T
tudararms
Guest
Don't forget to 'pay it forward'!!
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B
Bogtrotter
Guest
I agree with BC- Toronto is great for that. In Paris, NYC, or London- say bye-bye to your belongings. I had my wallet stolen in Paris last year >: Very little petty crime in TO. Indeed it's VERY rare that you'll be confronted or accosted at all on the subway here.
S
scarberiankhatru
Guest
"Given the chronic problems on the eastern end of the Bloor line (Vic Park, Warden and Kennedy), the answer is yes."
Yep, it's part of the reason I've permanently switch to going home via Finch station even though I come downtown via Kennedy.
"Bonus: you will be serenaded by Mozart or Beethoven as you witness said constables restoring order."
I'm possibly the only person who has missed a train listening to Mozart Muzak in the mezzanine.
Yep, it's part of the reason I've permanently switch to going home via Finch station even though I come downtown via Kennedy.
"Bonus: you will be serenaded by Mozart or Beethoven as you witness said constables restoring order."
I'm possibly the only person who has missed a train listening to Mozart Muzak in the mezzanine.
E
ecsider
Guest
Although some may dismiss this sort of behaviour as insignificant, i rather stop it now before it gets worse. I don't accept the notion that rowdy behaviour can be tolerated or that the behaviour can be looked upon as people "just having fun".
This is about improving quality of life, and taking the TTC plays a huge part in many Torontonians' way of life.
And kudos to those who actually have the balls to stand up to the selfish pricks. One time I told this girl to turn down her ipod. Obviously she refused, but this other lady sitting across from us, walks right over and rips the earphones right out of her ears. I was joined in a round of laughter by other riders and we did a collective sigh of satisfaction. The girl decided to get off at the next subway stop. LOL.
This is about improving quality of life, and taking the TTC plays a huge part in many Torontonians' way of life.
And kudos to those who actually have the balls to stand up to the selfish pricks. One time I told this girl to turn down her ipod. Obviously she refused, but this other lady sitting across from us, walks right over and rips the earphones right out of her ears. I was joined in a round of laughter by other riders and we did a collective sigh of satisfaction. The girl decided to get off at the next subway stop. LOL.
A
Abeja de Almirante
Guest
Nothing but a wasteland of poverty, Caribbean-slums, broken people and their angry sons out there anyway. I always feel safer downtown than in Scarborough's tower-scape."Given the chronic problems on the eastern end of the Bloor line (Vic Park, Warden and Kennedy), the answer is yes."
B
Brighter Hell
Guest
I never understood paranoid people.The biggest negative to public transit as I see it is the PUBLIC uses it. With public transit you are forced to sit in a mobile-box with some people who --if they approached you while you were in your car, you'd quickly roll up the windows.
S
spmarshall
Guest
"Nothing but a wasteland of poverty, Caribbean-slums, broken people and their angry sons out there anyway. I always feel safer downtown than in Scarborough's tower-scape."
The biggest negative to public transit as I see it is the PUBLIC uses it. With public transit you are forced to sit in a mobile-box with some people who --if they approached you while you were in your car, you'd quickly roll up the windows.
Wow. Keep the paranoia and broad generalizations coming!
S
SD2
Guest
"Nothing but a wasteland of poverty, Caribbean-slums, broken people and their angry sons out there anyway. I always feel safer downtown than in Scarborough's tower-scape."
Wow...you don't spend much time in Scarborough, do you?
A
Abeja de Almirante
Guest
Not if I can help it, for the stated reasons of course.Wow...you don't spend much time in Scarborough, do you?
In fairness, I do quite like the parts of Scarborough that include the eastern beaches (Vic Park to the Bluffs, south of Kingston Road, and have friend with a house on Fenwood Heights that is very nice, almost castle-like, but the rest of the former city is mostly a write-off, for the reasons given, IMO.
S
spmarshall
Guest
Scarborough a write-off. Rrrrriiighhht.
From Now:
News Feature
Scarborough the great?
With the spaciousness of the 'burbs and the access of a city, a refurbished Scarborough will really shine
By MIKE SMITH
Are we going to Scarborough Fair?
Or, I should say, fairly. The old city of Scarborough may well prove to be one of the more interesting elements in the new city council. It's too soon to say how the two new faces, the return of Ron Moeser and a second chance for Paul Ainslie to do, well, something will help or hinder a cross-city approach.
But this must certainly be the term when Toronto will have to deal in earnest with its collective lot as a variegated mini-megalopolis.
Many Scarberians resented amalgamation, fearing a loss of self-sufficiency, and still bemoan inequity of funding. But outgoing Scarborough East councillor David Soknacki feels otherwise.
"When you take the numbers apart, there is more a perception than a reality,'' he says, adding that the early days of the Sheppard subway – and the need to get East York out of debt – "skewed the numbers away from Scarborough," but that the city has been making new investments since then.
But disenfranchisement, he says, is a real problem.
"The suburbs feel they're not being heard. People choose their communities for different sorts of lifestyles,'' he says. "There's a feeling that because I choose to live at Markham and Sheppard, all my life choices are evil and wrong and carcinogenic. They're not.''
Brian Ashton (Scarborough Southwest's victorious incumbent) says the prouder aspects of living there don't get noticed downtown.
"Scarborough, because of its nature and development, always tended to have very sophisticated volunteer organizations,'' he says. "Downtown it tended to go the other way – you had the city providing these things for people.''
Of course, the riddle of Scarborough is that while its built form is something of a monoculture, its population is anything but. Neighbourhoods tend to be more mixed than in the core, arguably even more multicultural than our multi-faceted urban gem.
Scarborough is also, by and large, poorer than old Toronto, and the feeling of being marginalized may have fostered a sense of pride in an urban design that, according to the accepted downtown wisdom, is something to be ashamed of.
"How we come to terms with the 50s-, 60s- and 70s-style subdivisions will be an interesting part of our future," says Ashton. "Will communities rise up to protect that kind of built form?''
Well, they might. The Scarborough cityscape has its own set of signifiers. Downtown, "strip mall" is likely to mean "blight," while in Scarborough it's a symbol of cultural diversity and independence, brimming with small multi-ethnic cafés and shops.
And while parking lots are deadening at best in the core, in the suburbs they often serve as gathering places. Scarborough Centre's Councillor Michael Thompson tells me of a new lot on Lawrence that's been outfitted with community notice boards. My city boy brain is atizzy.
Thompson butted heads with the mayor now and again last term. He's taken more of a shine to consensus of late, but he's still fiercely independent. Election results paint an interesting picture: voters gave a healthy nod to suburb-proud councillors (Thompson, Del Grande and Moeser) as well as our big-city urbanist mayor.
So how do we tell the common threads from the tripwires? Transit, handled sagely, may be the peacemaker.
"The transit level in Scarborough is just not adequate,'' says Thompson (which is rather like calling an amputation "inconvenient"). "I asked [former TTC manager Rick] Ducharme what the plan was, and he said, 'Well, it's part of the overall ridership growth strategy.' He'd never been asked about a plan for Scarborough before.''
Recent moves to overhaul the Scarborough RT, though mostly made from dire necessity, are a good start, as is the willingness of nearly all Scarborough councillors to back down from the tunnel dream of a full Scarborough subway. As the potential for a surface network of light rail grows, so does the possibility of a solution to development battles down the line.
If transit expansion and development are wedded carefully, residents may see development not as an invasion but as an intensification of the reasons they chose Scarborough in the first place – the spaciousness of the suburbs and the access of the city. And so, ironically, Scarborough may welcome the surface rights-of-way that have proved so controversial in the core.
But what locals may most welcome is some direct engagement. The Scarborough Civic Action Network's Effie Vlachoyannacos points to the recent SCAN-organized Scarborough Summit. "The Civic Centre was full of people who were disappointed that they weren't being engaged by those they elected,'' she says.
And that's not to mention the official lack of recognition of the borough's vast diversity. Vlachoyannacos says the city's slow progress on communicating in multiple languages means huge numbers of people don't even know how to vote – likely skewing election results. She says young people are also clamouring for more inroads. Would a ban on youth gatherings at Albert Campbell Square, supported by Thompson and Scarborough Centre's Glenn De Baeremaeker, have gone through if the youth vote mattered?
But the issue people most supported at the Summit, she says, was the empowerment of neighbourhood councils. Though it may seem unlikely to city folk, these councils may work better in Scarborough because so many neighbourhoods are built around school buildings, which act as a central focus. Scarborough could be a laboratory for how a 21st-century city deals with the legacy of postwar planning – but only with a bit of 21st-century democracy.
news@nowtoronto.com
NOW | NOVEMBER 30 - DECEMBER 6, 2006 | VOL. 26 NO. 13
From Now:
News Feature
Scarborough the great?
With the spaciousness of the 'burbs and the access of a city, a refurbished Scarborough will really shine
By MIKE SMITH
Are we going to Scarborough Fair?
Or, I should say, fairly. The old city of Scarborough may well prove to be one of the more interesting elements in the new city council. It's too soon to say how the two new faces, the return of Ron Moeser and a second chance for Paul Ainslie to do, well, something will help or hinder a cross-city approach.
But this must certainly be the term when Toronto will have to deal in earnest with its collective lot as a variegated mini-megalopolis.
Many Scarberians resented amalgamation, fearing a loss of self-sufficiency, and still bemoan inequity of funding. But outgoing Scarborough East councillor David Soknacki feels otherwise.
"When you take the numbers apart, there is more a perception than a reality,'' he says, adding that the early days of the Sheppard subway – and the need to get East York out of debt – "skewed the numbers away from Scarborough," but that the city has been making new investments since then.
But disenfranchisement, he says, is a real problem.
"The suburbs feel they're not being heard. People choose their communities for different sorts of lifestyles,'' he says. "There's a feeling that because I choose to live at Markham and Sheppard, all my life choices are evil and wrong and carcinogenic. They're not.''
Brian Ashton (Scarborough Southwest's victorious incumbent) says the prouder aspects of living there don't get noticed downtown.
"Scarborough, because of its nature and development, always tended to have very sophisticated volunteer organizations,'' he says. "Downtown it tended to go the other way – you had the city providing these things for people.''
Of course, the riddle of Scarborough is that while its built form is something of a monoculture, its population is anything but. Neighbourhoods tend to be more mixed than in the core, arguably even more multicultural than our multi-faceted urban gem.
Scarborough is also, by and large, poorer than old Toronto, and the feeling of being marginalized may have fostered a sense of pride in an urban design that, according to the accepted downtown wisdom, is something to be ashamed of.
"How we come to terms with the 50s-, 60s- and 70s-style subdivisions will be an interesting part of our future," says Ashton. "Will communities rise up to protect that kind of built form?''
Well, they might. The Scarborough cityscape has its own set of signifiers. Downtown, "strip mall" is likely to mean "blight," while in Scarborough it's a symbol of cultural diversity and independence, brimming with small multi-ethnic cafés and shops.
And while parking lots are deadening at best in the core, in the suburbs they often serve as gathering places. Scarborough Centre's Councillor Michael Thompson tells me of a new lot on Lawrence that's been outfitted with community notice boards. My city boy brain is atizzy.
Thompson butted heads with the mayor now and again last term. He's taken more of a shine to consensus of late, but he's still fiercely independent. Election results paint an interesting picture: voters gave a healthy nod to suburb-proud councillors (Thompson, Del Grande and Moeser) as well as our big-city urbanist mayor.
So how do we tell the common threads from the tripwires? Transit, handled sagely, may be the peacemaker.
"The transit level in Scarborough is just not adequate,'' says Thompson (which is rather like calling an amputation "inconvenient"). "I asked [former TTC manager Rick] Ducharme what the plan was, and he said, 'Well, it's part of the overall ridership growth strategy.' He'd never been asked about a plan for Scarborough before.''
Recent moves to overhaul the Scarborough RT, though mostly made from dire necessity, are a good start, as is the willingness of nearly all Scarborough councillors to back down from the tunnel dream of a full Scarborough subway. As the potential for a surface network of light rail grows, so does the possibility of a solution to development battles down the line.
If transit expansion and development are wedded carefully, residents may see development not as an invasion but as an intensification of the reasons they chose Scarborough in the first place – the spaciousness of the suburbs and the access of the city. And so, ironically, Scarborough may welcome the surface rights-of-way that have proved so controversial in the core.
But what locals may most welcome is some direct engagement. The Scarborough Civic Action Network's Effie Vlachoyannacos points to the recent SCAN-organized Scarborough Summit. "The Civic Centre was full of people who were disappointed that they weren't being engaged by those they elected,'' she says.
And that's not to mention the official lack of recognition of the borough's vast diversity. Vlachoyannacos says the city's slow progress on communicating in multiple languages means huge numbers of people don't even know how to vote – likely skewing election results. She says young people are also clamouring for more inroads. Would a ban on youth gatherings at Albert Campbell Square, supported by Thompson and Scarborough Centre's Glenn De Baeremaeker, have gone through if the youth vote mattered?
But the issue people most supported at the Summit, she says, was the empowerment of neighbourhood councils. Though it may seem unlikely to city folk, these councils may work better in Scarborough because so many neighbourhoods are built around school buildings, which act as a central focus. Scarborough could be a laboratory for how a 21st-century city deals with the legacy of postwar planning – but only with a bit of 21st-century democracy.
news@nowtoronto.com
NOW | NOVEMBER 30 - DECEMBER 6, 2006 | VOL. 26 NO. 13
A
AlvinofDiaspar
Guest
Muse:
This kind of behaviour is exacerbated due to socio-economic homogenity - one of the draws of the suburbs is not having to deal with the "other", and I suspect long term exposure to such leads to extreme levels of discomfort with anyone who isn't like "me" in a social setting.
AoD
The biggest negative to public transit as I see it is the PUBLIC uses it. With public transit you are forced to sit in a mobile-box with some people who --if they approached you while you were in your car, you'd quickly roll up the windows.
This kind of behaviour is exacerbated due to socio-economic homogenity - one of the draws of the suburbs is not having to deal with the "other", and I suspect long term exposure to such leads to extreme levels of discomfort with anyone who isn't like "me" in a social setting.
AoD
A
AlvinofDiaspar
Guest
Nothing but a wasteland of poverty, Caribbean-slums, broken people and their angry sons out there anyway.
Well spoken, now let them eat cake!
AoD
A
ahrvojic
Guest
This kind of behaviour is exacerbated due to socio-economic homogenity - one of the draws of the suburbs is not having to deal with the "other", and I suspect long term exposure to such leads to extreme levels of discomfort with anyone who isn't like "me" in a social setting.
Agreed and nothing makes the homogeneity more obvious than getting on a city bus after getting off the GO train, which I'm sure virtually no one does. I've even heard people say that they're not "bus people" whatever that means.
Funny how lots of people drive alone to the station, get on the homogeneous GO, exit inside Union and then take the PATH to the CBD. Even in the city the homogeneity is preserved!
S
scarberiankhatru
Guest
Parts of Scarborough should soon become hip. Most of Scarborough's houses are cheap, cheap, cheap. Subway extensions would make the real estate market explode - Willowdale would spread over to Agincourt and the Beach would spread all along Kingston.
"In fairness, I do quite like the parts of Scarborough that include the eastern beaches (Vic Park to the Bluffs, south of Kingston Road, and have friend with a house on Fenwood Heights that is very nice, almost castle-like, but the rest of the former city is mostly a write-off, for the reasons given, IMO."
LOL, those areas are immediately south of the subway stations...
"In fairness, I do quite like the parts of Scarborough that include the eastern beaches (Vic Park to the Bluffs, south of Kingston Road, and have friend with a house on Fenwood Heights that is very nice, almost castle-like, but the rest of the former city is mostly a write-off, for the reasons given, IMO."
LOL, those areas are immediately south of the subway stations...
T
The Mississauga Muse
Guest
In a previous message I'd written:
and Brighter Hell responded with:
It isn't just about being "paranoid". It's about ---control of your environment. You don't have control in a bus. Or on a subway train. (Having said this, I also acknowledge that "control" is mostly illusion anyway--Still.)
For me personally, I recognize that I have a social phobia --fear of crowds. I don't like being in a full plane --half-empty, not a problem.
Come to think of it, I don't like crowded movie theatres much either. Or even attending Blue Jay games... or... hmmm (she tippy-toes to the Internet...)
AHAH!
Then, again, maybe agoraphobia is just a scientific euphemism for chicken----" because I've successfully avoided public speaking most of my life too.
Returning to my earlier comment:
I wrote "With public transit you are forced to sit in a mobile-box" --being surrounded or potentially being surrounded by people can make me anxious and it's not easy for me to leave immediately.
Hmmm... And I wonder how many others avoid public transit for that reason too...
Back to my quote:
spmarshall wrote:
No worries, sp, dishing up paranoia and broad generalizations will be EASY for me! I just have to go to mississauga.ca and cut-and-paste from council agendas/minutes!
The biggest negative to public transit as I see it is the PUBLIC uses it. With public transit you are forced to sit in a mobile-box with some people who --if they approached you while you were in your car, you'd quickly roll up the windows.
and Brighter Hell responded with:
I never understood paranoid people.
It isn't just about being "paranoid". It's about ---control of your environment. You don't have control in a bus. Or on a subway train. (Having said this, I also acknowledge that "control" is mostly illusion anyway--Still.)
For me personally, I recognize that I have a social phobia --fear of crowds. I don't like being in a full plane --half-empty, not a problem.
Come to think of it, I don't like crowded movie theatres much either. Or even attending Blue Jay games... or... hmmm (she tippy-toes to the Internet...)
AHAH!
"Definition of Fear of public places
Fear of public places: This irrational fear is called agoraphobia. It applies to open areas, especially those from which escape could be difficult or help not immediately accessible. Persons with agoraphobia frequently also have panic disorder.
People with agoraphobia characteristically become anxious if they even think about being trapped in a situation where it might be difficult to leave the situation. People with agoraphobia also characteristically avoid the situations which bring them anxiety or panic.
Then, again, maybe agoraphobia is just a scientific euphemism for chicken----" because I've successfully avoided public speaking most of my life too.
Returning to my earlier comment:
I wrote "With public transit you are forced to sit in a mobile-box" --being surrounded or potentially being surrounded by people can make me anxious and it's not easy for me to leave immediately.
Hmmm... And I wonder how many others avoid public transit for that reason too...
Back to my quote:
The biggest negative to public transit as I see it is the PUBLIC uses it. With public transit you are forced to sit in a mobile-box with some people who --if they approached you while you were in your car, you'd quickly roll up the windows.
spmarshall wrote:
Wow. Keep the paranoia and broad generalizations coming!
No worries, sp, dishing up paranoia and broad generalizations will be EASY for me! I just have to go to mississauga.ca and cut-and-paste from council agendas/minutes!