[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: EtobiCo, Sully’s, Don Mills Road, biking, landlord vs. tenant

• blogTO notesa corner of Etobicoke, bounded by Bloor and Kipling and the Queensway and Islington, is now being banded as the neighbourhood of EtobiCo.
• Sully’s Boxing Gym, once a neighbour of mine on Dupont, is now on Dundas Street West. blogTO reports.
• Sean Marshall takes a look at the problems of Don Mills Road for people not in cars, here.
• The Toronto Star explains a new study exploring why more people in the city do not bike to work, here.
• The sort of landlord-tenant conflict and mistrust described here cannot contribute to a productive city. The Toronto Star reports.

[BLOG] Some Saturday links

• Architectuul shares photos from a bike tour of Berlin.
• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait reports on new evidence that exocomets are raining on star Beta Pictoris.
• Larry Klaes at Centauri Dreams reviews the two late 1970s SF films Alien and Star Trek I, products of the same era.
• D-Brief reports on Hubble studies of the star clusters of the Large Magellanic Cloud.
• Bruce Dorminey shares Gemini telescope images of interstellar comet C/2019 Q4 (Borisov).
• The Dragon’s Tales shares video of Space X’s Starhopper test flight.
• Far Outliers notes the import of the 13th century Norman king of England calling himself Edward after an Anglo-Saxon king.
• Gizmodo notes that not only can rats learn to play hide and seek, they seem to enjoy it.
• io9 notes the fantastic high camp of Mister Sinister in the new Jonathan Hickman X-Men run, borrowing a note from Kieron Gillen’s portrayal of the character.
• Joe. My. God. notes that Guiliani’s soon-to-be ex-wife says he has descended from 911 hero to a liar.
• Language Log looks at the recent ridiculous suggestion that English, among other languages, descends from Chinese.
• The LRB Blog looks at the brief history of commemorating the V2 attacks on London.
• Scott Lemieux at Lawyers, Guns and Money looks at the practice in Saskatchewan of sterilizing First Nations women against their consent.
• Marginal Revolution suggests that farmers in Brazil might be getting a partly unfair treatment. (Partly.)
• The Planetary Society Blog explains why C/2019 Q4 (Borisov) matters.
• Window on Eurasia notes that, for the first time, immigrants from Turkmenistan in Belarus outnumber immigrants from Ukraine.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Hamilton, Montréal, Ottawa, Québec City, Los Angeles

• Hamilton, Ontario, leads the country in reports of hate crimes. The National Post reports.
• Cyclists are 42 times as likely to be ticketed for traffic violations in Montréal than in Toronto. CTV News reports.
• CBC considers if the city of Ottawa loosened unduly its requirements for its new light rail networks.
• A new report suggests that economics of a central Canadian high-frequency rail route would work better if Québec City was not included. CTV reports.
• CityLab looks at nostalgia in Los Angeles for that city’s old comprehensive paper map, the Thomas Guide.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Fredericton, Amsterdam, Athens, Barcelona, Riga

• The city of Fredericton hopes a new strategy to attracting international migration to the New Brunswick capital will help its grow its population by 25 thousand. Global News reports.
• Guardian Cities notes the controversy in Amsterdam as users of moped find themselves being pushed from using bike lanes.
• Guardian Cities looks at how many in Athens think the city might do well to unbury the rivers covered under concrete and construction in the second half of the 20th century.
• The Sagrada Familia, after more than 130 years of construction, has finally received a permit for construction from Barcelona city authorities. Global News reports.
• Evan Gershkovich at the Moscow Times reports on how the recent ousting of the mayor of the Latvian capital of Riga for corruption is also seem through a lens of ethnic conflict.

[URBAN NOTE] Five Montréal links: Royalmount, flooding, bike paths, schools, Piknic Electronik

• The city of Montréal continues to oppose the controversial Royalmount project. Global News reports?
• Will communities in the flood-prone West Island get protective dikes? CBC reports.
• Are the bike paths of Montréal getting sufficient investment? CTV News reports.
• French-language schools in booming north-end Montréal are facing overcrowding. CBC reports.
• CultMTL takes a look at what is up this year for Piknik Electronik on Ile Sainte-Hélène.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Windsor, Calgary, Mulhouse, Naples, Dhaka

• This Shane Mitchell op-ed at Spacing warns about how plans for a new hospital in Windsor can threaten to promote sprawl.
• Debates over bike traffic laws are ongoing in Calgary. Global News reports.
• Guardian Cities looks at how the downtown of the French city of Mulhouse has been successfully regenerated.
• Guardian Cities looks at how the infamous housing estate of Scampia outside of Naples, famously derelict and a nexus for crime, is finally being torn down.
• Atlas Obscura notes an Armenian church in Dhaka, last remnant of a once-vast Armenian trading diaspora that extended out to Bengal.

[URBAN NOTE] Seven cities links: Montréal;, Québec City, Saint John, Moncton, D.C., Dallas, …

• CBC Montreal reports on how a downsizing Montréal-area convent recently put on a very large yard sale.
• Will the staged construction of a tramway in Québec City lead to the partial completion of that project? CBC examines the issue.
• The New Brunswick city of Saint John recently celebrated its Loyalist heritage. Global News reports.
• The new community garden in Moncton sounds lovely. Global News reports.
• CityLab notes the sad precedent of the privatization of an old Carnegie Library in Washington D.C. into an Apple Store.
• CityLab considers if cycling can make inroads in pro-car Dallas.
• Open Democracy examines the controversy surrounding the contested construction of an Orthodox church in Yekaterinburg.

[NEWS] Five sci-tech links: laufmaschine, rocket scavenging, seasteading, Jasons, Moon

• CityLab reports on a replica of a remarkable proto-bicycle, the laufmaschine, first built in 1815 in response to the climate catastrophe of Mount Tambora.
• This Wired feature looking at how northern Russians scavenged and reused rocket components launched from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome is evocative.
• Seasteading, it turns out, is something that should not be undertaken in waters already claimed by a sovereign power. The National Post reports.
• The Jasons, a think tank of prominent scientists on contract with the Pentagon for decades, are looking for new backers after their contract’s end. NPR reports.
• Nicole Javorsky reports at CityLab on remarkable efforts to try to seriously plan the design of an outpost on the Moon.

[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: Justin Haynes, TTC streetcars, bike lanes, Scarborough, students

• At NOW Toronto, Rebecca Campbell pays tribute to her friend, and collaborator, the activist Justin Haynes.
• Transit Toronto notes the four generations of TTC streetcars on display in the Beaches Easter Parade tomorrow.
• NOW Toronto criticizes the politics of bike lanes in Toronto.
• NOW Toronto noted how badly Scarborough will be served by the Doug Ford subway plans.
• Happily, Toronto is one of the top cities for students in the world. blogTO reports.