[PHOTO] Boarding zone for the Union-Pearson Express, Toronto Pearson

[URBAN NOTE} Seven Toronto links: Lake Ontario, UP Express, Rail Deck Park, Google, TTC, Doors Open

• Reddit’s r/toronto shares this photo of the level of Lake Ontario having risen above the level of the boardwalk at HTO Park. Are we in for another year of flooding, on the Toronto Islands particularly?
• This CBC Toronto article from a week ago notes how Lake Ontario is getting close to 2017 levels.
• Changes in the Presto system have left many people who use the Union-Pearson Express to commute in a financially costly situation. CBC Toronto reports.
• This court case, besides setting boundaries on what planning boards can and cannot do, will also determine the fate of the Rail Deck Park. I hope it will survive. The Toronto Star reports.
• Stefanie Marotta at the Toronto Star reports on a Jane’s Walk led by MP Adam Vaughan and Bianca Wylie of the waterfront, inspired by their criticism of the Sidewalk Labs plans.
• Shazlin Rahman writes at Spacing about the prejudices that push Muslim women away from the TTC, and what can be done to protect these women.
• Urban Toronto shares the news of Open Doors 2019 in Toronto on 25 and 26 May, with more than 150 buildings being opened to the public.

[PHOTO] Three photos from the South Core, Toronto

[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: Torontoist, Dundas West/Bloor, McArthur, schools, TTC

• Veteran Toronto online news hub Torontoist, silent for the past few months, has been acquired by Canadian combine Daily Hive. I wish Torontoist will; I miss it.
• A tunnel connecting the Dundas West TTC station with the Bloor UP station, a few hundred metres apart, is in the works but is still some years away. Toronto.com reports.
• A police officer who has been charged with negligence with regards to a 2016 claim of an assault by Bruce McArthur claims he is being made a fall guy. The Toronto Star has it.
• CBC Toronto looks at the low attendance at the Africentric Alternative School, despite the high praise it receives.
• At The Globe and Mail, former mayor John Sewell notes that the lack of consent of the City of Toronto to the takeover of the TTC by Ontario has some legal import.

[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: skiing, skating, Scarborough, UP Express and Presto, homelessness

• I am glad that the new snowfall has made the ode of Shawn Micallef in the Toronto Star last week to the joys of skiing in Toronto relevant again.
• Urban Toronto reports on the new Rink Social initiative being promoted at community ice rinks across Toronto, to encourage skating and community city-wide.
• blogTO notes a perhaps unattractive home in Scarborough, at Danforth and Warden, that literally has a TTC stop outside its door.
• Ben Spurr at the Toronto Star notes how the efforts of a Mount Dennis man to commute downtown on the UP Express were complicated by the confusions of Presto.
• At NOW Toronto, outreach worker Greg Cook calls for a better approach to homelessness, one that (for instance) acknowledges the prohibitive costs of housing for too many in Toronto.

[PHOTO] Three photos from the Wallace Avenue Bridge on a foggy evening

Last night I was walking west on the Wallace Avenue footbridge, at around 11 o’clock, when I took note of the warm glowing fog underneath. A Union-Pearson Express car passed under me between the second and third photos, and is still visible in the third.

[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: pandas, rail, transit funding, real estate, police

• CBC, among others, bids goodbye to the pandas of the Toronto Zoo, here.
• blogTO notes the extended hours of operation of the Union-Pearson Express and of the GO Transit rail network.
• Steve Munro is not impressed by the extra funding given to Toronto transit for a few reasons.
• May Warren notes that four thousand people applied for a lottery for 59 affordable units in Regent Park, over at the Toronto Star.
• The Toronto Star notes that John Tory has called for a limited external review of police in the context of the Church-Wellesley disappearances.

[URBAN NOTE] Six Toronto links: street art, journalism, police, Cheri DiNovo, transit at Dundas West

• CBC notes that the Yonge and Dundas street artist scene is closing down under city regulations, including permits.
• Emily Mathieu talks about how she conducts her journalism with some of Toronto’s most marginalized as subjects.
• The Globe and Mail notes the local controversy over having police officers permanently stationed in schools.
• The idea that police who actively undermine the Special Investigations Unit should be seriously punished seems obvious.
• Veteran NDP politican and LGBTQ rights advocate Cheri DiNovo is leaving politics to become a minister in church.
• Finally, the Dundas West TTC station will be connected to the GO Transit hub less than 300 metres away!

[URBAN NOTE] Four links on mass transit in Toronto, from the Metrolinx to funding to King Street

• Steve Munro notes the appallingly bad official presentation of ridership data on the Union-Pearson Express.
• Edward Keenan notes that, though external funding news is good, Toronto needs to somehow find four billion dollars on its own. Where?
• Ben Spurr notes that the new King Street plan prioritizing transit will make exceptions for taxis at some times.
• Martin Regg Cohn notes that Metrolinx desperately needs to be insulated from political interference.

[URBAN NOTE] Six Toronto links, from mass transit issues to flood risks to the plight of homeless

• blogTO notes the ridiculous costs associated with Presto installation on TTC vehicles. Why are we using it?
• The Toronto Star‘s Ben Spurr notes that the Ontario government is subsidizing the Union-Pearson Express to the tune of $C 11 per passenger. (This is an improvement.)
• Steve Munro reports on the causes of and dynamics of noise generation on the 514 Cherry streetcar route.
• CP24 notes that the City of Toronto has lost $C 5 million so far thanks to the flooding on the Toronto Islands, mostly from lost ferry revenue.
• Alex Bozikovic notes in The Globe and Mail that the Toronto waterfront is going to receive more than a billion dollars in funding for flood protection.
• Andrea Houston at Torontoist argues that anger is a perfectly appropriate response to the suffering and death of the homeless of Toronto.