to 600 parking spots based on an increase of traffic from 25,000 to 500,000 people? So we go from having 125x as many people as spots to 833x as many people.”

   And to achieve this, we demolish one of the rare industrial heritage buildings we have left in the city.

   It reminds me of Eddie Izzard

   “Oh, yeah. You tear your history down, man! 30 years old, let’s smash it to the floor and put a car park here! I have seen it in stories.”

7. “And to achieve this, we demolish one of the rare industrial heritage buildings we have left in the city. ”

   Oh for goodness sake. It’s going to be demolished whether a car park or a Taj Mahal knockoff is put there.

8. Right on Glen,

   I thought Kennedy’s comments were pretty funny. Liberals short change Toronto for generations and he wants to squack after Miller completely botched application for infrastructure money. Meanwhile Provincial Liberals support Building Trade Union monopoly on public tendering of Toronto building projects that costs the City $100’s of millions a year. Oh yah, I forgot the Building Trades support the Liberals.