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I read an article that said the TPA should be sold because as a publicly-owned company, it lacks the political will to do what is necessary: raise parking rates. The author noted correctly that when you expect cheap parking, you are not only laying claim to the parking spot, you are also laying...

With Ford's Director of Policy Mark Towhey in the news with this latest TTC silliness, I thought I would post the link to Steve Munro's useful primer on this man who has been leading Ford down his disastrous transit path. The short, non-TL;DR version: Towhey is a dangerously ill-informed...

Nurse battle redux? Province offers Toronto three more The province has made another offer of free fully-funded public health nurses, plus some cash, this time to help the City fight bedbugs. The last offer of free public health nurses was rejected on he grounds that the province could not be...

Wikipedia cites a Globe article by Jennifer Lewington: "Fresh faces abound in wild, wild east: Four wards have no incumbent running" -- dated November 10, 2006, pg A14. The article may not necessarily refer to a specific staff report, but quotes City staff who said "In 2005, Scarborough...

If there is proof that downtown receives a greater share of City spending I would sure like to see it. It seems to me that the exact opposite is true. The TTC historically broke even until the province mandated surburban expansion in the 50s and 60s and offered a transit subsidy to pay for...

Granatstein was no dissident at the Sun, but as a right-leaning journalist he was generally fair, smart and classy -- while still upholding the Sun's trademark populism and irreverence that made it a fun read. He seemed to understand the difference between political incorrectness and propaganda...

This is an embarrassment. Read how the article actually begins, with a recount of a few of the Fords' greatest hits:

The easiest and most practical way to reach the most cyclists and improve safety for all is to make bike safety a required component of the regular automobile drivers' license. Most adult cyclists have drivers' licenses, and this would be an excellent way of giving at least those riders some...

Why aren't we talking about the TTC subsidy? This is the money we pay in order to keep the subways rolling unprofitably into the suburbs (and soon beyond). The subsidy is now around half a billion dollars a year. Isn't this pretty much our structural deficit, right here? From Wikipedia...

If you missed it, here's the video of 14-year-old Anika Tabovaradan, who The Grid says: "wept through the entirety of her speech because of her fear of public speaking, explaining that the computers at Willowdale library are her only chance to do homework: 'I’m no taxpayer but by working on the...

While there are often good reasons for service cuts or tax cuts, I truly think about 90% of the current City Hall debate is being driven by a critical misunderstanding about the differences between how municipalities raise money and how the provincial/federal governments raise money. "You...

You must have missed the many occasions when citizens said they were willing to have their taxes raised in order to preserve services.

The material you are describing is called a "flange filler" and it looks like this: Mainly, this stuff is used for cyclists crossing perpendicularly across tracks, and I am not sure if anyone has tested it for cyclists traveling parallel to the tracks. It would be great if such a material...

The problem with the bisected configuration is that the transit platform space becomes unavailable for other uses. I am also unconvinced it is any safer than the Roncesvalles design, since pedestrians must still cross a bike lane to reach the platform; and as we know, there will always be the...

In All Fired Up in the Big Smoke, Cityslikr suggests that the blindside killings of the Fort York Bridge and the Jarvis streetscape improvements might have been warnings to mushy middle councillors: A bit too conspiratorial, perhaps? Cityslikr acknowledges its sounds paranoid. But consider...

Here are two recent items from the Post and the Globe, respectively: Voters tired of waste message: Duncan Province blames Ford, cities for gridlock problem A few months ago, Dalton McGuinty sycophantically allowed Rob Ford to take $2 billion of provincial transit money and bury it in a...

Mill rate is not the best comparison, because property values do not necessarily correspond to the cost of providing services. The fellow who compared the taxes paid on his 4-bedroom house in Cabbagetown to a similarly-sized house in a smaller town has a partial point. The Cabbagetown house may...

If we are comparing costs, then I want to compare bottom-line costs, not labour costs. Of course quality is also an important consideration when making a choice. I'm just saying, let's compare apples and apples.

I agree with you! I have no problem with anyone earning a living in a free marketplace, private sector or public sector. God bless 'em all. But paying private workers less money does not mean the taxpayer is paying less money overall for the service. Similarly, there are plenty of ways for...

BIAs were invented in Toronto. And yes, Toronto has benefited enormously from them, including as you mention the $20 million investment from the Bloor BIA. And that is why it is crazy that Ford's service review has proposed cutting the BIA office, putting the City's access to this private...