A couple of months ago I did an exposé on the history of getting around in Toronto during the winter. Powerful stuff.

In that piece, I outlined the various forms of transit used during the icy, wintry months in the city, many of which are still in use today. Nota bene: bicycles were not included.

That makes sense, doesn’t it? Of all the types of conveyances that one could conjure up that are also well-suited to winter, bicycles wouldn’t really be high on that list. And once you’ve experienced a Toronto winter, it’s blindingly obvious.

That’s not to detract from those hardcode cyclists who put spikes on their wheels, layers on their bodies, and bike around the city all winter long. Good for them for being totally extreme, I guess.

Not me though, I think that’s nuts.

And I’d like to suggest that most people would agree with me; biking in the nice weather, great! Winter, fuck it!

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So based on this assumption, I think it’s safe to say that any business based on cycling has to be prepared to weather the winter weather, so to speak.

Therefore, the fact that rent-a-bike outfit BIXI is currently experiencing financial troubles should be making us as nervous as the inevitable first lawsuit against the company for not providing helmets. (The law currently makes them optional for adults, but BIXI might have additional obligations on account of them being a business.)

It’s not the first time they’ve been in this situation with their hometown of Montreal having to bail them out not too long ago. Now they’re crying poor on the doorsteps of Toronto with whom they have a 10-year loan.

The loan is to the tune of $4.8 million, better than Montreal’s $108 million, but still.

BIXI says that they don’t have the number of bikes on the road that they need to turn a profit. Not sure if that’s a dollars issue or a City Hall one,  but that still seems like something that could’ve been predicted. This ain’t BIXI’s first time at the dance, ya know.

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If you’re a regular reader, you’ll no doubt notice the occasional lapse in posts.

While you could be forgiven for thinking that this is due to laziness or just plain old lack of motivation, I want to assure you that nothing could be farther from the truth.

Aside from blogging, living, my hobbies, the challenges of Sarah’s MS, and that thing called “earning a living”, I like to think I keep busier than most. Case in point:

This happy fellow is FloorPig, and he’s the star of a game by the same name. And you take him for a whirl on your Android phone here:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=air.olliebit.FloorPig

The game is a simple (at least initially), puzzle game. The point is simply to guide FloorPig from the green tile to the red tile while removing every tile in between. If you’re having trouble picturing that, I recommend you try the game. Did I mention it’s free?

And if you don’t have an Android phone, a desktop, web, iOS, and probably Blackberry version should be coming very shortly.

Sarah and I are now working on the next game (tentatively called “Radius”), and we’re also working on expanding FloorPig’s challenging but still somewhat limited nine levels.

It’d be wonderful if you could try our game and send us some feedback, even if it’s negative; I’ve done this for many years so I have a pretty thick skin by now.

So if Toronto City Life isn’t being updated as regularly as you’d like, please accept our apologies. Maybe playing a game or two while you wait would help to pass the time?

In case you didn’t believe that destroying Canada is run-of-the-mill for the Harper government…

… 33,000 companies and agencies who have applied to the federal temporary foreign worker program in Canada stretch to almost every corner of the economy, ranging from the biggest players in the finance and resource sectors to airlines, hotels, government agencies, and the Canadian Broadcasting Corp., according to documents obtained by The Globe and Mail.

The lengthy list of companies and groups, obtained through federal Access to Information laws, spans 475 pages and demonstrates how widely used the federal program has become since it was expanded in 2006 to help Canadian employers deal with shortages of specialized skills in Canada.

Yeah, sure, 1 out of 20 Canadians is out of work (if it’s measured the same way as it is in the US, that only means people actively seeking work and reporting to the government). Clearly we have no labour shortage. Clearly the Harper government continues to tell the truth about everything. Clearly nothing is wrong; now back to your regularly scheduled programming.

I mean, come on — you weren’t expecting Rob Ford to support something to do with biking, did you?

Okay, so now that we got that clarified, I hope it doesn’t come as a shock that Fordo vowed to kill a motion before City Hall to remove some (unused) parking spaces below City Hall and replace them with a locker to hold around 300-ish bikes.

To Rob, this just doesn’t make sense — spend $1.2 million to make an estimated $70,000 in locker fees? In a classic Fordian non sequitur, Ford blurted out, “I’m going to try to kill it at council, but that’s a complete waste of taxpayers’ money.”

Sure there’s waste at City Hall — there are two seats reserved with the name “Ford” that are complete wastes of space, for example — but the bike locker isn’t one of them.

For starters, the current parking spots to be occupied are mostly sitting idle. Of course, that doesn’t mean an additional cost, but it also doesn’t mean additional revenue. For the 12 phantom cars that are to be displaced, that would be about $3,600 per year (assuming $300 per vehicle). Even if those spots were paved over with gold and diamonds and rented out at $1,000 a pop, and the number of cars were doubled, that would still only amount to $24,000 a year.

But for the city to get that money, those spots would actually have to be reserved, so to call it lost revenue is just not correct.

To be sure, $1.2 million is an up-front cost that can’t just be ignored. If the $70K revenue stream is accurate, it’ll take just over 17 years to pay off. So in the short term, it definitely would not make economic sense.

However, this re-fit is part of the plan to re-do Nathan Phillips Square and has been for many years, so Fordo kinda missed the boat on that one (he’s been on City Council for a decade, conservatively*).

But, okay, that’s Ford right? He did, after all, come out and declare that he’s not exactly skilled at doing the whole “mayor” thing, so this shouldn’t come as a shocker to anyone.

But Ford’s numbers (still trusting him on that dubious $70K), do make sense if you require immediate payback on projects. Municipal government doesn’t always have to require that, and especially not on a relatively small $1.2 million. Even at two and a half times, as one must expect from government projects, that’s still a less-than-astronomical $3 million.

I’m willing to bet that that new stage being put up top side at the Square, not to mention all the extra stuff behind it, is worth at least a cool three mill, and what purpose do they serve?

Presumably to attract tourists and locals who might spend money. Those same tourists and locals that may arrive on bicycles (I’ve seen ’em, even on those rented numbers!)

Seems like it’s not an economic issue that Rob Ford has, nor is it a political problem; for him, it’s ideological. He doesn’t like bikes, thinks cyclists are a pain in the ass, and still thinks that it’s possible to cram more cars onto the streets of Toronto as a solution to congestion.

I can see why he’d think that; he has the right of way on all streets (presumably because he’s mayor), and doesn’t really have to obey all of those lesser-known (and unenforceable!) laws — that’s for everyone else to do.

* I feel it’s fair to chip off a couple of years for vacancies, mental and otherwise.

It’s been almost a year since I reached out to the Star to see what was happening with their complaint against the mayor. You may not remember it — it had to do with how Ford was excluding media from City Hall (and especially the Star).

Well, the much-maligned Integrity Commissioner recently released her report on the incident and decided that there was nothing to follow up on. In other words, case closed.

Unsurprisingly, no one from the Ford camp is so much as mentioning the decision. I suppose it must be a foregone conclusion now that Rob Ford gets away with breaking every rule and law out there, why should this be any different? And, of course, further discussions about the balance in the office of the Integrity Commissioner are completely absent. In other words, if she’s questioning the mayor and doing her job, then of course she’s irrelevant, biased, and just the scum of the earth. If she’s siding with him, it can be ignored so that she can continue to be demonized.

But let’s put this to the side for moment and see what the report actually said. First, some history.

In February 2011, members of the City Hall press gallery put together a brief note stating what they expected of the mayor as a public servant:

The Gallery expects that all of its members will be treated equally and fairly. As such, all media releases, circulars, agendas, notice of scrums and other events, and other official communications from the City of Toronto, including the mayor’s office, must be communicated equally to all members of the Gallery, without favour or prejudice.

Ford ignored this and didn’t respond (surprise!)

In December of that year, a formal complaint was filed and, indeed, Rob Ford was once again found to have been doing exactly what he’d been accused of doing:

The complainant provided examples of bulk distribution of news releases and statements made by the Mayor to the media that were not given to journalists writing for the Toronto Star. The Mayor acknowledges that these were not delivered to writers for the Toronto Star. A search conducted of press releases from the Office of the Mayor during the relevant time period identified the recipients.

Additionally:

The former Press Secretary for the Mayor confirmed that after taking office the Mayor’s flatly stated position was, “I do not talk to the Star.”

Furthermore:

One journalist for the Toronto Star described the situation as an “underground economy” in information. Material was often provided on an “off the record” basis. Another journalist from the Toronto Star described the relationship-building with the Mayor’s Press Secretary as a “long hard slog” which improved over time.

And just to clarify:

The subject of the Mayor’s relationship to the media was discussed with many of those interviewed in this investigation. Staff members from the Toronto Star spoke about the difficulty of doing their work without up to date information about the Mayor and his activities. This complaint was not limited to the Toronto Star. Other journalists described the flow of information out of the Mayor’s office in these terms:

• “few and far between”
• “we aren’t kept up to date regarding what he is doing”
• “occasional” statements
• “less than once per week and sometimes once per month”
• “It is not as if we have a direct line to the Mayor”
• The Press Secretary is “inconsistent” in responding to journalists

…

On the continuum of “sparse or sparser” access, members of the Press Gallery said that the Toronto Star has less access than others. The media members interviewed, and those who commented publicly on the issue have said a number of times that a Mayor should be even-handed with the press and treat all outlets “fairly.” Others felt strongly that there is a democratic obligation on the part of elected officials to be open with the press and to be fair in access to information about their activities.

In the end and despite this overwhelming evidence, the Integrity Commissioner ruled in favour of Ford:

I conclude that on the particular facts in this case, there was no breach of the Code of Conduct by Mayor Ford. The reasons for this finding can be summarized as follows:

• There is an accepted practice of elected officials, including the Mayor, determining how and when they will grant access to the media, by way of interviews, answering questions during scrums or providing information about their views, outside of the formal and publicly accessible mechanisms that exist for ensuring transparent municipal democracy;
• The Mayor did not interfere with the access of Toronto Star reporters to significant avenues of information about the workings and agendas of City Council, the public service, or other councillors;
• The City of Toronto has an open access policy for disseminating information to the media and to the public;
• The Mayor’s personal policy of “not talking to the Star” was incomplete, with his knowledge and approval, as shown by the following:
  • distribution of some bulk e mails to thestar.ca;
  • distribution of most bulk e mails to other members of the Star Media Group, all falling under the direct supervision of the Publisher of the Toronto Star;
  • distribution of all bulk e mails to the affiliated sister company of Metroland;
  • the unofficial and multiple “work arounds” by staff and Toronto Star journalists, known, tolerated and cited by the Mayor in his defence.
  • The originating story which led to the Mayor’s reason for not speaking to the Toronto Star was written during a political campaign and was newsworthy because of his status as a public and political figure;
  • The ability of the press to publish, comment and otherwise hold politicians to account for their media communications practices.

So once again, Rob Ford smugly walks away from the fray because there’s really nothing in place to hold him to account.

Yesterday afternoon Rob Ford called in to Newstalk 1010’s  Closing Arguments show to once again put his ignorance on display for the world at large.

The topic of discussion was Richard Kachkar, the guy who ran over a cop in a snowplow and is now pleading insanity. Ford called in and boldly stated that lawyers shouldn’t be defending Kachkar. At least that’s what I was able to get from a Newstalk blog post that’s since been yanked.

Looks like Newstalk is in the process of covering up Rob’s words (the story yankage, all other shows except this one episode being available, etc.), so I’m not sure we’ll ever have a reliable transcript, but one of the show’s guests, defence lawyer Leora Shemesh, summed up Ford’s comments:

“I just think that it’s perplexing to have the mayor of the city calling in about this issue, particularly because it’s in front of a jury and he knew that, but more so because he seemed to be uneducated about not criminally responsible and what that means.”

Additionally, Toronto lawyer Sean Robichaud weighed in:

“It is truly astonishing that the Mayor of Toronto espouses such a gross misunderstanding of the law and mental illness. There is also something unsettling and disrespectful to the justice system when a politician of his position provides his opinion on a verdict that he seems to know little about, the night before the jury is set to deliberate.”

Is it really astonishing to discover such qualities about Rob Ford at this point? Only if you’ve been living under a rock.

And is it really surprising to hear neo-Cons spouting off such unhelpful, angry, and ultimately harmful ignorance? Ditto on this one.

(I just have to find the other one)

Perhaps one of TCL’s readers can tell me what this thing is? I’d guess either a fixed compass or solar clock.

It’s still cold and windy and I booked it over to warmth and coffee. On the lookout for ball #2.

I happened to be walking around the maze of an area that’s become the front of Union Station yesterday, and it put one final question to bed that I had lingering from before. How far have they gotten?

Front Street is half closed, getting around is all weird and Escheresque, and they’re just digging out from under the street now. The main GO concourse is still 100% intact, so basically, not very far.

On the bright side, the Cinnabon is still open.

This city project that I was blogging about as early as 2009 has always been a bit difficult for me to imagine. I mean, I knew that the areas beneath the station (where the daily commuter crunch happens), were going to be gutted and something new was going to go in, but I recently discovered some new images showing what it’s really going to look like in the end. (Yes, I did borrow these from blogTO.)

The best one is probably the basic cross-section showing how the ground beneath the trains is being transformed:

Basically, they’re splitting the lower mezzanine into two levels from the existing one.

I’m not sure how this is going to connect to the TTC and PATH, but presumably (see below), this is being done to accommodate more foot traffic, so hopefully they won’t try to jam double the people into the same entrances and exists.

The builders, NORR Architects, also provided some artist’s renderings of the upgraded station:

Based on the illustration above, it seems like there’s a lot of wasted vertical space. This is where my doubt (above) comes from.

Don’t get me wrong, aesthetically it’s nicer, but the fact that this is being done in a limited space beneath the trains make me wonder how efficient this will actually be. But I’m staying optimistic.

The one thing we can definitely look forward to is seeing a newly scrubbed exterior on the station, and new moat roofs over the lower-level outdoor pedestrian areas (where all the smokers hang out):

I don’t take GO, or the TTC for that matter, nearly as much as I used to. However, even when I was commuting daily (and this was many years ago), the crush was sometimes unbearable and the station just seemed horribly dated. The decor would probably have been pretty cool in the 70s, but with the wear of age and constant traffic, it was just starting to look rundown.

Personally, I look forward to seeing the newly reno’ed station — it’s an indelible slice of Toronto, and worth an occasional (but sensitive), upgrade or two.

So do you remember Rob Ford’s big court case where he came this close to being tossed out of office? He squeaked by on the technicality that City Council had no authority to force him to repay donations from lobbyists, and therefore the entire case was null and void?

As you may recall, the fact that Ford was using his position improperly was never at issue; all parties (with the exception of Ford and his buddies), agreed that what he did was wrong. To quote presiding judge Hackland, “…it is difficult to accept an error in judgment defence based essentially on a stubborn sense of entitlement (concerning his football foundation) and a dismissive and confrontational attitude to the Integrity Commissioner and the Code of Conduct.”

Being held to account obviously chafed the fat man something fierce because there was no end to his vitriol. Anyone who would dare question what he did (especially people who were competent and required by provincial legislation), MUST BE FIRED! After all, if the Fuhrer decrees it…

So I can’t imagine how Ford is going to deal with the fact that he was today found to be openly continuing to use his name to ask for donations from lobbyists, but he also once again ran away to his beloved American bosom to avoid any scrutiny or painful brow-furrowing (a.k.a. thinking). Second vacation in three months — just like any regular TV mobster waiting for the “heat” to die down.

Let me reiterate that in case you missed it: the thing that Ford got in trouble for and almost got him fired (were it not for a technicality), is exactly what he has continued to do since the case was dropped!

There’s no way in the universe he can still claim ignorance, or that it was some sort of decade-long bout of abject ineptitude — something that in any company would have been just cause for a firing a long long time ago.

Even the lobbyists being targeted know what the problem is:

Andy Manahan, executive director of the Residential and Civil Construction Alliance of Ontario, said he received a letter on Jan. 28 — only three days after Ford won his appeal in the conflict of interest saga that began with his decision to solicit donations from lobbyists in 2009.

“You never know what a mayor’s office could do to put a monkey wrench into your dealings with the city.”

“I don’t think it’s appropriate to take those sort of lists and send out letters to people who have dealings with the city,” Manahan said. “Again, there could be repercussions. There’s potential.”

…

The second registered lobbyist asked not to be named for fear of alienating the Ford administration. He said, “I think it’s kind of suspicious. The only interactions I’ve had with him were on city business or as a lobbyist registrant.”

He added: “It goes back to: are you allowed to use names and contact information from business dealings to raise funds? Is that permitted? It sure seems strange.”

…

Ford also sent a fundraising letter in the past two months to a non-lobbyist who does business with the city and whose fortunes he could directly influence: Brian Ashton, president of the Canadian National Exhibition Association, which stages the annual fair.

As mayor, Ford is automatically a member of the association board; if Ashton seeks re-election, Ford could vote for or against him. Under its new governance model, the association will pay rent of more than $3 million to the city in 2013.

“It’s awkward because if you’re doing business with the city in any fashion, do you feel a sense of obligation?” said Ashton, a former centrist councillor who retired from politics in 2010. “If you don’t (donate), will that influence his impression or support of your organization?”

Ashton is currently urging council members not to put a casino at Exhibition Place. He said the fundraising letters are “unnerving” because “the Fords are very powerful in Toronto.”

“I just hope that (Rob Ford) separates the two and doesn’t allow fundraising efforts to influence decisions with respect to the casino or any other CNE business,” Ashton said.