What the other 9/10ths thinks

Toronto still terrific - "Toronto is funky, tolerant, multicultural, young, with an artistic sensibility and an inherent dignity. It's not New York. It's not Chicago. It's more earnest, more harmonious." [Philadelphia Inquirer]

Funny, isn't it, reading what an outsider has to say about the city where you live? This article highlights 10 general categories of stuff-to-do in the city this summer that make the travel, currency, and border hassles worthwhile for US-ian tourists.

Sometimes a travel writer's enthusiasm boggles the mind, though. For example: "Families will have a blast taking the fast, on-time subway through town". What on earth does that mean? An "on-time" subway? Has Toronto such a beast? Our subway are scheduled to run "every x minutes" - with x being a function of time of day and day of week - with the only fixed times being the first and last train of the day. I think even giant TTC transit nerds like myself would have a hard time saying to themselves, "boy, that subway sure was on-time".

Another good one: "Taxis are plentiful and inexpensive". I guess Einstein was right... it's all relative.

Thief stabs ticket taker, burns TTC booth - "A man with a dark hood over his head and a scarf covering his face approached the booth [at Lawrence West station] and doused it with a cup of gasoline, demanding the employee open the door. Fearing for his life, the collector opened the door and allowed the attacker inside the booth, police said." [Toronto Star]

TTC's "36th Annual Bus and Maintenance Roadeo"

How Tough is it to Drive a Bus? Now it's Your Turn to Find Out - "The Bus Roadeo competition takes place this coming Sunday over an obstacle course that is designed to challenge the most skilled urban bus driver. TTC drivers qualify during run-offs at the divisional level, and compete for top honours... The winner [will] compete at the North American championships, which will be held by the American Public Transportation Association next year in Austin, Texas." [PR @ CCN Matthews]

Oh, and before you get as worked up as I did about it being "your turn to find out", be advised that the headline is addressed to the newsroom and/or transit beat journalist-types who actually read these press releases.

Ruffians to annoying kids listening to music on the TTC: use headphones, or get yourself stabbed. [CBC]

Adequately rewarding selflessness

`It was instinct,' subway hero says - "After risking his life by jumping into the tracks at the Sheppard subway station to save a blind man who had fallen in, friends and neighbours gave Osman Hersi the nickname Hero. It's a moniker that's sure to follow him all the way to Rideau Hall, where he will be given the Medal of Bravery by Governor General Michaëlle Jean in a ceremony later this year." [Toronto Star]

The article also notes that the TTC boosted Hirsi's initial reward -- one free metropass -- to a full year of gratis rides after a torrent of public complaints.

I think it should have been a special lifetime metropass. If 19-year old Hirsi lives to be 100, such a reward might represent a value of around $100,000* in 2007 dollars, but would cost the TTC virtually nothing given the insignificant marginal cost of a single rider. Even administration costs would be miniscule: just add one name to the MDP mailing list in perpetuity.

* ~$100/month * 12 months * 81 years = ~$97,200

Tear out the Sheppard subway!

I've been pondering the implications of the so-called Transit City LRT plan for Toronto (which has been discussed in passionate and speculative detail over at Spacing).

An LRT is to run westward along Sheppard to Don Mills station, which is great; however, travelling this direction past Yonge will then mean a transfer from the LRT to the subway at Don Mills, then to a bus at Yonge.

It is well-known that the Sheppard stubway, while convenient for a limited range of commutes, loses a great deal of money every year. If the LRT is added, it may being seem like an inconvenience.

My outlandish proposal: rip out the subway tracks and run the LRT underground from Don Mills to Yonge. Eventually, the LRT could hit the surface around Wellbeck (doesn't the Sheppard tunnel already run a certain distance past Yonge?), and head all the way out to Weston with connects at Bathurst, Downsview station, Keele, and the proposed Jane LRT.

Swapping subway for LRT along Sheppard shold cost considerably less than digging a new LRT tunnel (as is planned on Eglinton), requiring only new tracks and some station modifications to raise low-floor LRT doors up to meet the platform. The subway cars used on the Sheppard line are interchangable with the rest, and so they won't go to waste.

Will it cost less to operate an underground portion of an LRT line than the current Sheppard subway? Have heavy-to-light underground rail retrofits been sucessfully accomplished elsewhere? I have no idea, but a great deal of transfer hassle would be saved at Don Mills, and a single-trip, transfer-free LRT run from the east through to Weston would make a lot of sense.

Things that should not be

A couple of exceedingly minor municipal issues have been bothering me lately, but I haven't had time to lay them out clearly here. I know these may seem a little petty, but I think both are relatively significant in terms of civic propriety. In both cases, I feel like a doofus for being annoyed, but each does seem like the kind of thing that shouldn't be happening.

Toronto EMS / Support Our Troops - When I first noticed a big yellow ribbon decal on an ambulance, I presumed it was a one-off show of patriotism by a particular EMS crew. Apparently not, as I have not seen a single ambulance or EMS SUV without a yellow ribbon for some time now. This should not be permitted. These ambulances are municipal vehicles -- just like fire trucks or police cruisers -- and allowing them to sport stickers that push a divisive political message is totally inappropriate. Despite the slogan's overt neutrality, 'Support Our Troops' in the current context is code for 'do not criticize the Afghanistan mission'. I thought about contacting Toronto EMS, but I don't want to be a jerk about it.

TTC / Request Stop Program - This service, whereby TTC riders can ask drivers to let them off buses in-between official stops at night, is explicitly offered exclusively to women. Posters throughout the TTC and audio announcements in subway stations all specifically indicate that this service is for women only (in this poster [PDF] the word 'women' even appears in a different typeface for emphasis). I can understand the motivation, and I would allow that women might feel less safe than men in the city at night, but how could a program like this make it through the planning stages without setting off gender discrimination flags? Presumably most drivers wouldn't refuse to stop for a man (or male children), but would the program really suffer from advertising to men and women alike? The only rationale I can think of is to limit the program to addressing sexual assault, rather than robbery. In any case, this is a potentially beneficial city service that needn't be, and yet is, offered in a discriminatory fashion. Promoting this service for men would not make it less effective for or useful to women.

TTC Driver Hurt As Brick Smashes Through Windshield - "The thrown projectile smashed the front window as the operator was driving along Sheppard, between Keele and Dufferin, at about 5:30am." [CityNews via BlogTO, also 680 News]

TTC to consider streetcar purchase - "New 'low-floor' streetcars, accessible to the disabled, quieter and bigger than the regular-sized vehicles in the current fleet -- now nearing 30 years old -- have long been on the TTC wish list, especially as it looks to build more streetcar routes... Whatever the TTC buys, the car will have to be modified to handle the Toronto system's steep Bathurst Street hill, various tight turns and the TTC's wider tracks." [Globe and Mail]

TTC bus schedules on yer phone

Pull up Gottc.ca in your cell phone's browser to snag bus schedules in a stripped-down, low-bandwidth (i.e. high-cheapness), fancy-pants way. Reading schedules from bus stop poles is for chumps! [via Torontoist]

TTC driver faked bus hijacking? [Toronto Star]

RIP, Walk left/stand right: "Removing the signs won't discourage walking on escalators, because they never encouraged it in the first place. Instead, the signs, simple and crude as they were, promoted order and kindness over chaos and confusion." [Torontoist]

• Geni is a swank flash-based, viral social geneology tool. [via TechCrunch]


• OpenMoko's neo1973 is like the iPhone, except Linux-based, open, a 'true' smartphone, and out in Februray for $350 USD [via Gizmodo]


• Radiant Core's deep critique of the TTC's web ish [via Spacing]

• "Canadian coins containing tiny transmitters have mysteriously turned up in the pockets of at least three American contractors who visited Canada, says a branch of the U.S. Defence Department." [Toronto Star]


• Turning video billboards into public art [Spacing]


• Pogue on the iPhone [New York Times]


• TTC faces driver dilemma as ridership rockets - Because of "a growth rate nearly twice the typical rate of other transit systems across North America... officials estimate they will require at least 700 trainees to meet their [~560 bus driver] hiring needs" this year. [CBC]

• Best. TTC. Google. Map. EVER. [via Torontoist]


• Money talks: folklore in the public sphere - "This article examines 'currency chains' - messages and petitions written on paper money - as folkloric expressions and rhetorical acts that critique or commend dominant American public discourse." [via MeFi]


• Judith Regan Is Fired After O. J. Simpson Book [New York Times]

Tunnel repairs to force rare Toronto subway detour [Globe and Mail]

• Rentometer says our rent is below average for comparable apartments in the area. If only vacant units in the same building weren't going for less! [via Torontoist]


• "Moments after the nine-member commission elected him to the post yesterday... Councillor [Adam] Giambrone, 29, the youngest TTC head in recent memory, assumed control of one of the city's weightiest files." [Toronto Star]


• Microsoft's Live Search Books, which indexes Internet Archive texts, is now out in beta. It's fun. [CNet]

Toronto Star roundup: now with italics!

• That makes two eerily similar sexual assaults within a few hundred meters of my building. [Toronto Star]


• Streetcars will cost more later: TTC - If only the headline read 'Refurbishing streetcars...' it might have made sense. Actual story: $228m to refurbish 'em vs. $809m to replace 'em. [Toronto Star]


• Here's how my man C.Hume rolls: "There's no point in looking to Prime Minister Stephen Harper for leadership, or to Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty; both are old-style political careerists who see power as an end not a means. They are irresponsible men without vision who will leave the country and the planet a greater mess than when they were elected." [Toronto Star]

• TTC should look to private partners, Flaherty suggests [National Post via BlogTO]


• All-star panel chooses books for Canada Reads 2007 [CBC]

TTC to introduce two-colour token to combat counterfeits [Spacing]

Road tolls? Road tolls!

John Lorinc @ Spacing Wire:

[H]ere’s a third-way compromise: let’s deploy a transponder-based road toll on the two highways so the price per trip is calculated to generate 80% of the total amount required to operate these roads. That’s exactly equivalent to the proportion of the TTC’s annual operating budget which is covered by transit ticket revenues...

[read more]

• TTC ponders 24 hour subway service [Transit Toronto]


• "Simple Coffee has developed what they refer to as "Better Trade," a system that pays small farmers more than the Fair Trade price per pound on coffee, simply because it's the right thing to do." [Treehugger]

• TTC cars get the nod - "Councillor Mike Del Grande (Ward 39, Scarborough-Agincourt) accused fellow councillors of hypocrisy for insisting on made-in-Canada subway cars while buying foreign-built cars for personal use. 'Even the mayor drives a Prius, which is built in Japan,' he said." [Toronto Star]

The better way map

I threw a new-and-improved TTC subway map together today. If you have a spare moment, I'd appreciate it if you could try it, look for bugs and/or errors, and give me some feedback.

There's a great deal more information here than on the old version, of which the flashy (ha ha) custom icons are but a foretaste. Bus routes on all stations will eventually have their proper names (e.g. 36 Finch West rather than 36) and will be linked to individual route maps such as this. The layout of the page will also be improved once the map content is done.

If I hack away at it long enough, the ability to show or hide entire subway lines at will might work out, too. If that's out of reach, I'll have to be content with adding VIVA and GO stops to the mix.

• 'DVP Jesus' reappears by miracle of health act - "[W]ith everybody looking up from the Don Valley Parkway, she does create a traffic hazard, but under the Mental Health Act, apparently that's not a problem." [National Post]


• "The Quebec provincial police's anti-terrorism squad confirmed yesterday that a bomb destroyed the car of Mr. Montreuil, an oil-industry spokesman." [Globe and Mail]


• "CopyCamp is an event about art, copyright, and the Net" at Ryerson at then end of September. It's expensive, but they are looking for volunteers. [via bOINGbOING, also Torontoist]


• "TTC vice-chairman Adam Giambrone said this week the province is 'absolutely' screwing the city by changing the way it funds transit and dropping the Ontario Transit Vehicle Program... cost[ing] the transit system $331 million in funding." [Toronto Sun]


• Shim's AIDS bike-a-thon made Torontoist!


• Geoffrey Chaucer Hath a Blog [via Kottke]

• Woman becomes city's 40th traffic fatality - That's, what, 1 every 6 days or so? [Toronto Star]


• The Mongrel City - "In the UBC-Laurier Institution Multiculturalism Lecture, Leonie Sandercock, Professor of Urban Planning and Regional Policy at the University of British Columbia asks, is multiculturalism the solution or the problem?" [CBC Ideas Podcast]


• Is TTC's new merch joint lacklustre? [Torontoist]

• Dick Cheney strikes at Jane & Finch? [Toronto Star]


• Chicago mandates $10 living wage at big-box retailers [New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Washington Post]


• Bid to make TTC 'essential service' could cost city millions [AM 640]


• The Rob Ford problem - "Penny-pincher, name-caller, ward-heeler, right-wing raving lunatic -- if Rob Ford is as crazy as he seems, why do voters in Etobicoke like him so much?" [Eye Weekly]

• TTC moves customers toward kiosks [IT Business]

• "[I]t’s perfectly legal to cross the street wherever you want. There are only two legal restrictions: 1) you have to yield to motorized traffic, and 2) if you’re near a traffic control (lights, crosswalk, stop sign) you have to use it." [NOW via Spacing]


• How to survive a robot uprising "covers every possible doomsday scenario facing the newest endangered species: humans." [via Tech Nation]


• Lobbyist registry urged for TTC [Globe and Mail]


• Mumbai bombs aimed at India's well-off [NY Times]

Ia! Ia!

Ia! Ia!,
originally uploaded by onshi.

I, for one, salute our Giant Lake-squid Overlords (TM).

I was about to wonder if TTC cleaning staff would be kind and leave this bad boy up for posterity, but then it hit me: "TTC cleaning staff?"

69 stations update...

56 stations down and 13 to go with just 49 days left before time runs out.

I've completed the Sheppard and Yonge-University-Spadina lines, but still need to finish a few Bloor stops and the entire Scarborough RT.

Can I do it?

More importantly, how best to celebrate my triumph and/or tragic failure?

Tags: Subway, transfer, quest, TTC.

TTC Overload!

• Biodiesel, first tested in Sept. '04, now in all 1,700 TTC buses [News Release]


• Citing 'political interference', TTC head Ducharme resigns [Toronto Star, Globe and Mail]


• Globe's John Barber hits that TTC vice-chair (and councillor, and hardcore NDPer, and "fluent in French and Arabic") Giambrone's management backing (if not selling out the transit union per se) bodes well [Globe and Mail]


• Pepsi Access is being pimped using audio enabled posters on the subway? Neat. [A/D Goodness via Make: via BlogTO]

• Another TTC strike in the works for tomorrow? [AM640]


• Dates and times to check out the new subway mockup


• Shredding scissors [via bOINGbOING]

• "Mr. Volpe has received (leadership campaign) donations of $5,400 each from five current and former executives of Apotex Inc. and 15 of their relatives, including some who are under 18..." [Globe and Mail, CP]


• TTC giving $4 back to pass holders [680 News, TTC]


• Heat wave fuels coal debate [Toronto Star]

TTC strike news

That's the thing with illegal strikes... the no notice thing. Anyway:

• TTC Press Releases
  • TTC Service Stopped Due to Illegal Job Action
  • TTC: Labour Board Issues Cease and Desist Order
  • TTC Workers Ignoring Cease and Desist Order: 'Waiting to Hear from Kinnear'
  • TTC Strike Declared 'Unlawful' by Labour Board
  
  
• Toronto Star
  • Hope fades for p.m. restart
  • Photos: deserted stations, frustrated commuters
  • Wildcat strike possible today, Union says


• Globe and Mail
  • Labour dispute halts Toronto transit
  • TTC strike could cost Toronto economy [duh?]

Also: where did the extra 100k riders come from? At first, media were quoting the TTC's daily ridership as 700,000; by mid-day, the figure was boosted to 800,000. In this Globe article, Mayor Miller decries the inconvenience to "nearly 2 million Torontonians"; presumably, this refers to between 1.4 and 1.6 million rides, not riders...

• Subway fire at Finch station? [Toronto Fire Services]


• Petition + Stephen Lewis = Nobel Peace Prize? 19,140 signatures and counting...


• Plan your own Doors Open Toronto weekend with The Star's google map.


• Sheppard Ave. West (now sinkhole free!) to re-open today: 84ites rejoice! Oh, Jane & 7, too.[City of Toronto]


• UN to US: Close Gitmo [New York Times]


• US Senate proposes bigotry English be made national passtime language [Kansas City Star]


• Torontoist has begun a TTC quest of its own [69 stations]


• Paved rips Toronto Life a new one here.

New subway design?

The Star says that the TTC will run a contest to 'name' the new subway cars (here are some early, and 'interesting' ideas); meanwhile, Northern Ontario Business reports that talks between Bombardier and the TTC about actually building 'em are "intense", and quotes Commission Chair Howard Moscoe as saying "I don’t want to build my cars in a communist regime...I want to make my cars where it benefits Canadian workers."

Tags: Subway, TTC, Bombardier.

• Niiiiiiice.


• "This past Saturday, knitters of Toronto united for the second bi-annual TTC Knit-A-Long." [Toronto Star]


• "The Harper government is censoring hundreds of pages of official documents dealing with the resignation of David Dingwall as president of the Royal Canadian Mint, despite Conservative promises, made while in opposition, to expose the circumstances of the former Liberal minister's departure." [Globe and Mail]


• Homeless panel votes to oust Pitfield - "Dan Heap — a former Toronto councillor and MP — presented a motion of non-confidence in Pitfield's leadership of the committee, calling her [anti-panhandling] proposal 'a bylaw to oppress the poor.'"[Toronto Star]


• "Toronto's CC Salon is a monthly event focused on building a community of artists and developers around Creative Commons licenses, standards, and technology." [via BlogTO]

• New social housing or better youth programs, but not both? [Globe and Mail]


• Sheppard bus riders to Ellerslie Ave. whiners: screw you! [NOW via BlogTO]


• Conservatives to shrink immigration targets [CBC]


• Kennedy to (eventually) quit Queen's Park for Liberal leadship bid [The Star, Globe and Mail]


• "The [secondary school] graduation rate fell to 71 per cent in 2004 from 78 per cent in 1995, even though student test scores in Ontario rose compared to those in other provinces." [CBC]

• Torontoist wants to (re)name a street for Jane Jacobs, an interesting compliment to the brand-new Tommy Douglas Ave. Also duly noted: Hazel McCallion is Indestructible.


• CCPA's 2006 Alternative Federal Budget "demonstrates how the federal government has the resources to maintain and build on the commitments made in the 2004-05 minority Parliament and use upcoming surpluses to move forward on a progressive agenda."


• Snitches earn $50 for ratting out fellow students in pot protest [bOINGbOING, MeFi]


• The Gyrobike is "a gyroscopic flywheel that attaches to the front wheel and helps a bike steady itself whenever the rider loses his/her balance." [Engadget, Gizmodo]


• All I want for my birthday is a a Boon Flo [also Engadget]

East-West indeed

I wonder what it feels like, for a cluster of sari-wearing South Asian women strolling along the pedestrian tunnel between the North-South and East-West platforms of Spadina station, to encounter an Asian dude playing Sitar through some serious effects pedals (surrounded by a cluster of gangsta-looking white kids)?

By the looks on their faces, mighty amusing.

In any case, it was much more iPauseworthy than your standard subway musicians:

While most of the auditioning entertainers are guitarists, the list of instruments played at the auditions has included the balalaika, violin, kalimba (thumb piano), cello, saxophone, mandolin, cimbalon, dizi (Chinese Flute) pan flute, banjo, dijerridoo, bassoon, hurdy-gurdy and steel pans.

Tags: Sitar, TTC, busking.

TTC to get 150 hybrid buses

"The TTC will welcome a much-anticipated addition to its fleet of surface vehicles on Thursday, April 20th, with the arrival of the first Orion VII Low-Floor Hybrid bus. Member of Parliament Mike Wallace, Ontario Transportation Minister Harinder Takhar, Ontario Environment Minister Laurel Broten, and Toronto Mayor David Miller, representing the three levels of government that provided the $112 million funding for this 150-bus purchase, and TTC Chair Howard Moscoe will all be on hand to welcome the first environmentally friendly hybrid bus, the first hybrid bus fleet in service in Canada..."

[Press release | York Guardian article | Photo stolen from here]

Speaking of bikers

Larissa and I share a transferable Metropass, but she uses it to commute to Humber most weekdays. When I have daytime errands to run (which is often) I feel like a chump paying token/ticket fares or waiting until the pass is free in the evenings (but many stores are closed and bus service is less frequent).

My initial plan was to resurrect my old mountain bike (stored at the familial home) but it's in a poor state of repair and lacks easily removable parts to thwart thieves.

The Tire has man-sized rides from $99, but models with quick-release seatposts and front wheels start closer to $200.

Option two: score a used ride downtown, and haul it North via TTC. Only a few TTC bus routes have been equipped with racks in a trial-run (OC Transpo rolled out their rack program long ago), though bikes are allowed on busses, streetcars, and subways after 6:30pm so long as there's room (rare, I think, before 8:00pm).

While pondering a course of action, I stumbled upon this eBay seller peddling (ha!) reasonably priced folding bikes from an industrial park in Scarberia. They're easy to take on the bus when folded, and would store easily on our apartment's small balcony.

What to do?

Tags: Bicycle, cycling, folding bicycle.

• Off-the-rack not an option for new TTC streetcars [Toronto Star, Spacing]


• Zoetrope tunnel vision subwawy ads? [Toronto Star, Spacing]

• Subway to York is 10 years off, says TTC chair [CBC]


• "Various Canadian libraries have joined the Internet Archive to scan various collections of books as part of a high volume book scanning pilot project. Custom scanning equipment and open source software has been developed by the Internet Archive to support the needs of the partner libraries and their collections. This is being hosted at the University of Toronto." [Archive.org]

• TTC + Google = Sweet (eventually?) [Toronto Star, CTV]

• NOW says BENCHmark is neat, and I agree [via Spacing]


• Headed out cycling along Bloor? Take the Tooker (yes, that Tooker). [via Torontoist]


• Home-made book scanner (mostly) built from junk - "The lesson of this story is that LEGO is great." [via Gizmodo]


• Stage actor sees similarities playing both Gollum and former NDP leader [Canada.com]


• CD Howe report calls for per-student funding, deregulated tution, vouchers, end of PSE as we know it [PDF]


• Court gives TTC St. Clair green light - "The judges ruled yesterday that the project should be allowed under the new planning rules, which were ordered into effect in late January by the Ontario Municipal Board, not the long-dated Metroplan in place when the project was born." [Globe and Mail]

• Recall David Emerson?


• Hang the MC: Blaming Hip-hop for Violence - "Here in the Ricoh Coliseum — a soulless, converted hockey rink near Lake Ontario — for tonight only, violence is fantasy, belligerence a business plan." [CBC]


• Songbird vs. iTunes - fight! [via bOINGbOING]


• Spacing has good linkage on the now-certain TTC fare hike.

I made this!

Sure, it's not super accurate. Yeah, I haven't added as much detailed information as I ought to. I know, I should have used for loops instead of just manually coding all of the stations. I'm no CompSci major, after all.

But here's my TTC subway/RT station google map thingum anyway.

It has markers for all of the Yonge-University-Spadina, Bloor-Danforth, and Sheppard subway lines, plus the Scarborough RT line and the 'proposed' stations extending to the north-west of Downsview.

Clicking on any station brings up a small version of the TTC's schedule for that station; clicking on the small version brings up a full-size version.

What else should I add? Bus and streetcar routes would be fun, but I suspect I don't have the skills or patience. Maybe just working on precision for the pointers, or adding wee little TTC logos to mark the entrances for each station...

Tags: Google maps, TTC, Mashup, Beta.

• TTC 'sardine experience' looms - "In rush hour, the TTC considers a bus full when 52 to 57 passengers are aboard. The number is 75 for a streetcar, 108 for a longer articulated streetcar and a six-car subway train is meant to carry 1,000 people." [Globe and Mail]


• Tory! Tory! Tory! - a roundup of US bloggers' reaction to the Canadian election [Slate]


• Natural Food, Unnatural Prices - "Half of the zip codes with Whole Foods stores lie above $72,000 in average income. A fourth of them exceed $100,000." [AlterNet]


• Colbert vs. The Onion [The Onion AV Club]


• "How should I organize my library?" [Ask MeFi]

• Harper win = TTC fake hike? [via Spacing]

• If the Spadina subway extension is built like so (before I turn 65), I could almost consider not moving closer to the city centre. Specifically, the new Finch West station proposal [pdf] makes me uber happy. [TTC]

• "TTC approves subway to York, but money still an issue" [York University]


• "Willing to participate: Political engagement of young adults" [Statistics Canada]

• All the cool political junkies kids are signing up for the CPAC/SES Research daily tracking poll.


• Howard Moscoe suggests the City impose a $5-per-car 'TTC Tax' to fund public transit.


• Check out the CBCs rundown on notable new and not-running politicos.

• TTC to hold public consultations on York U subway extension on October 6.


• Did Pepsi augment its initial Katrina response by dumping Kayne West? Nope.


• Tornto Hydro is offering 2 free compact fluorescent light bulbs to every household through The Home Depot's dozen T.dot stores.


• Women Have To Stop Starving Themselves Past The Point Of Hotness [The Onion]


• Crime and the Social Reactionaries [via My Blahg]

• The Columbia Journalism Review wonders, "How much of the dead and dying can we -- or should we -- show on television? (Our own dead, that is; we don't seem to have the same problem with Iraqi corpses.)" [via Wonkette]


• demockratees are agitpropalicious, no-sweat, witty and score high on the zing-o-meter


• Toronto City Council votes down TTC in-train subway "info" (i.e. ad) screens [via Spacing Wire]


• The leggero shopper is both a bicycle trailer that converts into a shopping cart (and back again) and way, way too expensive [via Treehugger]


• How much would a condo the size of my apartment cost? Yes, it's downtown, but yow.

• "REALLY BIG NEWS" from the TTC: the metropass is now transferrable, meaning you can borrow mine if you ask nicely. There will also be a new, transferrable weekly pass.


• York's Keele Campus has 40 places to eat, but are any of them affordable? According to Eye, Absinthe Coffee Shop & Pub is tops (though its site is wildly anacrhonistic).


• "People who lie for a living should not be the voice of an academic institution devoted to the truth." [Prof. David Noble, quoted in Excalibur]

• TTC subway rider efficiency guide prints on one double-sided 8.5"x11" sheet and becomes a tiny, convenient reference to which cars line up with the escalators and elevators at each station. [Spacing Wire]


• Transit Toronto is also pretty damn cool.


• "[I]n 2001, the most common collective bargaining provisions, or those appearing in over 80% of settlements, were occupational health and safety, and job security [while] cost-of-living clauses were least common, appearing in only 43% of settlements." [Statistics Canada]

And, apropos of nothing:

There is only one correction which history has made in Marx's concept of alienation; Marx believed that the working class was the most alienated class, hence that the emancipation from alienation would necessarily start with the liberation of the working class. Marx did not foresee the extent to which alienation was to become the fate of the vast majority of people, especially of the ever-increasing segment of the population which manipulate symbols and men, rather than machines. If anything, the clerk, the salesman, the executive, are even more alienated today than the skilled manual worker. The latter's functioning still depends on the expression of certain personal qualities like skill, reliability, etc., and he is not forced to sell his "personality," his smile, his opinions in the bargain; the symbol manipulators are hired not only for their skill, but for all those personality qualities which make them "attractive personality packages," easy to handle and manipulate. They are the true "organization men" -- more so than the skilled laborer -- their idol being the corporation. But as far as consumption is concerned, there is no difference between manual workers and the members of the bureaucracy. They all crave for things, new things, to have and to use. They are the passive recipients, the consumers, chained and weakened by the very things which satisfy their synthetic needs. They are not related to the world productively, grasping it in its full reality and in this process becoming one with it; they worship things, the machines which produce the things -- and in this alienated world they feel as strangers and quite alone.

Erich Fromm, Marx's Concept of Man (1961).