Politics
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PODCAST: Spacing Radio 056, Rail Deck Park and best laid (official) plans
This episode is all about plans: big and small, successful and dashed. First, Toronto Star city hall reporter Jennifer Pagliaro takes us through the story...
By Spacing Radio -
LORINC: The cautionary tale of Rail Deck Park
If Toronto’s Rail Deck Park plan ended up dying in a dense thicket of legalistic land-use planning arguments, it would be fair to say that the idea...
By John Lorinc -
PODCAST: Spacing Radio 055, Post-Pandemic Transit Ridership
Before the pandemic, the Toronto Transit Commission was actively looking for ways to grow its ridership. Now, after taking a hit in numbers during the...
By Spacing Radio -
LORINC: Is the new federal budget green or red?
After the federal Liberals’ $10/day childcare pledge, there’s no doubt that climate spending was the other big political bell-ringer in Monday’s $100...
By John Lorinc -
LORINC: Joe Biden’s unexpected role in the future of Canadian cities
Is anyone north of the 49th parallel paying attention to the minutiae of the monster stimulus bills coming out of the White House? Of course not. Despite...
By John Lorinc -
LORINC: The case for way more electric buses
Two numbers, and a thought experiment. Exhibit A: According to the City’s latest estimates, the cost of the Eglinton East LRT (Kennedy to Malvern) has now...
By John Lorinc -
LORINC: The vital need to renew Tower Renewal
Almost exactly a year ago, a team of American affordable housing experts from the Urban Land Institute came to Toronto to offer up ideas for breaking the...
By John Lorinc -
LORINC: Some borders matter more than others in pandemic
A small procedural question, perhaps for the Ford government. Should we be expecting to see check-points erected on Highway 400 south of 7, or the QEW...
By John Lorinc -
LORINC: Welcome to the City’s policy-by-surveillance
I enjoy the revelations of a muck-raking auditor-general’s report as much as the next red-blooded taxpayer, but I must confess a sense of unease about the...
By John Lorinc -
LORINC: Raising the stakes in the MZO wars
The judge who handed down a temporary injunction last week, halting the demolition of the historic Dominion Foundry in the West Donlands, was withering in...
By John Lorinc -
LORINC: A first-responder service for mental health crises
This column was originally published in Spacing‘s fall, 2020, edition. City council’s executive committee yesterday voted to recommend a $1.7...
By John Lorinc -
LORINC: Calculating the pandemic’s carbon footprint
Does your Blue Bin runneth over? On my morning dog walks, I’ve noticed in the past several months that a growing number of blue bins hauled to the curb...
By John Lorinc