[URBAN NOTE] Nine Toronto links

• Metrolinx using paid influencers to promote the Ontario Line is certainly a choice. The Toronto Star reports.
• Union Station retiring an old mechanical system 90 years old used to control TTC vehicles is a landmark event. The Metrolinx blog reports.
• Jamie Bradburn looks at the birth of the Gardiner Expressway, here.
• Alok Mukherjee at Spacing questions why police in Toronto have stopped enforcing traffic regulations.
• Protesters charged with blocking the Bloor Viaduct during the Extinction Rebellion have had the charges dropped. Global News reports.
• Sean Marshall shared his account of his address to the Toronto Police Services board, here.
• Jamie Bradburn looks at the history behind the mid-20th century expansion of Church Street.
• NOW Toronto notes that workers at the Broadview Hotel have become unionized.
• Samantha Lui writes at NOW Toronto against the false negative stereotypes applied by so many–even briefly by Google–to Scarborough.
• CBC notes that a lawsuit surrounding benefits fraud by TTC employees has been settled, expensively.

[VIDEO] Crossing the Bloor Viaduct, facing south

[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: GO Transit, rent, land transfer tax, books, Viaduct

• Transit Toronto notes that GO Transit has introduced regular weekday train service to Niagara Falls.
• Average monthly rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Toronto has hit $C 2260. blogTO reports.
• Revenue from the much-needed land transfer tax that supplies City of Toronto budgets is below expectations, the Toronto Star reported.
• NOW Toronto shares a list of the most-borrowed books from the Toronto Public Library system in 2018.
• Spacing celebrates the 100th anniversary of the Prince Edward Viaduct, also known as the Bloor Street Viaduct, arcing across the Don River.

[PHOTO] Toronto skyline as seen from the Prince Edward Viaduct

[NEWS] Seven Toronto links, from queer and Irish history to new infrastructure to a serial killer

• Lisa Coxon of Toronto Life shares eleven photos tracking Toronto’s queer history back more than a century.
• Michelle McQuigge reports for the Toronto Star that the Luminous Veil does save lives. I would add that it is also beautiful.
• In The Globe and Mail, Marcus Gee thinks it makes perfect sense for there to be a dedicated streetcar corridor on King Street.
• Ben Spurr describes a new plan for a new GO Transit bus station across from Union Station.
• Emily Mathieu reported in the Toronto Star on how some Kensington Market tenants seem to have been pushed out for an Airbnb hostel.
• In The Globe and Mail, Irish-born John Doyle explores the new Robert Grassett Park, built in honour of the doctor who died trying to save Irish refugees in 1847.

Justin Ling in VICE tells the story of three gay men who went missing without a trace in Toronto just a few years ago. What happened?

[PHOTO] Nine photos of the Prince Edward Viaduct at twilight

I decided to walk at least part of the way home from an evening meditation session at Broadview and Danforth, over the Prince Edward Viaduct at twilight. I love this bridge, with its majestic arcs over the Don Valley below, and its colour-shifting Luminous Veil.

[PHOTO] Seven photos of the Luminous Veil in action, Prince Edward Viaduct

Last Monday, I had the chance to walk across the Prince Edward Viaduct at night to see the Luminous Veil in action, the first time I saw it in action since it was finished last year for the Pan Am Games.

Last July, Spacing Toronto’s Kat Eschner wrote at length about the controversies surrounding the Veil, an anti-suicide barrier for one of the most popular suicide bridges in North America. One commonly voiced concern was that the Luminous Veil would detract from the Viaduct’s beauty. Looking back at these photos, and remembering my walk, I don’t see how this is the case.

[URBAN NOTE] “The modernist Bloor-Danforth line at 50”

Chris Bateman writes at length at Spacing about the architectural modernism of the different components of the Bloor-Danforth line.

One of the biggest challenges faced by the subway’s engineers was how to connect the Bloor Street and Danforth Avenue sections of the line. Two significant barriers—the Rosedale and Don valleys—stood in the way.

The TTC investigated various options, including tunnelling all the way to the east end, but ultimately chose to use the existing lower deck of the Prince Edward Viaduct.

Built at a cost of $90,000 during construction of the bridge in the 1910s, the lower level was designed to carry streetcars at a time when the city was planning underground lines across the city. Ultimately, the deck sat dormant for more than 40 years before the TTC converted it for subway use.

In all, using the Prince Edward Viaduct cut $10 million off the cost of building the Bloor-Danforth line.

Though there was also a viable subway deck on the Rosedale portion of the Prince Edward Viaduct, the TTC found it didn’t quite line up with the planned location of Sherbourne station, so a new bridge was required.

The solution, supplied by architect John B. Parkin and U.S. engineering firm DeLeuw, Cather & Co., was an open spandrel structure with a sweeping reinforced concrete arch. The deck, almost 17 metres above the valley floor, was almost entirely enclosed to prevent train noise disturbing residents of the nearby Kensington Apartments.

[BLOG] Some Friday links

• The Broadside Blog’s Caitlin Kelly describes what it takes to be a professional writer.
• The Dragon’s Gaze links to a paper considering dust in atmospheres.
• The Dragon’s Tales notes the study of a medieval Korean star catalogue.
• Language Hat notes a program to translate Mexican writers who write in indigenous languages.
• Steve Munro offers advice on what to do about Smarttrack.
• Marginal Revolution refers readers to Gary Kasparov’s new book on politics, criticizing Putin and much else.
• The Planetary Society Blog shares the latest data from Dawn at Ceres.
• Torontoist has a beautiful picture of the Prince Edward Viaduct.
• Towleroad notes a referendum on same-sex marriage in Slovenia.

[VIDEO] Crossing the Bloor Viaduct,15 December 2012 at 7 pm

A quick cellphone video filmed the evening of the 15th of December from an eastbound TTC subway car on the Bloor Viaduct, this clip is dominated by the snaking traffic of the Don Valley Parkway dozens of metres below.