Wednesday, January 29, 2003

More Mira-cle

The Sun has more on BABY MIRA’S MIRACLE RESCUE.

The moment Baby Mira entered the world, the countdown to her death began.

Born on the icy concrete at Nathan Phillips Square and left there to die, the little four-pound, four-ounce baby shouldn’t have survived.

The will to live is incredible, even when you’re premature and left unbundled in the cold.

Monday, January 27, 2003

Mira-cle

Baby Miracle on Queen St. is beating all the odds

Hug your kid a little tighter today.

Instead, they found a newborn baby girl, abandoned on the cold concrete under an overhanging stairway just steps from city hall on Queen St. W.

For every wanted kid born today, there must be two or three unwanted...what a miserable way to start out life.

Remind your kid he’s the most important person in your life - now!

Tuesday, January 21, 2003

Expressways

Slinger writes on how Toronto should bring back the expressway to help solve its traffic problems.  I couldn’t agree more!

It’s the old-fashioned, tried-and-true expressway. There aren’t enough of them. There are hardly any, when you get right down to it.
They went out of fashion because self-righteous, radical zealots believed the world was already big enough and didn’t want it to get any bigger. Not in their backyard, or in their front yard, or elevated over their houses.

Tuesday, January 14, 2003

Mel Quits

Mel quit today. Sad, really, mostly for the promise that his leadership held that wasn’t realized. 

The flamboyant former furniture salesman announced he won’t be running for mayor in the November municipal election, setting the stage for a heavyweight battle to succeed him.

It was really the illicit affair that sunk him, more so than the Hell’s Angel handshake or the African cooking in the pot comment.  It was so surprising, and so counter his solid family persona that it really made people reevaluate who he was.  It turns out the mayor could not make things happen, in what is undoubtedly a left wing shooting gallery.

Let’s hope Hall doesn’t win.

Saturday, January 11, 2003

Free energy

While the local media is trying to make an issue over the garbage being sent to Detroit, here’s a fact that I am surprised the “greens” have brought up lately.

The mounds of waste produce methane gas, which is converted into enough electricity to power about 6,200 homes.

We have the space - why we can’t do the same in the vast province is beyond me.  Incinerators can also generate energy. 

The province needs to solve this issue since no other level of government seems to have the power.  If we get a good company to set this up, it is sure to save money, time, and energy.

Friday, January 10, 2003

More Common Sense

Good to see the transportation committee has a few members that have common sense - TheStar.com - Gardiner spruce-up on the table.

Toronto should focus on sprucing up the Gardiner Expressway instead of on dismantling it, city council’s waterfront committee recommended yesterday.
The committee voted 7-2 to commission an environmental assessment that would look at retaining and improving the elevated structure. The one-year study will cost $1 million.

Wednesday, January 8, 2003

Gardiner Common Sense!

Review may bury plans for Gardiner

What’s this? A whiff at common sense at City Hall?  Amazing.

Plans are in the works to kill controversial efforts to bury the Gardiner Expressway, The Sun has learned.

The city’s waterfront reference group is poised tomorrow to reject a recommendation from Toronto bureaucrats to subject the Gardiner plan to a $20-million environmental assessment, according to sources.

Councillors will effectively put the brakes on the $1.7-billion plan to bury a portion of Gardiner once the environmental assessment is deep-sixed.

City council will have final say on the fate of the Gardiner.

The plan to take no action on the proposed study has the backing of Mayor Mel Lastman’s office, sources say.

Monday, January 6, 2003

Privatize the TTC

Hey, at least in NYC they talk about privatizing. 

Here in Toronto, the topic never even comes up.  They just look to the wallet at Queen’s Park and start bleating.

The ultimate goal should be to replicate what London—another world capital—has accomplished. Over 15 years, the city privatized its entire bus system, which now operates at about half the cost of when it was a public monopoly.

Same old Jack

Ah yes, good old Jack, they guy who lived in subsidized housing with his councilor wife (gross income over $130K), now seems to be angering his constituents by staying on the city payroll while he tries to win the NDP leadership.

Some socialists will never change.

Why did Layton not announce his leave of absence when he announced his candidacy for the NDP leadership on July 22, 2002?
Layton has enjoyed city paid benefits for a full five months. Clearly, he has taken the taxpayers of Toronto for granted.

Recycle Scam

While googling for an article on something else, I found this little gem on the recycling scam.  So don’t feel too bad when that extra can or newspaper gets dumped into the “real” garbage pile.

In 1997 Toronto taxpayers paid $1,500 per tonne to have their plastics collected and baled for recycling. The city received only $300 per tonne for these plastics. Although plastics made up two percent by weight of the total materials recycled, they cost 24 percent of Toronto’s, New Westminster’s, Surrey’s and Vancouver’s blue-box budget, little of which was recouped from the recycling process.

“It is only for reason of political correctness that we recycle plastic bottles,” says Crittenden. “Many people believe we would be better off using them as fuel in modern, clean-burning, waste-to-energy incinerators.” Right now the consumer and taxpayer pays for reducing costs to industrialists. Political correctness for the most part is invoked to protect a few certain vested interests.

Tuesday, December 31, 2002

Downtown Blues

Yet more proof that the socialist’s hands off approach to homelessness is not working in Toronto - beggars everywhere downtown.  When my wife and I dared venture from our suburban enclave to go see a play in the downtown area, our first greeting was at the parking ticket machine by a guy looking like the picture to the left, except with his hands out.  Because I am a tough headed conservative who refuses to pay the bum tax, I issued a stern “out of change” to the bum, who then retreated to his camp on the sidewalk. 

His camp was beside another’s camp, obstructing the wheelchair access to the sidewalk’s corner.

On our short walk to the theater, another homeless person ran by, screaming, apparently for no reason.

Clearly, this is not a safe environment for most visitors, and as such, they stay away.

It’s too bad we didn’t elect a premier who’d do something about it.

Toronto’s decay continues.

Friday, December 27, 2002

Great xmas light displays

One of the great things about xmas is the many light shows people put on their houses.  Around the GTA, we’ve found some great ones.  A house on Terryellen Cr. in Etobicoke has his lights hooked up to a computer - and his show goes on for 15 mins before it recycles.

Another house on Eyer Cr. in Pickering has one of the best Christmas displays in the east.

A house on Benjamin Boake Cr. in Downsview has a great display.  The paper wrote that this guy spends two weeks to build his display.

Any more good displays?  Leave a comment - and we’ll save them for next year!

Saturday, December 21, 2002

Garbage Talk

I’ve said this many times before: The Toronto Sun has some of the most lucent letter writers.  It’s too bad they don’t archive their site in any way...so I have to reprint the letter in its entirety. 

For those who don’t know, Toronto cannot seem to deal with its own garbage - and has wasted untold millions studying what to do with it.  Incinerators have been an overlooked option the whole time - for no good reason other than the powerful environazis.

AMAZING! WE spend $40 million of taxpayers’ money to dump garbage in Michigan - some 2.7 million tonnes per year, or 54,000 round-trip truckloads on Hwy 401. What’s the total bill? If the money we spend for garbage trucks and that given to Michigan was spent on electricity generating incinerators, we could generate enough electricity in the GTA to cover a great deal of our electrical requirements. Incinerators are used world wide. Instead of burying garbage, creating future water problems, beating up the roads, annoying our neighbour to the south, we could use the money to generate electricity, and be productive. Incredibly, we already have an incinerator in Peel that has been generating electricity for years and hardly anyone knows it’s there. A few years ago, we wasted another $100 million looking for a landfill south of Bolton. How much more will we waste? Where is our leadership? Tell me I’m missing something?

Blaine H. Mitton

Thursday, December 19, 2002

TO Traffic Gridlock

An article in the Star a few days ago went on to say how bad gridlock will be in the GTA soon. 

Without major changes, Greater Toronto’s dependence on the automobile will endure even as gridlock worsens, a consultant says.

That means much more time sitting in traffic, says a report by IBI Group.

Well, I dug up an article on Sam Cass’ Plan - a plan that would have saved most of the mess we’re in today. 

Sam Cass is a man with a plan—a vision crafted 36 years ago that would have kept traffic off city streets and running smoothly.
Ask him why we have gridlock now and he’ll give you three reasons: Bill Davis, Bill Davis and Bill Davis.

More subways to no where or billion dollar streetcar runs aren’t going to solve anything.

Friday, November 29, 2002

Missing link

Toronto finally approved the link to the island - for the third time. 

Let’s hope that the bridge actually gets built this time and we can actually have a decent, viable, and profitable airport.

Let’s not turn this expansion into another Spadina Expressway.

The mayor had said in his speech that expanding the airport would create 3,200 permanent jobs in Toronto, and trigger an order for 15 turboprop planes from Bombardier’s Downsview plant, which would restore the jobs of 1,200 laid-off workers.

But the bridge plan still faces hurdles. Allan Sparrow of Community Air, a coalition that has fought the proposal, said that “the bridge is not going to be built.”

Thursday, November 21, 2002

Color blind

Blatchford writes that the media is essentially playing fast and loose with people’s lives, since it wants to be politically correct in the reporting of suspects.

To my knowledge, no one argues seriously that the use of skin colour in these descriptions—invariably obtained from the victims of crime or the witnesses to them—is gratuitous, irrelevant or malevolent. Do newspapers and radio stations know better? Will they soon be conducting their own investigations of crime?

Today there is a story of a murder, and the suspects are described as:

Police are looking for three young men.

What kind of useless description is that?  Can we not have approximate weight, height, and perhaps race - so we know what the hell we are looking for?

Political correctness is killing us.

Saturday, October 26, 2002

Airport getting closer…

It’s good to see that the airport is getting closer to reality, despite all the anti-development nimbyists living at Harbourfront:Airport proposal takes off

A proposed expansion of the Island airport is a step closer to bridging the western gap.

Councillors on the city’s economic development and planning and transportation committees approved a plan to build a fixed- link bridge to the Toronto City Centre Airport following a marathon meeting early yesterday.

Now let’s see if the full city council has the guts to make this thing fly.

Tuesday, October 22, 2002

TTC idea bankrupt

Thank goodness for Sue Ann Levy...a great columnist, alone trying to battle the spendthrifts at city hall.  She wrote another (unlinkable) column on the fact the TTC wants to raise rates (again).

The bottom line is that the TTC does not want to contract out any of its work at all, including cleaning the busses. 

In exchange, TTC officials will put in place a paltry $3.7 million in cost savings (less than 1% of their proposed $918-million operating budget for 2003), although TTC GM Rick Ducharme says they’re trying to cur another $4 million.

Privatizing is not even being considered...

“I’m not surprised (by the fare hike),” says Brian Crow, president of the Ontario Motor Coach Association. “It appears the TTC has only one focus - how to get more revenue, not to save costs or enhance services.”

Crow’s attempts to convince the TTC to look at contracting out some bus routes have consistently fallen on deaf ears.

At least the general manager is interested in zone fares - which do make sense, especially when going a few miles downtown.  How about computerized fares?  How about swinging a deal with a computer company or bank to computerize the fare collection system?

“If any politician wants to bring back zone fares, I’ll stand behind him ... behind him,” he said, chiding me for writing “only half the story” in a recent column on Melbourne’s transit system, which was privatized in 1998.

Competition is a wonderful thing...too bad it doesn’t apply to city-run monopolies.

Saturday, October 19, 2002

Anti-car Toronto

One of my favorite Toronto columnists is Sue-Anne Levy.  She gets more irritated by month by the wing nuts that run our city.  Even though she lives downtown and mostly walks to work, she understands the hell motorists go through to navigate around anti-car Toronto.  Unfortunately, I cannot link to Sun articles as they don’t keep an archive.  So here’s her column.

On Tuesday afternoon, it took me a scant 90 minutes to breeze down from Gravenhurst to the outskirts of Toronto.

There, at the Hwy. 407 cutoff to Hwy. 400, I came to a dead stop - stuck in the overflow from vehicles vainly trying to exit west on a completely jammed Hwy. 401. Reaching the Allen Road 20 minutes later, I sat for 25 minutes inching my way from the Lawrence Ave. cutoff down to Eglinton Ave.

Total travel time for the 25-km trip from Hwy. 400 and the 407 to my downtown home: one hour.

Luckily, living downtown I rarely use my car for work. How people grind their way through such traffic day after day is beyond me. But it’s as if council’s car haters and their supporters in the left-wing press don’t want to know about the traffic jungle out there.

How many times have I heard councillors and their enviro-friendly hangers-on smugly chide Torontonians for not hoofing it, biking or taking public transit more? (Although according to a survey I did last year, very few of the city’s politicians actually practise what they preach.)

Perhaps their ulterior motive is to ram such a clutter of anti-car policies down people’s throats that they ultimately abandon their vehicles in utter defeat.

It’s not just the new, improved Official Plan, which recommends no new roads or road improvements but more streetcar lines, subways and bike lanes to handle an extra one million people over the next 30 years. (That plan goes before council at month’s end.)

Or the insane $3.3-billion plan to tear down the Gardiner Expressway, which is expected to resurface in a few weeks.

It’s the speed humps which are flourishing like fleas on every downtown street and bike lanes that narrow downtown streets, creating traffic problems that never existed before.

A series of such bike lanes just went in on Shuter and River streets, costing $160,000 for lane markings and signs. As for the humps, Stephen Benjamin, manager of traffic operations in District 1, told me yesterday 102 speed humps have been installed on 20 (mostly downtown) streets so far this year, costing roughly $200,000.

Another tender is about to go out for $240,000 worth of humps. Add that to the 206 streets already “calmed” with 1,000 hideous humps.

I’ve got news for Toronto’s car-hating planners and politicians. You can hump and bike lane the city’s roads to death. You can pretend the potholes don’t exist. People still aren’t abandoning their cars and taking the TTC!

Figures obtained from the city’s own traffic counts, among other things, prove that.

The last count done (in 1998) of cars and other vehicles crossing the city boundaries - called a cordon count - showed the number of automobiles coming into or heading out of Toronto during the daytime (a period of 12 hours) increased by 14% over 1995.

The number of autos with at least one passenger grew by 16% compared to 1995. About 90% of the total inbound and outbound trips were by car.

In fact, when the number of trips taken by private car and other vehicles (such as trucks) were combined, the total number of vehicles crossing the city’s boundaries reached a 13-year high of 1.7 million.

While the number of GO Transit passengers jumped by 15% during the same time period, TTC ridership was down throughout the city (even in the downtown core).

Faye Lyons, of CAA Central Ontario, says she expects another city cordon count, due out next month, to say much the same thing.

A 1999 U of T study reports similar figures. It shows auto use in the downtown core increased by 29% between 1986 and 1996, while transit use declined by 40,000 trips per day.

The trend continues, according to the TTC’s own figures. They show the number of TTC riders plummeted by four million between May, 2001 and May, 2002.

“The focus of council on this transit-centred approach hasn’t been successful for the last 30 years,” says Lyons. “People aren’t making that shift from the car onto transit.”

Heck, if the gridlock out there and these numbers aren’t proof the car still reigns supreme, I don’t know what is.

But don’t tell council’s car haters. They won’t rest until they drive the car (and commuters) out of this city.

Thursday, October 17, 2002

Food bank blues

I have to agree with this letter writer, Thestar.com/Food bank hustling business. 

Re Donor fatigue and boredom lurk behind food bank crisis, Oct. 16.
I used to give to the food bank. I used to believe that my donation was going to a worthy cause. I used to hope my donations would improve the lives of people and make Toronto a better place to live. Not any more.
Yes, there are hungry people who need the food bank, but many of its clients are just taking free food because they want to save money. Why pay for food when you can get it free? Without any form of scrutiny about who gets food, the system cannot be trusted. Why should I feed the fed?

There is no good way to verify if food bank users are really in need.  While this is not a good reason to never give, usually the same people give food, and they get tired of the constant plea for food.

Economics 101 state that if goods or services are free, the demand will be unlimited.  Health care has the same problem in Canada, so it must be rationed, like the food in food banks.

I don’t think it would be draconian if food bank users needed some kind of proof of income, some speed bump to limit or reduce the flow of free food.  This would reduce the freeloaders and perhaps encourage the givers.

We know this won’t happen, however, since the food bank is part of a social industry that requires users to feed its own economy.

Thursday, October 10, 2002

Airport time is time

Rarely do I agree with the Toronto Star, but this time, their article Thestar.com/A strong island airport is good for Toronto is right on the money.

After years of endless debate, countless studies and paralyzing indecision, it’s time to let Toronto’s island airport fly high.

As usual, a very few vocal users are trying to scuttle the progress of an entire city.  The same local activists also helped derail the Spadina Expressway, disabling traffic flow from downtown to the northwest of the city.