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TTC board and chair are not appointed by the mayor, they are still voted on by council. As long as McGuinty is premier the Eglinton line will still get built. If Hudak gets in next year there is a real chance that it will be scrapped even if Smitherman is mayor.

I cast my vote for Joe today, because I realize that Miller's legacy will be destroyed by both of the contenders. But at least we'll likely have only four years of Ford while Smitherman could be there for eight. Smitherman is also far more likely to be able to get his vision through council...

Odd, since the first time the Pants camp heard rumours about this poll it was from your post to Urban Toronto.

Almost the entire difference is caused by the subsidy rate. Taxpayers in Toronto pay a 60 cent subsidy for each transit ride. Those lefties down in New York offer a $1.70 subsidy per rider.

It's a misconception that all of Joe's support is downtown NDPers and progressives. The majority of those people are still undecided and are the fence sitters waiting to see who becomes the main rival to Ford. Joe's best wards are mostly not those downtown, but those along Weston Road. Those...

Wonder what Thomson will do next? She has enough public profile that she might be offered a safe Liberal seat in the next election. St Paul's would be a good option if Carolyn Bennett chooses to retire.

Every new poll since January has seen Smitherman's support fall a bit further. He started off at 44% in the winter, fell to 34% in the spring, hit 28% in the summer and the latest poll now has him at 21%. It is very unlikely this trend is going to reverse itself. The more people see of...

Rumour is that Mammoliti will be getting TTC chair, with Nunziata as deputy mayor and Del Grande as budget chief.

Sorry if this post offends you, but if people are concerned about a Ford victory, they really need to stop talking about it and get involved. If you have time, walk in to one of the campaign offices and start volunteering. If you have money, donate. If only 5% of the people on Twitter, on blogs...

It's still far too early to call this race, notably Ford and Pantalone have not started their advertising campaigns. Commercials do have a huge effect, especially at the municipal level where most people do not have long held preferences. If you want an alternative to Ford presented to...

Joe Pantalione had his official office opening today, and I attended. Most of the VIPs were people you'd expect, the Layton family, a number of progressive city councillors, and NDP MPPs. The one notable surprise was that Art Eggleton attended.

An interesting quote from the Star today about Rossi's struggling campaign:

Ford voted in favour of banning corporate/union donations and for the 2009 operating budget, so that stops him from being at the very top. Case Ootes voted against both of those. His lone vote with the Miller team was in favour of making the Rouge Valley a national park.

I don't intend to demean Scarborough by any of this. It doesn't have any tracts near to top for income, but it also doesn't have many near the bottom. Most of Scarborough hovers around the middle of Toronto average incomes, and there's nothing wrong with that. There are also individual...

If anyone is interested, here are the wealthiest tracts by average family income: 0264.00 (Bridle Path) - $771,608 0265.00 (Lawrence Park) - $689,416 0087.00 (South Rosedale) - $659,063 0140.00 (Lytton Park) - $644,460 0266.00 (Hoggs Hollow) - $575,776 0130.00 (Forest Hill) - $491,157 0086.00...

I didn't do any calculations. Those numbers come directly from the StatsCan data, and I pointed out where anyone can check that information if they have access to the raw census data. You seem to be relying on household income data, while I was reporting on the individual income data. There...

For the record, I live in Scarborough myself. The data is all from the 2006 census. Specifically the number is from the "Item Code: 1587 Default Label: Average income $" field. The same field the data for the other parts of town come from. If you doubt me, here is a screenshot of the tract 339...

Curious to learn more about how Toronto council breaks down, I've put together of a list of how closely aligned with Miller each councillor is. I picked 20 major votes from the last session, and looked at how often each councillor voted the same way as Miller and his team. Here are the numbers...

How and when a city was built also has a huge impact. In 1920, at the dawn of the automobile age, New York had 5.6 million people. It needed to have an urban form and a transit network to transport that number of people without using cars. This meant dense housing, walkable neighbourhoods, and...

Toronto: Subway: 70 km Streetcar: 75 km Vienna: Subway: 69.5 km Tram: 214.9 km We have about the same backbone as Vienna, it's the rest of the skeleton that is a lot smaller in Toronto. Yes, pretty much every European city has much better commuter (and intercity) rail. The...