Off Off Topic: Cool Toronto People's Thread

[Babying 613]

Living in the city of Toronto does have some negatives. Tree root problems occur and the roots grow into your sewer drain. Yes if the sewer backs up from the root it comes back into your home.

 

I had a plumber open a hole but we did not know what the hell was down there because we had no camera. After it happen again tonight I went on to the Toronto 311 website. I put in my info at 10:10 pm and they said someone will contact me within 4 hours. I thought ya okay. Knock on my door at 11 pm. The city employee shows me what the problem is with his drain camera. He tells me what to do and than call him back to scope out the rest of the drain.

[FCP Bob 1,312]

that's impressive service

[Zach6668 513]

I mostly interact with 311 on Twitter, but they're pretty awesome.

 

Did you guys see the story at the end of 2015 about their control centre? It was fascinating.

 

Of course, I can't find it, so here's one from 2010. http://torontoist.com/2010/09/unseen_city_the_toronto_311_call_centre/

[FCP Bob 1,312]

I've called 311 at 5:30 AM making a noise complaint about a construction site and the system works really well.

[Babying 613]

Going through receipts for a client. I see one receipt that she purchase something from another client of mine. Small world eh.

[Babying 613]

Marco Muzzo to be sentenced today. I am going to guess 8 years.

[FCP Bob 1,312]

Marco Muzzo to be sentenced today. I am going to guess 8 years.

 

10 years minus 8 months for time served and will only serve one third so he'll probably be in prison for another three years and a bit and can get day parole pretty soon.

 

12 year driving ban

[Dubey 1,035]

Is that the rich ******* who came home from his bachelor party on his private jet and drove drunk and killed a whole family?

 

He should be in prison for life.

[FCP Bob 1,312]

Is that the rich ******* who came home from his bachelor party on his private jet and drove drunk and killed a whole family?

 

He should be in prison for life.

 

that's him

 

He'll probably spend another 40 months or so in prison and about 6 months before that he'll be eligible for day parole. His won't be able to drive for 12 years after he is released.

 

Spending 3 years in prison for a rich guy like him is far easier than for an average working slub. When he gets out he'll still be rich and not have to worry about getting a job as somebody just out of prison and he can afford to hire a driver so that he will still be able to get around.

[MapleLeafpoker 1,462]

For some reason, I'm finding it hard to get overly worked up about this since any number of years/months in prison wasn't going to be true justice in my mind.

But of all things, the thought that he gets to drive again, ever, is particularly comical/depressing for me.

[Zach6668 513]

Of course he'll be allowed to drive again. How could he ever live without his own personal vehicle?!?!?

[mrdannyg 274]

I find that part a bit weird. I mean, makes sense to take away his license for some time I guess, but to me the act of drunk driving is so negligent that it's almost insulting to consider it a significant part of the punishment. I mean, if I beat a guy up with a baseball bat, taking away my right to use a baseball bat is kind of weird...I could've used a golf club!

 

I realize that people who cause harm with drunk driving are probably less likely to commit 'other' crimes, so it makes sense in that way - just seems a little crude when there is a dead family and part of the conversation is whether the guy can drive his car or not.

[MapleLeafpoker 1,462]

I find that part a bit weird. I mean, makes sense to take away his license for some time I guess, but to me the act of drunk driving is so negligent that it's almost insulting to consider it a significant part of the punishment. I mean, if I beat a guy up with a baseball bat, taking away my right to use a baseball bat is kind of weird...I could've used a golf club!

 

I realize that people who cause harm with drunk driving are probably less likely to commit 'other' crimes, so it makes sense in that way - just seems a little crude when there is a dead family and part of the conversation is whether the guy can drive his car or not.

 

I dont know, I think its pretty different than your bat/club analogy. No one takes tests of competence to then properly operate a baseball bat. Its a regulated part of our society, and if he is deemed unfit as a driver, he should have that right taken away.

Its not supposed to make up in any way for what he did, its a side issue about his punishments for all these crimes. I think if he didnt kill anyone, he would still have his license revoked, so its a matter of the drunk driving charge being properly punished.

 

Again, no one is suggesting the car thing makes up in any way for what happened, its about the punishment for all the crimes committed.

I dont think anyone thinks its a "significant" part of the punishment as you put it. Well, maybe you and Zach would like to assume we all think that.

[Zach6668 513]

It's insanity that you can make a decision that leads directly to the death of four people, plead guilty, and likely be out of jail in 3 years. I don't care what the "weapon" is.

[Babying 613]

I have zero respect for drunk drivers. I have been hit twice by drunks. That might explain why I don't drink plus I don't like the taste

[pezeveng 207]

It's insanity that you can make a decision that leads directly to the death of four people, plead guilty, and likely be out of jail in 3 years. I don't care what the "weapon" is.

 

I was reading more on this, and if its a repeat offender the sentence is much longer. However only one person (Canada only) has ever received life in prison for killing someone drunk driving it was his 18th conviction.

 

People need to remember the Crown was asking for 10-12 years, so really he got what the Crown thought was a fair punishment. Lesser end of it but close regardless.

[mrdannyg 274]

 

 

I dont know, I think its pretty different than your bat/club analogy. No one takes tests of competence to then properly operate a baseball bat. Its a regulated part of our society, and if he is deemed unfit as a driver, he should have that right taken away.

Its not supposed to make up in any way for what he did, its a side issue about his punishments for all these crimes. I think if he didnt kill anyone, he would still have his license revoked, so its a matter of the drunk driving charge being properly punished.

 

Again, no one is suggesting the car thing makes up in any way for what happened, its about the punishment for all the crimes committed.

I dont think anyone thinks its a "significant" part of the punishment as you put it. Well, maybe you and Zach would like to assume we all think that.

 

Seemed like Wayne was just implying that! I know it's not what he meant, but I've seen similar things said too.

 

Put another way - I think it's weird that a court assigns something as big as jail time and as little as a driving ban...courts should do jail, let the DMV handle driving suspensions! That's not an argument from logic of course, just seems unseemly for a court to even consider that as part of the punishment for something so serious (I fully accept this is a dumb opinion)

[digitalmonkey 929]

Driving is important and essential to many people.

 

Nothing the courts could do would make it better for the family who lost three kids and their grandfather. The goal is for the punishment to act as a deterrent to others who might consider drinking and driving. Is it working? I don't know. The ultimate goal is to have nobody drink and drive and I don't think any punishment will achieve that goal.

[Babying 613]

What is worst than tax deadline day?

 

GST/HST deadline day (March 31st)

[FCP Bob 1,312]

so the Gardiner East funding was approved today.

 

Zach I'd like to hear the pros and cons of tearing down the Eastern portion vs the rebuilding which is the so called hybrid option that's been approved.

[Zach6668 513]

I can expand my thoughts as the conversation flows, but, here are the bullet points.

 

1 - "Hybrid" is an awful misnomer. This is just a relocated elevated expressway. The more progressive cities are tearing down their elevated/waterfront expressways. We're throwing $1B at it.

 

2. Money is a good place to start. $600M more than tearing it down. I believe that's a figure that includes life cycle maintenance, if it isn't, it's even crazier, because an at-grade boulevard is obviously much cheaper to maintain.

 

3. It takes up a ton of space and lowers the value of the land directly abutting it. Toronto is going to continue to grow very quickly. The former industrial lands around the mouth of the Don are important to our growth. The city is going to forego a massive amount of property tax and the associated benefits of development by occupying the land with the expressway, plus the incremental property tax losses from lower valued land surrounding it. This is annually, for the life of the highway.

 

4. 5,000 cars use this stretch in the morning peak. Using numbers I stole from Twitter, that's 0.75% of core-bound commuters. And a smaller portion of all morning peak trips. Everyone in Toronto will pay for this to the benefit of a tiny fraction of citizens. Currently, it operates well under capacity even at the busiest times.

 

5. If we switched to a boulevard at grade, it would delay those 5,000 motorists, if they don't change their route (and some will), at the most, 4 minutes. In practice, probably less than that.

 

6. The general attitude towards drivers in this city is wrong. We can't grow our transportation network by catering to cars. The downtown is basically at capacity in that mode - I know this sounds contradictory to me saying that stretch of highway, but really, once you get off the highway, we're at capacity. There's no more room for more cars. That means the bulk of our growth will need to be absorbed by rapid transit. Cars are just far too inefficient to move the numbers we need in the space we have. We balk at funding the rapid transit we need for the future, but throw $1 billion for 5,000 drivers per morning. It's a common attitude amongst politicians and many citizens and it needs to change if we're going to fulfill our economic potential. Remember the report that congestion is costing like $6B a year in productivity? We aren't going to solve that by rebuilding an underused expressway. We need to grow up as a city. We need much better leadership in this regard. The change is coming, but too late for the Gardiner, apparently.

 

7. I can't think of a single pro.

 

I can elaborate more, but I've already lost my train of thought watching the Pens. And it would probably just be more of the same.

[Zach6668 513]

Addendum to #6:

 

Driving is fine, it works well for cities up to a certain size. Toronto is past that tipping point. Already transit is choked and we risk stagnating economically as neither transit, nor the roads can absorb much growth at this point, and certainly not where the market seems to want homes and jobs. More transit isn't going to cut car congestion - that's a pipe dream*. What it will do is allow the TRANSPORTATION network as a whole to absorb a whole lot more growth than would be possible without it, just given then inherent efficiencies.

 

 

 

*The only way to cut congestion is to price driving at it's actual cost to the city and all societal externalities.

[FCP Bob 1,312]

I'm glad you quoted some of the most misleading statistical talking points.

 

The capital costs for the rebuild (hybrid) and tear down are only about 20% higher for the rebuild. The doubled price includes 100 years of maintenance costs and not done at net present value so it's apples to oranges. So saying it's twice as expensive is not quite correct.

 

The entire area is going to be a massive cluster **** during construction no matter what we do. The tear down will take about 4 years longer of cluster ****. What is the cost in lost productivity etc for an extra 4 years of traffic hell. I'm guessing more than the increased capital cost of the rebuild.

 

The Eastern Gardiner has 120,000 passenger trips per day. That 5000 person number is misleading. Everything isn't about rush hour communting. http://gardinereast....tion Volume.pdf

 

I was reading some stuff at the urban toronto forum and this post I thought was pretty good.

 

http://urbantoronto....61#post-1088809

 

 

Although I agree with the sentiment of your post, I think an important and often overlooked point about limited-access grade-separated highways is that they offer drivers an alternative to the surface network. If we remove the Gardiner, many road users wanting to traverse the south end of the city will inevitably flood the surface network - hindering the mobility of buses, streetcars, peds, cyclists, etc in their wake. Maybe it's not a proverbial silver lining, but there most definitely are quantifiable benefits for non-drivers (and the city as a whole) by keeping/improving this piece of our expressway network.

 

Another point that I think is a tad misleading in this debate is the 100yr lifecycle cost. One hundred years is a fairly sizable window, one that we don't really see in discussions about transit. I've seen 25yr and 50yr operation/maintenance costs for subway or LRT projects. But never have I seen a century brought into the debate. Perhaps if we included the costs of, say, replacing tunnel liners or staffing stations for 100yrs, many would question the merits of certain transit projects as well.

 

No other city has removed the only limited access expressway like this would do.

 

I've seen studies showing that the delay will be more like 10 minutes on average from the U of T and that doesn't include the extra delays on other surface routes from traffic that shifts from the Gardiner to other already clogged roads.

 

This was a pretty good article from a year ago when the decision was being made that I think balances things.

http://www.metronews...all-debate.html

 

It's about a lot more than 5,000 people being delayed for 3 minutes and spending $1 Billion on them. Somebody who thinks that way is either biased, misinformed or being willfully dishonest.

[FCP Bob 1,312]

It's about a lot more than 5,000 people being delayed for 3 minutes and spending $1 Billion on them. Somebody who thinks that way is either biased, misinformed or being willfully dishonest.

 

This is stronger than I really mean when I'm talking about you.

 

I just get really pissed when they selectively quote bullshit as proven facts that justify their positions. Just like we get pissed at the Republicans or Conservatives in Canada. There are real issues and the side that wants the Gardiner to be torn down has some real points but use those and not the bullshit.

[Zach6668 513]

Those are interesting numbers. I wasn't aware of them.

 

I thought the costs might have been cooked a little. They aren't including maintenance in the surface version?

 

You can talk about productivity cost of construction time, sure, but I would bet, and there's probably no real way to confirm this, but if we did an entirely full cost accounting for both options, the surface street would prevail. Full cost would entail things that aren't even numerical, so...? Lol.

 

Where did the 120,000 number come from, anyways? If 5,000 is the peak period, how the hell can it move 24x that in a day?

 

I think 5,000 is peak period, peak direction, but still, peak travel generally accounts for ~50% of travel... presumably, off-peak direction is less than 5k in the peak period, so likely substantially under 10k per hour (both directions)... that's still fishy to me that 120,000 is a full day. It's not like it runs 5k at 3 am? Something isn't passing the smell test there.

 

And nobody is tearing down the city's only limited access highway, just short, underused portion of it.

 

 

 

Also, extra delays on surface routes are not likely to actually manifest - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearing_traffic

 

Though, traffic congestion WILL only get worse if we continue to avoid building high capacity transit where it can actually be productive (ie not the suburbs before addressing downtown capacity constraints).

 

I don't even really think keeping the Gardiner up will be the most disastrous thing in the world - and moving it does unlock some lands for development, especially the Keating Channel shoreline. but what the decision really does is reinforce the backwards car-first thinking in this city, and that leads to the continued BS ongoing with "subways subways subways" for every suburb when we can build a better, realistic transit network that will allow riders to ditch their cars if they want to.

 

You're right, it's not all about core-bound peak hour trips, which is what makes the Scarborough subway so wasteful - most transit trips starting in Scarborough end in Scarborough. A network with STC at the core would be a better result than the subway extension - we're making some progress on that.

 

So yeah, it's just the reinforcement of the car first mentality still at play in a city that likes to talk itself up as progressive, when it's really just as stuck in the 60s as most American cities when push really comes to shove.

 

This would actually be a decent blog post for somebody to write.

 

Btw, when we talk about the rest of the Gardiner, and on the topic of your second post, one of the biggest bullshit reasons my kind of folks bring up is that it's a "barrier" to the waterfront... that's probably the most overplayed reason out there. It's no more a barrier than the rail corridor, which is probably even wider. Really, it's the inhospitable Lakeshore Blvd that's more of the barrier than the elevated expressway. Liven it up a little, and maybe "Under Gardiner" will help with this (though I doubt it) and it'll make it a lot more inviting.