February 19, 2012 Michelle Berardinetti is the city councillor for ward 35 Scarborough-Southwest and on Newstalk 1010’s The City with Josh Matlow she proposed letting Torontonians settle the transit debate. Berardinetti says there’s an old way of settling debates that doesn’t happen very often anymore, “back in the day they used to put a referendum [...]
February 16, 2012 Preserving Toronto’s past is complicated business. Current example: the planned conversion of a historic church into a condominium, which raises issues about heritage preservation, adaptive reuse, and community intervention. Preserve the full building? Adapt it, with pieces missing? And how much say should neighbours get? Such questions surround the development proposed for [...]
January 2012 Height and shadowing concerns loom large south of St. Clair A 13-storey building proposed at the old CHUM building on Yonge Street, a few blocks south of St. Clair Avenue, is facing strong opposition from locals. The application provides for 214 residential units, four ground floor retail units and 184 parking [...]
Please see this map from national transit blog The Transport Politic that shows, after governments have left us decades behind, we're finally making progress building a mix of new rapid transit lines. Read this page for a thoughtful article, and comment discussion, on Toronto's transit debate seen through the eyes of the third person.
February 8, 2012 A fierce battle for Toronto’s transit direction reached a dramatic climax on Wednesday, with city council endorsing a light rail vision championed by the TTC chairwoman — and a defeated Mayor Rob Ford dismissing the vote as irrelevant. By a margin of 25 to 18, council rejected the Mayor’s tunnel-only [...]
February 8, 2012 Toronto Mayor Rob Ford has called his council’s tumultuous debate on the future of the city’s transit “irrelevant” after it dealt him a major defeat on Wednesday, voting down his vision to put new light-rail lines underground. “Technically speaking, that whole meeting was irrelevant,” Ford told reporters Wednesday, shortly after [...]
February 8, 2012 Toronto Council’s debate on the future of Transit City got underway Wednesday morning as the special council meeting received thousands of petitions from across the city in favour of the light rail plan. The meeting, which was called by 24 councillors led by TTC Chair Karen Stintz, seeks to change the [...]
February 7, 2012 Consider it a welcome declaration of independence. Toronto’s residents, urban planners and elected councillors will have a lot more say over neighbourhood development if this city succeeds in freeing itself from a century-old oppressor. No, the bully Toronto wants to escape isn’t some local Scut Farkus (“He had yellow eyes!”) It’s the [...]
February 7, 2012 Motorists should be dinged $150 for parking on busy streets in rush hour, or blocking a bicycle lane any time, city council decided. The city must now seek court approval before it can increase the fine from the current $60 for parking during rush hour — 6 a.m. to 10 [...]
