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Rob Ford's Toronto

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tkip said:
Sorry to burst your bubble but travel by transit in this city, especially if you have to travel across the city and make transfers is a joke.

My friend's branch is at Dufferin Mall. It routinely takes her about 45 mins to an hour to get home to her house at St Clair and Christie. It shouldn't take this long. She said her friends live in Pickering/Ajax and are home before she is on many occasions. That's why she's ditching the TTC and buying her first car.

If you live close to the subway, then you're basically okay. But once you live further away and further out and you have to make transfers then wait for buses and streetcars, forget it. It becomes a nightmare. I've experience this on too many occasions myself. I use to live in Scarborough and the commute and multiple transfers was insane. It took forever to get to work and home.

There's nothing generic about these examples. This is what untold thousands go through every day in this city trying to travel by transit. It's a frustrating experience and it's getting worse.
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Dude, read your first post. It was GENERIC. It didn't mention neither her destination nor her starting point.

That having been said:

http://myttc.ca/travel/from/St_Clair_and_Christie/to/Dufferin_Mall

There's three options to get her to and from her destination in 25 minutes. And myttc doesn't pad, and both the streetcar and subway have no issues with transfers as they run every 5 minutes during rush hour. (I can't speak for the Dufferin bus, but I believe it is a high volume service.)

I understand that some people don't like taking transit, but usually their issues are either variability (like your friend, I guess) or overcrowding (don't like being shoved in with other people.) That's fine, but it's not a symptom of the system breaking down, and your friend's story doesn't pass the smell test.
 
How we'll know how serious Ford is about cutting costs

It's going to come down to how much they actually cut from the Police and Fire/EMS budgets. If the rumoured 750 police jobs and the Fire/EMS merger both get into the formal budget proposal (September?), and they cut those two departments proportionately to most of their other cuts, I will take them seriously despite the innumerable gaffes along the way.

Until then, they're pandering to their core with shots at libraries and TCHC, and not really serious about cutting spending. Martin and Chretien surprised me with a serious set of budgets. Ford could do the same from the opposite side of the spectrum.
 
Does anyone really know the operating cost of various modes of travel, auto/bus/streetcar etc?

We see all kinds of totally unsupported numbers brandished as proof of the poster's position, is there a source that can be agreed upon as a standard reference.

I apologise for the lack of a question mark to end the second paragraph, my keyboard seems to be possessed this morning.

Since you have no clue what all that gobledeegook you just posted means (and neither should anybody else), let me put it in simple terms.....a streetcar consumes about $100 worth of electricity per day. Now, if the 504 King car carries 57,000 passengers on an average weekday, that works out to a little more than 1/10th of once cent worth of electricity per passenger.
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Assuming that $100 per day and 57,000 passengers are accurate input no mention is made that there is more than one streetcar on the route, probably 30 or more each with an operator at $50 or so loaded cost for 12 to 18 hours per day. Streetcars don't function well without supervision, the operator cost must be factored in or the streetcar is a giant doorstop.
 
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A fine mess, Ollie ...

Re. libraries, Atwood, the Ford Bros. mayoralty ... what a lovely setup for comedy sketches and whatnot. I guess I'll keep my eyes peeled on 22 Minutes and the like.

While this all fits a fairly classic comedy theme, there is a problem: the situation lends itself better to satire and sarcastic send-ups, furthering the cynicism that is creeping into our daily lives now.

How do I get through this? I keep telling myself that "this too shall pass". I promise to at least try to laugh about it. I'm pretty sure the Fords won't be in office in 4 years' time. In fact, the machine to get them out is probably gearing up right now, and that machine probably has a fair braintrust to it, even as we speak. I know how this town works, much better than Stan and Ollie Ford.
 
Really good David Olive column yesterday:

http://thestar.blogs.com/davidolive/2011/07/twin-freaks.html

On the weekend, Rob apparently gave the finger to a mom and her six-year-old daughter who signalled to him he shouldn't be using his cellphone while driving. (Never a cop around when you need one.) Sigh. Yesterday, Doug did the same, metaphorically speaking, to some local notable, Margaret Atwood by name, who has dared speak out over Doug's hopeless ignorance about Toronto's supposed over-abundance of libraries. For Doug, our beloved library system should go on the chopping block along with everything else as the city struggles to close a $4-billion budget gap.

Doug Ford says he's never heard of this Atwood woman. Which, again, makes you wonder why we don't screen candidates for public office for basic knowledge and life skills. ("Does water run up- or down-hill?" "On which Great Lake is Toronto located?" And, of course, "How many fingers?") You've met the Doug Ford type, wearing his "I'm with stupid" T-shirt. His winning argument is that he has never heard of the source of contrary opinion cited, be it Copernicus, Tennyson, Mandela or Atwood, whose novels have been on the curriculum of European universities for three decades now. You've met Doug Ford's ilk, proud of their imbecility, possibly while making your way past a bar fight outside a sports bar from which you are attempting to retreive your daughter. At this point, I'd take losing contestants from "Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader?" as passable replacements for the Fords.
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That article was a joke. Basically just pure character assassination attempt. It's getting tiresome. This is all the Star can offer now.

Why does it matter if Doug knows who Atwood is? No one cares. It has nothing to do with running the city and you shouldn't be singled out and ridiculed for having not known who Atwood is. If Miller didn't know who she was, would the same people be making fun of him? Of course not. People are looking for new ways to insult the Fords.

It smacks of desperation. Basically people are whining and being sore losers because their boy, Miller and his people don't run the show anymore and they're looking for anything and everything to smear Ford with. Doesn't matter how small or trivial, nothing can slip under the radar. And if you can't find something? Just make it up or blow it out of proportion.

And the story about Rob giving that driver the finger is pure allegation at this point. There is no evidence whatsoever that it happened or that it happened as this woman claims it did. Nor do we know for certain if she didn't exaggerate certain details or wasn't aggressive and rude to Ford herself.

Yet people are already treating it as the gospel because it supposedly involves Ford.
 
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tkip said:
Why does it matter if Doug knows who Atwood is?
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She is one of the most important cultural institutions in Canada, and she lives in the city Doug Ford represents. This isn't any different than Ford dissing the ROM or the symphony.

No one cares.
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That is obviously not true -- just look at all the articles and postings on this issue.

It has nothing to do with running the city
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Being familiar with the important cultural touchstones related to the city has a lot to do with running it.

If Miller didn't know who she was, would the same people be making fun of him? Of course not.
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I certainly would have been appalled if Miller said he didn't know who she was, especially if the implication was he didn't care who she was.
 
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