[PHOTO] Empty 501 Queen streetcar westbound, The Beach

The 501 Queen streetcar was unnervingly empty Saturday night in the Beach.

[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: housing, highways, Toronto Zoo, Dufferin Grove Park, 501 Queen

• Jennifer Pagliaro and Emily Mathieu at the Toronto Star look at how 1400 subsidized housing units remain empty despite the housing crisis, and why.
• Does Toronto need another 400-series highway to handle traffic? blogTO considers.
• How can the Toronto Zoo move forward? The Toronto Star examines.
• Dufferin Grove Park is scheduled to face an interesting redevelopment. blogTO reports.
• Steve Munro looks at the factors behind longer travel times on the 501 Queen streetcar.

[URBAN NOTE] Ten Toronto links: politics, transit, pop culture, photos

• CBC Toronto bids farewell, fittingly at TCAF time, to the iconic Jason Loo Toronto comic series The Pitiful Human-Lizard.
• At blogTO, Tanya Mok reports on the resistance of tenants at 54-56 Kensington Avenue to an illegal eviction order by their landlord.
• The Toronto Star reports</u. on a new matchmaking event intended to connect future roommates to each other.
• Kevin Ritchie at NOW Toronto reports on how a new pricing scheme for the AGO, including a $35 annual pass for people over 25, reflects a push to try to get more people into museums.
• Glenn Sumi writes at NOW Toronto about the increasingly steep price of ticket prices for live theatre in Toronto.
• Toronto Life shares photos from an exhibit, by Patrick Cummins and Ivaan Kotulsky, of Queen Street West in the 1980s and 1990s.
• Richard Longley writes at NOW Toronto about the emptying of an old warehouse of collectibles and oddities on Wabush, part of the decline of old storied Toronto.
• Toronto Life shares more photos from outdoor market Stackt, at Front and Bathurst.
• Steve Munro starts to analyse traffic patterns on the 501 Queen streetcar, looking first at the Neville Loop end.
• NOW Toronto is one of a few news sources to report on Scarborough writer Téa Mutonji and her new short story collection Shut Up, You’re Pretty.

[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: #AGOInfinity, 2 Queen Street East, TTC, ROM

• The Art Gallery of Ontario has gotten its Infinity Room! Global News reports.
• The rehabilitation and renovation of 2 Queen Street East will be a high-profile project. The Globe and Mail reports.
• Steve Munro continues to examine the relative speeds of the 504 King and 501 Queen streetcars, here.
• This warning from the TTC union that Presto cards are too failure-prone to be able to properly take over from the Metropass in January makes me, a TTC user, worry. The Toronto Star reports.
• Toronto doctors can now issue their patients prescriptions to visit the ROM. blogTO reports.

[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: TTC, parliament, Queens Quay, Jordan Peterson

• Christopher Hume’s sarcastic “praise” of the TTC as the better way since it gives people plenty of time to sit and do nothing, over at the Toronto Star, is notable.
• Steve Munro takes a look at service on the 501L bus route on Queen west to Long Branch.
• John Lorinc writes at the Toronto Star about the discovery of Ontario’s first parliament beneath a car lot at Front and Parliament, and what people are doing to publicize knowledge of this site.
• The TTC will be putting up a gate at the Queens Quay subway tunnel after yet another driver drove their vehicle into the streetcar route.
• Vinay Menon’s extended take in the Toronto Star on Jordan Peterson is weirdly compelling. What will Peterson do next?