Spacing Toronto just tipped me off about this very cool time-lapse video of our new scramble intersection of Yonge and Dundas. It's by Sam Javanrouh.

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Toronto gets its first scramble intersection today as Yonge and Dundas is now scrambled. That means vehicle traffic stops with red lights in all four directions, followed by a pedestrian free-for-all, where people cross the intersection in any direction they choose: left, right, diagonally.

It's worked elsewhere and I think it's a good idea for intersections like Yonge and Dundas. It's worth a shot. Drivers will have to be a little patient, but this has got to be safer for pedestrians than it is today.

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The big local news is the propane gas plant explosion at Keele and Wilson. Sunrise Propane, located just south of Downsview, sent massive fireballs into the sky just before dawn.

At least one firefighter was killed fighting the blaze and thousands have been evacuated from their homes. As Torontonians already know, a good chunk of the 401 has been shut down until things are brought under control.

Here's a great shot of the explosion by photojunkie who has more here.

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Chad wrote me with a good idea. He thinks the Toronto Police should give the 2500 unclaimed backs back to Torontonians. Specifically, to the less fortunate.

Here's his plan in his words:

Mike,

I've been trying to work through an idea in my head for a while ... getting bikes into the hands of those who need them most. After last weeks announcement of Toronto Police finding all those stolen bikes ... I think I may have thought of a starting point. What if we just gave the bikes away? Conventional practice is for Police to auction the bikes as "proceeds of crime" but I think 2500 more bikes on the road could be good for the city and it citizens.

I'm aware of a British initiative in which a small town in the midlands gave all residence in their public housing complexes bicycles. Obviously Toronto has more than 2500 people living in subsidizing housing - but perhaps an offer to those folks first would work. I'm wondering what your thoughts are on the idea ... you have a lot more experience and far more ties to the cycling advocacy community.

The Bike Union forwarded my message on to the Toronto Police Service and got the following response:
>>>
We have also received messages like the one below. Unfortunately our legal advice says the Police Services Act precludes us from doing that.

Mark Pugash
Director of Public Information
Toronto Police Service
416 808 7088
mark.pugash@torontopolice.on.ca

I'm wondering if this idea can get some traction in the media and the community we may be able to influence what ultimately happens to these bikes.

I like it.

More on Igor Kenk:

• Igor Kenk Stole My Bike
• Igor Kenk, Dapper Dan

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Here in Toronto, we love our signs. You can tear down our buildings, just don't mess with the signage.

The CHUM building on Yonge Street, just south of St. Clair Ave., is going to be torn down and turned into luxury condos. Fear not Torontonians, the iconic CHUM sign will be saved from demolition.

I previously examined our love affair with signs after Ed Mirvish passed and I wondered what would happen to the Honest Ed's sign when that property is eventually re-purposed. Prior to that, there was the united cry to save the Sam the Record Man sign and the City TV truck.

I don't know about you, but I feel better knowing the CHUM sign is safe. You can do what you want to our buildings, just don't f*ck with our signs.

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MyTTC.ca wants to make one thing perfectly clear. They are not the TTC, nor are they affiliated, endorsed, or otherwise associated with them. They are a community effort to make using the TTC a better experience for everyone, and they've succeeded.

I love their "Plan a Trip" feature. Tell it where you are, where you have to go and when you're leaving, and instantly you're rewarded with awesome detail. I've been trying to break it but it's pretty smart.

If you ride the TTC, you've got to bookmark MyTTC.ca.

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It looks like it's going to rain again today. What a surprise.

According to Environment Canada, 2008 has been one of the wettest summers ever in the Greater Toronto Area and it's only July. The agency said about 240 millimetres of rain has fallen since the beginning of last month.

Another 30 millimetres would break the decades-old record of 270 millimetres of rain for the the June July period. The old record was 271.5 millimetres set in 1980.

At the height of last summer, only about 88 millimetres had been recorded by Environment Canada.

We're coming off the snowiest winter of my lifetime. That's a lot of precipitation. I gauge the raininess of a summer by the number of slo-pitch rain-outs. In total, I've had 27 ball games scheduled and only one cancelled due to rain. When my wife told me the other day it's been rainier than usual, I threw this stat at her as proof it's not that rainy.

Honey, I was wrong.

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I once wrote that 'tickets or tokens' is the Toronto equivalent of the 'boxers or briefs' question. Outside of the Metropass crowd there are two types of TTC riders: those who buy paper tickets and those who buy tokens.

I still prefer tickets to tokens. I can put paper tickets in my wallet - I slip them in front of my credit card. I never lose tickets. Tokens, on the other hand, get mixed with my loose change. I don't use any entrances unattended by a TTC operator, so I've been happily buying tickets for as long as I can remember.

That's all coming to an end this summer. TTC tickets are dying. After September 28, they'll no longer be accepted. The paper ticket is dead, murdered by counterfeiters.

I hate tokens.

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It's Friday. The weekend is upon us, Toronto. It's time to bitch about the heat!

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Has it really been two years since I complained on this site about how totally crappy the official TTC website was? Here's what I wrote that fine May 2006 morning.

Finally, if you want to see how out of touch TTC marketing is in this new age of viral communique, one needs to look no further than their official web site. It's one of the worst commercial sites I've ever come across and a complete embarrassment. If you're interested in a challenge, try and learn from ttc.ca what a single adult fare would cost you today. Good luck! The official TTC site looks especially horrible when compared to Transit Toronto, a fan site that's vastly superior to the TTC sanctioned site.

Today I give you the beta version of the new ttc.ca. I remember being completely baffled by the old site just trying to figure out how much damn tickets cost and here's that information clearly listed on the home page. Wow.

And wait... is that what I think it is? It can't be... but it is! An RSS feed for service alerts... I think I'm going to cry.

TTC, welcome to 2000s.

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In April I wrote about SARS, five years later. The spring of 2003 was a frightening one for me. My son was only a year old and in daycare and there was so much we didn't know about this near pandemic that was taking lives in this city.

My wife, a worrier by nature, was particularly scared during this time. Every night we'd turn on the television and look for updates delivered by Toronto's chief medical officer of health, Dr. Sheela Basrur.

Dr. Sheela Basrur was our calm voice during a difficult time in this city. She spoke clearly, giving instructions and updating us in a comforting fashion that always made us feel better. We understood who should be quarantined and why, what measures were being taken to contain the outbreak and where it was safe to go. She seemed trustworthy and caring and she guided us through the SARS storm.

Yesterday, we lost Dr. Sheela Basrur far too early to a rare form of cancer. Dr. Sheela Basrur, thank you.

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Attending the Toronto FC match on Saturday was a bit like observing a foreign culture in their natural habitat. I found myself observing their rituals and customs as I quickly adapted. What I saw and experienced has me questioning everything I know when it comes to sporting events.

The professional team I've seen most often live in this city is the Toronto Blue Jays, first at Exhibition Stadium and now at SkyDome. I can only think of one fan-driven ritual, and that's the wave. The wave was fantastic from 1983 through the two World Series wins, but the wave has lost a great deal of steam since the mid-90s and it's all there was. Sure, every so often a group would jump on a chant to belittle an opposing player, and there are always random calls and cheers when the home team makes a great play, but for the most part you sit there and watch.

Don't get me started on Maple Leaf games. There are no fan-driven rituals, you simply do what the scoreboard tells you to do. For the most part you sit down and watch, reacting to the play. The older fanbase, primarily made up of corporate seat-holders, would probably sic an usher on you if you dared try to start a sing-along or chant. And unless we've just scored or there's a fight, don't you dare stand. That would be considered rude.

Raptors games, although full of a great deal more enthusiasm with younger, passionate fans, don't capture that same ambiance I witnessed at BMO Field on Saturday. You sit down and react to the plays on the court. Every so often the public address announcer and scoreboard will order you to sing a certain song or clap in rhythm, but it's totally contrived.

Why can't we take what we have learnt from TFC fanatics and apply it to other sporting events in this city? Is it too late to teach an old dog new tricks and shed our reputation as fans who sit on their hands?

I don't know where to start and how to copy and paste what I experienced, but there must be a way. If it can be done at BMO Field, it can be done at the ACC and SkyDome.

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Toronto's public school board has approved an Africentric school in an empty wing of Sheppard Public School on Sheppard Ave. W. near Keele St. The school will open in September 2009. Canadian Thinker calls it "a sad day for Canada", but I don't think it's that simple.

Here's what Canadian Thinker says about Toronto's Africentric school:

Here it is, the year 2008, Toronto prides itself in being a multi-cultural city in a diverse country, yet we’ve buckled under to the politically correct again and allowed something to happen that is not only wrong, it’s downright embarrassing.

Everything that Canada stands for crumbles with this decision. Allowing segregation in our schools is nothing to be proud of. This is not progressive and it’s definitely not a solution for what ails black youth in the current school system.

This decision is not a kin to segregation. From The Star:

The Africentric grade school will seek to hire a number of black teachers and use a more global, less Europe-focused curriculum to engage more students of colour. It will be open to children of all backgrounds from anywhere in the city.

Unlike the freestanding model common in dozens of U.S. cities and urged by many local proponents, board staff drafted what it called a "made-in-Toronto" blueprint that will open in an unused wing of a larger underenrolled school.

It is a model Premier Dalton McGuinty has said he prefers to a school in a separate building, although he has made it clear he opposes any public school focused on one culture.

Children in the new Africentric school likely will enter Sheppard through the same front door, share a lunch room, playground and library and join the same after-school club and teams.

There is a 40% drop-out rate among black students in this city. This alternative school is a bold attempt to curb this trend. We, as a city, want all of our children to graduate high school.

It's not a "sad day for Toronto". It's a sad day for those who dismiss ideas simply because they don't gel perfectly with the multi-cultural vision we have of this city. It's not an ideal solution, but it's worth a shot.

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I spend a lot of time at High Park. Every year, at about this time, the cherry blossoms at High Park bloom. Cherry blossoms are nature's fireworks, so beautiful but oh so brief. Before the know it, the blossoms have blown away.

From Wikipedia:

High Park in Toronto, ON features many Somei-Yoshino cherry trees (the earliest species to bloom and much loved by the Japanese for their fluffy white flowers) that were given to Toronto by Japan in 1959. Through the Sakura Project, the Japanese Embassy donated a further 34 cherry trees to High Park in 2001, plus cherry trees to various other locations like Exhibition Place, McMaster University and the University of Toronto's main and Scarborough campuses.

James and I took a trip to High Park today to soak it all in and snap some pictures. If you live in Toronto and have never seen the cherry blossoms in High Park, get over there now because this won't last much longer.

Here's a photoset I just created with the many photos I just took.

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When my mom told me at about 10am this morning that the TTC was on strike, I didn't believe her. Firstly, it seemed like a pretty good deal, so why would the union reject the offer on the table? Secondly, the TTC union promised 48 hours notice before striking, and when I turned of the laptop last night, there was nothing about a strike on the wire.

There's something rotten in the state of Denmark. How many Friday night clubbers and bar hoppers staggered onto the streets after midnight only to discover the TTC was closed for buisiness? As I type, there's a sold-out crowd at the ACC for the Raptors game and at BMO Field for Toronto FC. The Better Way wasn't an option, which meant more cars clogging the streets. Thousands of Torontonians are actively working on contingency plans, figuring out how they're getting to work Monday morning. It just doesn't seem right, does it?

The Ontario legislature will meet tomorrow to debate legislation to force 9,000 striking Toronto transit workers back on the job as soon as possible. To his credit, John Tory has said the Progressive Conservatives will back the Liberal bill, but Howard Hampton isn't tipping his hand. Without NDP support, the bill could be delayed up to five days. Oh joy.

I've got a complaint, so I'm going to use this handy TTC complaint form. You should do the same. Let 'em have it, Toronto.

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Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is a respiratory disease in humans which is caused by the SARS coronavirus (SARS-CoV). Five years ago yesterday, while we were in Toronto were in the clutches of a near pandemic, I wrote this entry about SARS.

SARS Update: From the eye of the storm

The World Health Organization has just issued a warning against travelling to Toronto. Don't travel to Toronto unless it's essential, they say. Major League Baseball is issuing warnings to teams visiting Toronto. They're asking that contact with fans at SkyDome be kept to a minimum. Headlines all over the world are painting Toronto as a dangerous place to be right now. A global pariah!

I live in Toronto. I spend every day in Toronto. I've never put on a mask and my day-to-day living hasn't changed a bit. The only thing that's even slightly different, as far as I can tell, is that we're all sanitizing our hands throughout the day at work.

Last time I checked the stats, 16 people in Canada had died of SARS. All 16 people had a pre-existing diabetic condition or heart disease. If SARS kills, it gets plenty of help.

Life goes on in the big T.O. The Leafs are out of the playoffs, the Jays have slipped to last in the AL East and the Raptors haven't been seen in weeks. Sounds like a typical spring to me.

I just hope I don't accidentally cough. They'll have me locked up for 10 days without human contact. On the other hand, I am feeling a little warm...

Five years later, and I'm still not wearing a mask.

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The TTC has agreed to study the feasibility of selling corporate naming rights to subway stations as a way to raise money.

The controversial request for a study of practices in other cities came from commissioner Peter Milczyn, who cited an ad from the Middle East city of Dubai inviting corporations to "Turn your brand into a destination" by buying rights to two new transit lines and 23 stations being built there.

"If one of the wealthiest jurisdictions in the world is looking at doing this, we should at least look at it," he said.

Saying "beggers can't be choosers," Milczyn noted the TTC is embarking on an ambitious expansion while struggling to raise operating funds.

Boy, do I hate this idea. Does absolutely everything have to be corporatized? I don't want to take the subway to Home Depot station or McDonald's station.

Here's hoping this idea dies a quick death. Better it than me.

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Torontonians, it's officially complain-about-the-heat season. After a lengthy complain-about-the-cold-and-snow season, it's nice to completely skip the comfy season and dive right into our annual complain-about-the-heat season.

How hot has it been this weekend? It's only April 20th and I've already taken the ice scraper out of the car and thrown it into the trunk until November. That's right folks, you won't even find a snow shovel on my veranda.

The funny thing is, I already miss complain-about-the-cold-and-snow season.

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YouTube user WNED17 recently uploaded some fantastic retro-Toronto-centric gems. These clips have brought back a tonne of memories for me, so I'm going to feature them one by one over the next few weeks.

Dar Robinson was a film stuntman who enjoyed breaking world records. In 1980, he set a world record cable jump from our very own CN Tower. He jumped 366 metres tied to only a 3mm steel cable.

You've got to see this stunt to believe it, and because Mr. WNED17 recorded the made-for-tv documentary The World's Most Spectacular Stuntman, it's embedded below.

Dar Robinson aced this stunt, but six years later he rode his stunt motorcycle off a cliff to his death. Live by the sword, die by the sword...

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Our city is heavily promoting the fifth annual 20-Minute Toronto Makeover. Mayor David Miller is asking all Torontonians at work, school or at home to stop what you’re doing on Friday, April 18, 2008, come outside at 2:00pm and do a 20-minute clean-up blitz around our office, school or neighbourhood.

As you might have guessed, I'm a sucker for stunts like this. I love a community joining together to better our city. Yes, we should be keeping this city clean 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year, but this 20-minute stunt will get the press and raise awareness, like our recent Earth Hour did.

I wanted to promote this 20-Minute Toronto Makeover 2008 by posting the ad they've released, but the city's website didn't make an image of the ad available. There is a PDF to download, which makes it easy to print and post (precisely the actions that result in litter), but the blogosphere is completely overlooked.

A blog entry only produces cyber litter, and although it'll take more than 20-minutes to rid the blogosphere of all this crap, you don't have to see it while you're walking our streets.

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