Mayor Olivia Chow's Toronto

[afransen]

It would be nice if we had a better process for dealing with non-emergencies. I saw some roadkill while out for a walk. I called 311 and mentioned where it was. Being a regional road I had to call the region instead. Great. Called the region and they were closed until Monday. I did end up calling the region on Monday when the carcass was still there.

Why can't this be a smartphone app? Snap a picture, drop a pin, log a ticket, offer to take a call-back if further clarification is required. It's not even obviously a good use of human operator time to be taking these calls. AI should be able to sort through, categorize and route many of these reports.

ETA: this is in Mississauga.

 

[Coolibop]

It would be nice if we had a better process for dealing with non-emergencies. I saw some roadkill while out for a walk. I called 311 and mentioned where it was. Being a regional road I had to call the region instead. Great. Called the region and they were closed until Monday. I did end up calling the region on Monday when the carcass was still there.

Why can't this be a smartphone app? Snap a picture, drop a pin, log a ticket, offer to take a call-back if further clarification is required. It's not even obviously a good use of human operator time to be taking these calls. AI should be able to sort through, categorize and route many of these reports.

Presume you meant provincial government when you state region... It's a simple request form online if not on 400 series (and I imagine eventually DVP/Gardiner once province takes them over if not already).

 

[DSC]

Though I know the City must accept the lowest bids, I hope someone at City hall will be monitoring this one carefully. It appears to cover lots of projects spread over several Wards.

 

[DSC]

From The Economist

For their world view it's

 

[Northern Light]

From The Economist

Listicles,as they are sometimes referred to are always problematic, even when popular and widely cited.

From University rankings to Hospital rankings to Cities......

These are always subjective, and they invariably weight a huge range of factors, the weighting of which is quite arguable.

I think, broadly, one could look at any City in the proverbial top 20 in North America or top 40 globally and think, that most places there could be quite livable, provided one had an average or above income/education etc, spoke the language and so on.

Conversely one could look at the lowest ranked places, and most would probably be universally understood as facing serious challenges with crime, war, famine, poverty etc.

Its nice that Toronto is in the proverbial upper tier.......

But I also think its important not to give excessive weight to such things. Clearly housing affordability and commute-times would be under-weighted to many here, to see Toronto as high as it is.......

Which is not to say there isn't much to recommend our fine home.

Just that seeing the finer-grained rankings, or being able to clearly see where we do excel as a City, and where we very much lag is probably more useful than the sausage-making process ranking which doesn't really tell you all that much.

 

[picard102]

I would imagine commute time doesn't factor in much as the average time is relatively close in NA to Toronto's according to a quick google search.

 

[Northern Light]

I would imagine commute time doesn't factor in much as the average time is relatively close in NA to Toronto's according to a quick google search.

I had a look around, and I assume you would derive that from the Stats. Can info that says the average Toronto commute is 33 minutes.

I must confess, I find that difficult to believe. I live in East York and I can't get downtown much faster than that, by car or transit.

For me, if using TTC, Assuming zero wait for a bus, I'd peg that as about spot on, if there are no delays, 5M on bus, 90s transfer, 2'30 median wait for train, 17M to Bloor-Yonge, 60s transfer, median 2M wait, 6M travel time.

~34.5M, by car, I'm looking at something pretty similar, not including time finding a parking spot.

But an awful lot of commuters come from an awful lot further and spend interminable time in traffic jams.

Even a median suburban GO commuter, Union to Pickering is ~42M, but you have to allow some wait time for the train, given the door closing 1M before departure, let's say 3M, so that's 45M, plus walk to Union, lets say you're close by so ~50M, then a 3M walk from train to your car at Pickering, all going well, 2M to get out of the lot.........and you're at 55M, even if you're only 5M from home, that's an hour.

I find it difficult to believe the typical commuter by car or transit sees time as low as 33M

 

[picard102]

I had a look around, and I assume you would derive that from the Stats. Can info that says the average Toronto commute is 33 minutes.

I must confess, I find that difficult to believe. I live in East York and I can't get downtown much faster than that, by car or transit.

For me, if using TTC, Assuming zero wait for a bus, I'd peg that as about spot on, if there are no delays, 5M on bus, 90s transfer, 2'30 median wait for train, 17M to Bloor-Yonge, 60s transfer, median 2M wait, 6M travel time.

~34.5M, by car, I'm looking at something pretty similar, not including time finding a parking spot.

But an awful lot of commuters come from an awful lot further and spend interminable time in traffic jams.

Even a median suburban GO commuter, Union to Pickering is ~42M, but you have to allow some wait time for the train, given the door closing 1M before departure, let's say 3M, so that's 45M, plus walk to Union, lets say you're close by so ~50M, then a 3M walk from train to your car at Pickering, all going well, 2M to get out of the lot.........and you're at 55M, even if you're only 5M from home, that's an hour.

I find it difficult to believe the typical commuter by car or transit sees time as low as 33M

I would agree, but I would imagine that's where they would get their numbers from as well.

 

[Coolibop]

I had a look around, and I assume you would derive that from the Stats. Can info that says the average Toronto commute is 33 minutes.

It's actually lower as of 2022 data... Here's the breakdown from here:

Remember Toronto CMA...not everyone is going downtown @Northern Light. Here in Pickering opg/lakeridge health... Now fgf? ...not going into the city.

Edit: also a good short read here from stats can about Toronto commutes.

 

[christiesplits]

It’s too late. I suspect Furey will win here.

With the byelection this Monday, I give Furey the slight advantage over Chernos Lin, based purely on vibes.

As is the case with most council races, it appears to be a proxy battle between party machines, with the PC/CPC brass backing Furey, and local Liberals behind Chernos Lin.

I’m definitely hoping for a Chernos Lin win. A key plank of Furey’s campaign is opposition to bike lanes, so a victory for Furey will be portrayed by Post Media and Ford Nation as a vote of confidence in the province’s plan for bike lane removal.

 

[christiesplits]

Rachel Chernos Lin wins the byelection in Don Valley West.

Toronto Elections

 

[ShonTron]

Blowout. Furey couldn't win in a mostly comfortable, if not outright affluent, inner suburban ward. It was unfortunate that two decent candidates had to withdraw from the campaign, but at least it shows it's difficult to win on a right-wing, reactionary, anti-bike platform, especially if you don't have the incumbent advantage.

 

[ShonTron]

How did that go, Kevin?

 

[Northern Light]

Well, Olivia had a pretty decent grip on Council; more than I thought she might, to be honest; this is 100% an added vote in her column, which should be good news for progressives.

Its now on the Mayor to demonstrate that that is so.

 

[adma]

Results in full (as the city website only batches candidates in 5's)

Rachel Chernos Lin 12899 54.76%
Anthony Furey 7343 31.17%
Sam Robinson 1271 5.40%
Sheena Sharp 575 2.44%
Lesley Stoyan 345 1.46%
Shakhlo Sharipova 301 1.28%
Evan Sambasivam 186 0.79%
Habiba Desai 137 0.58%
Syed Jaffery 124 0.53%
Dhruv Jain 123 0.52%
Calvin Xu 72 0.31%
Jason Stevens 70 0.30%
Cleveland Marshall 37 0.16%
Peter Handjis 36 0.15%
Mario Lamanna 31 0.13%
Daniel Trayes 5 0.02%

So quite evidently, the withdrawal of said "two decent candidates" worked according to plan, given how there wasn't even much vestigial "name on the ballot" support for them.