[URBAN NOTE] Fifteen Kitchener-Waterloo items (#waterlooregion)

• Work on the second stage of Ion expansion, south into Cambridge, will not even start until 2028, and is expected to cost at least $C 1.36 billion. Global News reports.
• This proposal for regular two-way GO Transit rail connections between Toronto and Kitchener-Waterloo, frankly, is desperately needed. The Record reports.
• A cyclist faces charges for careless driving leading to a collision with a LRT in Kitchener. CBC reports.
• A GoFundMe campaign for a woman hit by a train in Kitchener has raised more than $C14 thousand. The Record reports.
• A school bus driver has been charged for stopping his vehicle dangerously close to a rail crossing in Cambridge. The Record reports.
• Waterloo Region is a successful testbed for virtual doctor visits. The Record reports.
• The Charles Street bus terminal in downtown Kitchener is not going to be redeveloped for at least a couple of years. The Record reports.
• Waterloo Region hopes to create more than 600 affordable new homes, in five developments, over the next decade. CBC reports.
• The number of single food bank users in Kitchener-Waterloo has doubled over the past five years. CBC reports.
• Waterloo is spending $C 3 million to renovate and modernize a handsome old Carnegie Library. CBC reports.
• A pop-up in Kitchener, Vivid Dreams, is charging customers up to $C 20 to use one of a dozen backgrounds for their Instagram photos. CBC reports.</li
• A Kitchener woman, Heidi Bechtold, has a thriving new dog-related business, Complete K9. The Record reports.
• The new digital lab at the Kitchener Public Library sounds great! The Record reports.
• Andrew Coppolino at CBC Kitchener-Waterloo takes a look at some of the different cuisines and restaurants in Waterloo Region featuring noodles, here.
• Andrew Coppolino at CBC Kitchener-Waterloo looks at the pastel de nata, the Portuguese egg custard, as an emerging commercial snack in Waterloo Region.

[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: new subway stations, bike routes, land transfer, rent, Faith Goldy

• Although the York University station on the York extension of the subway line is heavily used, two of the newest ones are among the least used. The Toronto Star reports.
• Philip Gordon Mackintosh at The Conversation notes how, in Toronto and in other cities, traffic of whatever kind including bikes follows the routes laid out by planners.
• Spacing shares a proposal by Zack Taylor to transfer income generated by the land transfer tax from the operating budget to the capital budget, the better to husband this wealth.
• Prospective tenants in Toronto are using social media photos to try to find new homes. The Toronto Star reports.
• Former mayoral candidate Faith Goldy has been ordered to pay Bell more than forty thousand dollars, to compensate them for the costs of her lawsuit against them for not airing her ad. CityNews reports.

[URBAN NOTE} Five Toronto links: Honest Ed’s, 411 Church, cormorants, Scarborough cycling, swimming

• Urban Toronto looks at Honest Ed’s one year ago and at the site now.
• Urban Toronto looks at how the exterior of 411 Church, at Church and Carlton, is fast approaching completion.
• A highly contagious disease called Newcastle disease is killing cormorants along the Toronto waterfront. CBC reports.
• Tammy Thorne at NOW Toronto looks at the factors behind the spread of cycling in Scarborough, here.
• Jamie Bradburn shares some old articles offering advice to the Water Nymphs women’s swimming club of the 1920s.

[URBAN NOTE] Three Toronto links: TTC streetcars, Queens Quay, Cheesecake Factory

• Steve Munro shares some photos of the first of the Canadian Light Rail Vehicles, TTC streetcars, from 1978.
• NOW Toronto points out that Queens Quay, a popular pedestrian and biking area, does not do that good job of separating these two streams of traffic.
• This Toronto Star review of the Cheesecake Factory, newly present in Toronto at Yorkdale, was fun to read. A dessert there might be worth trying.

[URBAN NOTE] Four notes around the world: New York City, Saudi Arabia, Hong Kong, Mexico City

• Bloomberg notes global warming can expose New York City to heightened flood risks every five years, not every 500.
• Saudi Arabia, Bloomberg notes, plans to build a new city from scratch.
• VICE notes that Hong Kong, with its dear real estate, is running out of space for its dead.
• Spacing looks at how Mexico City is expanding its cycling infrastructure as part of its bid for world status.

[URBAN NOTE] Six links on Toronto, on mass transit and infrastructure generally

• This story of a TTC worker who took a day’s fares home with him, where they got confiscated by police, and then compensated by union pressure for having been suspended without pay … wow.
• Edward Keenan makes the point that cost overruns for city infrastructure need to be taken seriously. The quoted price for a park staircase is just off.
• Daily Xtra notes the sad state of repairs of the rainbow crosswalks of Toronto.
• CBC reports on Twyn Rivers Drive, a Scarborough route some say should be marked as off-limits for heavy vehicles.
• NOW Toronto reports on how Mississauga is starting to outshine Toronto in the department of bike lanes.
• Torontoist’s Tricia Wood writes about the almost impressive dysfunction at Metrolinx.

[URBAN NOTE] Three articles on cycling bike lanes in Toronto

• NOW Toronto‘s Tammy Thorne looks at the reasons given for the lack of bike lanes on the Entertainment District’s John Street.
• The Toronto Star‘s Ben Spurr reports on the success of bike lanes on Bloor Street.
• The Star carries Liam Lacey’s Canadian Press article on Gregory Becarich, maker of ghost bike memorials in Toronto.

[URBAN NOTE] “Six Things We Learned from Ryerson’s Cycling Report”

Torontoist’s Cayley James shares her summary of six key points from a recent report on cycling in Toronto. There is definitely a lot of potential for it to increase.

Ryerson University recently released a report that is the first of its kind in Canada. Cycling Behaviour and Potential in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area [PDF] is a nearly 100-page document that analyzes current cycling patterns, with an eye towards how Metrolinx and the municipalities in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA) can increase cycling.

Written by Raktim Mitra, Ian Cantello, and Greggory Hanson, three researchers from Ryerson’s School of Urban and Regional Planning, as well as Nancy Smith Lea from the Toronto Centre for Active Transportation (TCAT), it received funding from Metrolinx, an agency of the Government of Ontario.

There are 14 million trips made on a daily basis in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area. Anyone can tell you that Toronto has a travel problem. The roads are clogged with cars, there is a dearth of hard-rail transit that Metrolinx is trying to remedy slowly but surely, and those who could be cycling aren’t. For me, a commuter, a cyclist, and someone who can’t drive, a lot of the problems brought up in the report were common knowledge. What was enlightening was the breadth of these problems across the region and the surprising areas that potential is hidden.

[URBAN NOTE] “Majority of Torontonians favour bike lanes, new survey suggests”

The Toronto Star‘s Alina Bykova reports on an encouraging new poll of Torontonian opinion.

Seven in 10 Torontonians support bike lanes generally and a majority approve of the new lanes on Bloor St. W., according to a new Forum Research poll revealed this week.

The survey showed widespread support for bike lanes from multiple demographics that were surveyed, including people who drive, take public transit, bike and walk to work or school, those in different income and age brackets, and men and women alike.

Downtown Toronto and East York, where most bike lanes are located, had the highest approval rates, at 79 per cent in each region. North York’s approval rating was the lowest of all the regions surveyed, at 61 per cent.

“These lanes have obviously been something of a success, and even the majority of drivers favour them. This bodes well for more bicycle infrastructure if as ambitious a project as this can meet with so little opposition,” said Forum president Lorne Bozinoff.

Fifty-six per cent of those polled approved of the new bike lanes on Bloor between Shaw St. and Avenue Rd., a pilot project installed in August. The approval rating was slightly higher in the case of those surveyed in downtown Toronto, who were 63 per cent in favour of the bike lanes, and in East York, where 72 per cent were supportive.

[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• blogTO notes a bike licensing proposal has been killed.
• The Dragon’s Tales links to a study of the surfaces of magma exoplanets.
• Language Hat notes untranslatable Maltese phrases.
• Language Log is taken aback by Donald Trump’s juvenile language.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money thinks that Trump’s stance on trade might be an advantage.
• The Power and the Money’s Noel Maurer does not understand what Ian Bremmer means by saying that the presidential election does not matter to business.
• Savage Minds shares an indigenous take on anthropology and its charting of indigenous secrets and lives and cultures.
• Towleroad notes that survivors of the Orlando massacre and others are starting to get compensation from the OneOrlando fund.
• Window on Eurasia notes that Russians believed their propaganda today and argues Russian autocracy will always threaten Ukraine.