Margin Notes: Holidays, Devil, Pinkos, Osgood

One of the scenes in the store windows at The Bay in Toronto, Ontario was captured on 9-December-2010

TORONTO, ONTARIO - Once upon a time, the store displays in big cities were a major draw of the holiday season, with people coming from outlying areas not only to shop, but to see what might be in the windows. I've been pretty disappointed with the store windows in Toronto the past few years. It's tough to complain about The Bay, since at least it has holiday displays unlike some retailers that do nothing, but they've mostly been repeats of winter scenes (like the one above) and Santa's shop for the past few years. The recession is over--it's time for some displays!

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A rather naughty Santa Claus was noted along Jane Street in Toronto, Ontario near Bloor on 11-December-2010

Of course, the quality of the display does matter. One of my neighbours has chosen to set up a rather naughty scene in his front yard in which Santa Claus periodically lowers his trousers to reveal "Ho Ho Ho" on his behind. I'm not really certain that one is the best to place on a busy street, and I hesitated before placing it on this blog, but near as I can tell no children are reading here anyway.

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One might say that the devil is behind that display. My favorite customer service request of all time may be the following: "Please remove the devil from all Tampa [items]." (A reference to the re-naming of the Tampa, Florida baseball team from the Devil Rays to the Rays.) It seems to be the business should retort, "What? You're paying me to do exorcisms now?"

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The devil apparently has been exorcised from local mall owners in the Toronto area. At the beginning of the season, there were several news articles on different malls that had banned the Salvation Army from ringing its bells at donation locations. Well, one by one, the malls bowed to public pressure and changed their policies. The last hold-out, the Eaton Centre in downtown Toronto, reportedly changed its policy this week, and the signature bells of the season are again ringing all over. (Never mind that too few people bother to carry change anymore.)

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That kind of controversy sounds just like the kind of thing that new Toronto mayor Rob Ford would get involved in. Conservative sports anchor Don Cherry received quite a bit of publicity for insulting anyone that disagrees with Ford at his inaugural this week, calling them, amongst other things, "left-wing pinkos." As a result, liberal councillors have been wearing pink, and Spacing magazine is having trouble keeping up with the demand for pink buttons. It's going to be a long four years.

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Speaking of conservatives, has anyone else noticed that CBS commentator Charles Osgood seems to be taking over from the late Paul Harvey of ABC as the conservative voice of short-form radio? Listen to the 06:25 broadcast on Tuesday, the 06:25 broadcast on Wednesday, or the 07:25 broadcast on Friday and tell me if there isn't a right-wing slant in the presentation.

Transport: Only the Downtown Relief Line

TORONTO, ONTARIO - Canada's largest city now has a mayor that intends to cancel the light rail-based Transit City plan and instead build a much smaller distance of subways. Never mind the politics involved, which have already started to become intense, or the philosophy of subways versus light rail, on which my position is essentially the same as Steve Munro's, not the mayor's--for the sake of argument, let's accept that we're going to build subways. The ones everyone is talking about are not the subways that should be built--Toronto should start with the Downtown Relief Line, which nobody is talking about.

While the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) has not specified its plans for subway expansion in the Rob Ford era (and rightfully should have some time to come up with them), the basic outline does not seem to be in much dispute. The Shepherd subway--yes, the one that was designated for shutdown in the political theater of a TTC funding crisis not long ago--is to be "completed," probably to a connection with the Spadina subway at Downsview in the west, and probably to Scarborough Town Centre in the east. Instead of replacing the Scarborough Rapid Transit line with light rail, as currently planned, it would be replaced with an extension of the Bloor-Danforth subway.

The problem with this expansion--and with Transit City, for that matter--and more importantly, the currently under-construction expansion of the Spadina subway into Vaughn and the proposed Yonge subway expansion into Richmond Hill, is that they funnel even more people than today onto the north-south subways through the downtown core. A visit to the platforms at Bloor and Yonge at rush hour will make it very obvious that the Yonge portion of the subway is at capacity. The University portion is only modestly better--it is not unusual for northbound trains in the afternoon rush hour to be crush-loaded after Osgoode station and leave people on crowded platforms at St. Patrick, Queen's Park, and Museum before reaching the transfer point at St. George. The least bit of a service disruption and either of these lines resembles Tokyo. They can't handle more people.

There is a solution to this problem, the long-proposed Downtown Relief Line. The line would provide an east-west underground route through the downtown core, likely under King Street but perhaps under Front or Queen, that would turn north on either side of downtown and head up to meet the Bloor-Danforth subway, probably at Dundas West in the west and Pape in the east. A fair portion of the riders of the Bloor-Danforth subway line that currently have to transfer to the Yonge or University subways to reach the downtown core could instead transfer to this line, freeing up capacity on the two existing lines. With effectively four routes out of downtown instead of two, additional traffic on the two existing lines could be accommodated.

Per kilometer, the Downtown Relief Line would undoubtedly cost more than the Shepherd Line or the Scarborough extensions. But, it would clearly carry a lot more people, and would actually open the useful possibilities for transit expansion in the rest of the city, as there would be capacity where many transit patrons are headed--the dense downtown core. With the Downtown Relief Line in place, a Scarborough extension of the Bloor-Danforth line, for example, might actually create a more attractive option to commuters (who might not be crushed loaded after their transfer at Yonge station) and thus make more sense.

Yet, nobody is talking about the Downtown Relief Line. Not former mayor David Miller or most Transit City advocates (Steve Munro himself rather regularly does point it out) nor the subway advocates like Rob Ford. The political scene is so focused outside the pre-1998 "old" city of Toronto that one of the key problems in the system, with serious consequences for the attractiveness of transit as an option to average people, is being completely overlooked.

I can get behind some new subway construction in Toronto--but only if it starts with the Downtown Relief Line.

Margin Notes: Parade, Ford, Survey, Chetzy

The Swarovsky swan was one of the new floats this year in the annual Santa Claus Parade in Toronto, Ontario, seen in front of the "Crystal" at the Royal Ontario Museum on 21-November-2010

TORONTO, ONTARIO - The holiday season has officially started in the Greater Toronto Area, as Santa Claus arrived on the streets of Toronto in the annual Santa Claus Parade. While snow showers were noted earlier in the day, spectators stayed dry if more than a little cold as more than 30 floats, quite a few of them new, graced the route ahead of Santa Claus himself. More coverage will be forthcoming on this blog and my photo site.

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Toronto mayor-elect Rob Ford appeared to be at least as large as the elephant walking beside him in the Santa Claus Parade on 21-November-2010

Mayor-elect Rob Ford walked in the Santa Claus Parade today. I was planning to be easy on him, at least for the beginning of his administration, but today he opened himself up to such easy shots that it is difficult not to take them. For someone trying not to emphasize his weight, was it really wise to walk the parade route next to an elephant that had a smaller torso than the mayor-elect? And for someone who many fear will create gridlock in the city council, was it really wise to delay the parade by 35 minutes, the gap created between the group ahead of him and the slow-moving, shaking-every-hand politician? I thought about yelling out to Ford that he should apologize to the children for delaying Santa Claus, but then decided that wouldn't be Canadian.

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Pollster Angus Reid offered some insight into what it is to be a Canadian this week. When asked to choose what would be most important to them, 47% of Canadians chose being healthy, 13% of them selected being rich, and just 9% of them selected being successful. I have a feeling the results from our southern cousins would not match those figures.

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On the other hand, in the Pacific Northwest, those in British Columbia are somewhat envious that those in Washington state have a new ferry. The 64-car Chetzemoka entered service last Monday on the Port Townsend-Keystone (er, Coupeville) route after ceremonies on Sunday, the first of three planned Kwa-di Tabil class vessels. So far, reaction to the vessel seems to be positive--though I note that it has already had runs canceled because of a storm and tides, and its elevator is already out of service. (The elevators are also not working on the Hyak and Issaquah at last report, but they aren't new ferries.) "Eileen" (nicknamed for its list when unloaded) may have a good career ahead of it yet.