Damien Moule

If you're following me I hope it's at least partly because you're interested in Toronto municipal policy and politics. If you haven't given much thought to the election this year then I would encourage you to think about posting/donating/volunteering with a focus on the outer wards.

Whatever old city races there are (BEY plus whatever) will be fighting over small differences. The action *should be* in the suburbs where there are many bad councillors who need the boot and at least 2 good councillors who need defending.

To Colleen's point I went back to the oldest Housing Now progress report I could find from May 2020. Green are currently under construction, yellow have planning approval but construction not started, red are no progress at all. Note the estimated construction start dates. Also still 0 units built.

Summary for those who don't like reading tables (what's wrong with you?)

I have a hard time keeping track of the various city owned housing sites and what's happening with them. So thankfully CreateTO has an update report they're giving the board on Friday with attachments listing all the sites
secure.toronto.ca/council/agen...

I won't hesitate.. to spend several months before endorsing someone.

A lesson learned for advocates:
1. Sometimes studies clear the runway. But sometimes they just waste time and resources.
2. If you're going to pass a study bill, have it be done by an agency with (a) research capacity and (b) an ability to make objective assessments.

Pretty good reasons not to run imo.

Favourite part here is the "regardless of statistics". Translating to plain language the reasons for not running are:
1) the election would be about my affair with a staffer and that sounds like a bummer
2) the lines of attack that people want me to run on are kind of weak and contrary to reality

Have you heard this new band called the Yeah Yeah Yeahs?

Are conventions so valuable? The main business of Toronto's Exhibition Place is conventions, and they claimed $600-million a year in economic impact. On 192 acres of land in the middle of a prosperous city.

That is not a lot of money.

www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis...

I once wrote in on an executive committee item about development charge reports asking that they be aligned with the variance reports. I got a request for a meeting from the manager of the group who produced it to discuss how they could improve because I'm the only one who ever mentioned it.

One of the most consistent findings in public polling is people want "more transparency". But I assure you they don't actually want more transparency about Development Charges. How do I know? Because no one $!#@ing reads the existing Development Charge reports produced by the City of Toronto.

Damien Moule thought breaking through to the masses. (Just kidding the surveys reveal the public to have extremely low understanding of municipal taxes and incoherent views on public policy).

Good luck city of Toronto in turning Eglinton/Kipling into a thriving main street anchored by a transit station.

On the one hand the crosstown operation has started off well and I'm glad we're already extending it west. On the other hand it was a massive expense and took forever and I can't believe we learned nothing and have already dug a tunnel under this enormous road instead of going elevated.

P.s. I like Toronto Today, I think they give much needed local coverage and I think their reporters do a good job. Very happy they came along.

Anyway I'm glad the OLT exists to make the city follow provincial and *its own* land use policies.

I do get a little annoyed by the photo selection in articles sometimes. Left is what they went with while discussing residents complaints that a tower development is out of character with the neighbourhood. Right is the Google street view 50 metres east.

It's great that the City deferred the transit that they didn't want to pay for. It really gives them and residents associations a nice excuse for opposing the housing that they didn't want to build.

Always should be considered. Bit hesitant just because it's jammed between two highways.

Doug Ford throwing back a beer tailgating before an Argos game at BMO field, "Wouldn't it be cool if we could use this enormous parking lot 3km from the centre of the country's largest city for a dentists convention?"

I attend the occasional conference for work. The best convention centres are just part of functioning city centres. The worst ones are isolated and feel like prisons to be escaped (cough Orlando). This would be the latter.

Doug Ford says new ‘shock and awe’ convention centre will be almost five times the size of downtown Toronto complex Sources say the province is leaning toward building it on the sprawling 192-acre Exhibition Place.

I'm a longtime critic of Exhibition Place, because the fields of parking lots stay unused nearly all the time and make it a wasteland. I think a (larger) convention centre would also be a wasteland. You need a reason for normal residents to travel to/from/through.
www.thestar.com/politics/pro...

Did we need to keep these two traffic lights 180m apart when building the Finch LRT? No, absolutely not. The two lights will add time to the LRT trip on average, even with good TSP (which we don't appear to be using yet). The best TSP is road design which eliminates the conflicting action.

You can just break the grid and close off side streets. I promise you can. Fire and Paramedic services will tell you it will be a catastrophe but we should ask them why it works elsewhere and make them justify it beyond hand waiving.

Much of what Toronto needs to improve on the downtown streetcars (and Line 6) can be learned from the 507/western 501. The combination of fewer cross streets, island platforms, wider stop spacing, and no forced slow zones across intersections is enough to provide good speed with weak TSP.

Something to ask John Tory if he runs for mayor again as he decided to dedicate a massive portion of Toronto's budget to this rebuild.

Has occurred for long enough that it shows up on Google Maps satellite view

Some people seem to be parking regularly in the dog bowl. No one even tries to stop them.