Categories
Election Politics Toronto

Mapping the 2018 candidates for Toronto’s 47 wards (Updated)

September 10, 2018 This morning, the Ontario Superior Court ruled against Bill 5, finding that the bill  “substantially interfered with the municipal candidate’s freedom of expression that is guaranteed under [Section 2(b) of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.]” Barring a successful provincial appeal (or invoking Section 33 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, […]

Categories
Brampton Development Ontario Urban Planning

Requiem for Ontario’s regional malls

Shoppers World Brampton, 2016, before the Target store was replaced by smaller stores, including Giant Tiger Recently, I wrote about the history of Ontario’s downtown malls. Most of these shopping centres, built in the 1970s and 1980s in the downtown cores across the province, failed by the end of the 1990s. The collapse of the […]

Categories
Parks Toronto

Major improvements are coming to Scarborough’s waterfront

The Scarborough Bluffs will soon become more accessible Over the last few years, the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority (TRCA) has been working on an environmental assessment for improvements to much of the Lake Ontario shoreline in Scarborough. Today, the TRCA announced that assessment is now complete, and it calls for major improvements between Bluffer’s Park […]

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About me Toronto Transit

Toronto’s Transit Secrets

Earlier this week, I attended a book launch at the Spacing Store at 401 Richmond Street West here in Toronto. While I have been to numerous book launches, often to support friends and colleagues, it was the first time it was for a book that I contributed to. As some of you may know, I […]

Categories
Ontario Politics

Where, exactly, is Northern Ontario?

The French River at Highway 69, where Northern Ontario truly begins Last week, the leaders of the three major provincial parties (Liberals, Progressive Conservatives, and the New Democrats) met in Parry Sound, at a debate dedicated to issues specific to Northern Ontario. It was the second of three debates scheduled ahead of the June 7, […]

Categories
Brampton Development Infrastructure Ontario Urban Planning

A tale of two university campuses

Site of Brampton’s new Ryerson/Sheridan campus Last week, the provincial government announced two new post-secondary educational campuses in Toronto’s fast-growing western suburbs, due to open in 2022. Wilfrid Laurier University will be partnering with Conestoga College on a new facility in Milton. Brampton will be getting a new Ryerson University campus in partnership with Sheridan […]

Categories
Brampton Cycling Parks Walking

Brampton’s multi-use path problems

Recreational Trail: no loitering Brampton, my hometown, has a great network of parks, many of which are connected by multi use paths that follow local waterways like the West Humber River and Etobicoke Creek. In suburban neighbourhoods where curvilinear street networks and cul-de-sacs predominate, these paths are necessary as shortcuts for pedestrians and cyclists, and […]

Categories
Brampton Transit Urban Planning

What’s going on in Downtown Brampton?

Two years ago, Metrolinx started buying up properties in Downtown Brampton in order to build a new surface parking lot for GO Transit commuters. Now more houses are boarded up, and there are plans for a new university campus.

Categories
Roads Toronto Walking

Pedestrian flags at crosswalks are not a solution

Pedestrian crossing in Dartmouth Nova Scotia equipped with pedestrian flags A Toronto Star article this weekend profiled three elementary school students installing pedestrian flags at local residential intersections near their school in Leaside. Pedestrian flags are not a new idea; they have been common in Halifax and other communities in Nova Scotia for several years. (I […]

Categories
Roads Toronto Walking

The wrong answer to a tragic death of a boy walking home from school

Kennedy Public School, where 11-year old Duncan Xu was in Grade 6. He was struck and killed on an adjacent residential street while walking home on Tuesday, February 27.  On Tuesday, February 27, around 3:30 PM, Duncan Xu, an 11-year old boy, was struck and killed by a motorist in a residential neighbourhood in north […]