Owen Chevalier

Not for any particular reason. Just that if you own a Toyota Rav 4, then there is literally no scenario in which you can envision yourself using the crosstown. That's why it should be underground away from you, and that's why all transit investment is a waste of money to you.

Not a new thought probably but realizing a lot of transit decisions in TO boil down to the fundamental belief that car drivers will never be anything else. The crosstown wasn't built to be enticing to Forest Hill residents, but as an option to shuttle poor and homeless through to downtown.

A.I. Is About to Solve Loneliness. That’s a Problem The discomfort of loneliness shapes us in ways we don’t recognize—and we may not like what we become without it.

I liked this article, and appreciate @paulbloomatyale.bsky.social pointing out that AI friends don't mean the end of human friends for everyone, but that some people who may otherwise have had friends will struggle. A more measured take in a polarizing field.
www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

City waters down RapidTO bus plan, limiting dedicated lanes to south of Bloor Staff no longer recommend the Bathurst and Dufferin TTC routes get their own RapidTO lanes all the way to Eglinton

So it turns out a handful of business owners CAN use free AI tools and handmade signs to completely dismantle a necessary transit improvement. No city as big as Toronto should be so easy to manipulate. Just embarrassing.

www.torontotoday.ca/local/transp...

Bar chart showing traffic counts on Bloor Street West in Toronto during the afternoon rush on Wednesday, June 11, 2025. For each hour from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m., the number of bikes and motor vehicles (cars, trucks, motorcycles) was recorded. At 4–5 p.m., there were 643 bikes and 849 motor vehicles. At 5–6 p.m., 930 bikes and 832 motor vehicles. At 6–7 p.m., 919 bikes and 909 motor vehicles. At 7–8 p.m., 726 bikes and 935 motor vehicles. Bike counts exceeded car counts from 5 to 7 p.m. The chart was created by Matt Elliott for City Hall Watcher using data from the Toronto Community Bikeways Coalition.

Cool study from @bikewaysto.bsky.social detailing a traffic count on Bloor Street taken on June 11 with a camera at 412 Bloor West. During the peak of the afternoon rush, bikes outnumbered cars.

I repeat: bikes outnumbered cars.

drive.google.com/file/d/1ctd4...

I think the counterpoint to the "young people are lonely, lazy, and addicted to TikTok" rhetoric is that public services all over Toronto are seeing massive boosts in popularity. Young people want to be outside, social, and connected to their communities. Politicians should take note!

They need to have more philosophers on autocorrect development teams!

Loved getting the chance to speak at this conference and learn more about current research in epidemic injustice in psychiatry, lived experience expertise, and potential futures for the field that improve both its ethical and epistemic outputs.

My conspiracy theory is that they’re using AI to write these things, which is both a fascinating and terrifying thought.

A new regime founded on LLM definitions for complex ideas.

Not the official death date printed on this Scarborough RT cardboard model 😭😭😭

...the mandatory "Christian Ethics" classes were such a waste of time is that a teacher with a general B-Ed is not a theologian or an ethicist. Wondering if it would be helpful to have an expert engage in the challenging material in either case. Would that mitigate any of these testimonies?

This is super interesting! And I think important to consider as a broader, evidence-based response to the "Everyone could use therapy" ethos.
One question: Is part of the issue that teachers aren't qualified to teach mindfulness? Thinking back to my catholic school days that part of why...

To me this constitutes a pretty huge deal. If local consultation can’t even happen without AI disinformation campaigns how can we ever hope to have a reasonable democratic society again? Summerhill Market should face some kind of consequence for this.

I’m so exhausted.

These are things we can offer as instructors. So the question becomes: How can we fill that gap? My hypothesis is if I am approachable, open to discussion, clear with my feedback, and genuinely curious and interested in my students, then they might choose me sometimes over a chatbot.

At one point I just asked how my students were using chatGPT, and almost everyone listed things that didn't replace their thinking, but their relationship with an instructor. They use it for essay feedback, counterarguments, understanding concepts better.

My wife is only a cyclist because there are big bike lanes with enough space to make her feel safe with both e-bikes and cars. Building more of this infrastructure WILL convert non-cyclists into cyclists.

Trump announces 100% tariffs on movies ‘produced in foreign lands’ President calls films ‘national security threat’ and claims he called on commerce department to immediately enact tariff

First they came for my cars made partly in Canada, then they came for my movies that make Toronto look like New York.

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Also, as someone born and raised prairie who now lives out East, don’t confuse a general hatred of everything Toronto with a desire to be American. I’d venture to say many Sask folk would sooner call themselves REAL Canadians before they’d give up the country for the US.

The Toronto School Board has a deficit of $70 million. Wonder if any of this money could instead be going to keeping the schools in Canada’s largest city open?

Very funny to see American news celebrating Carney’s decisive victory when this is kind of a nightmare result for a parliament. You Americans really live with this kind of polarization all the time eh?

Oh man I didn’t realize the lack of bike share docks was because of competing business interests! I always thought it was because they didn’t want to have to do maintenance out there or something.

Self-diagnosis in the age of social media: A pilot study of youth entering mental health treatment for mood and anxiety disorders To understand young adult patients' perspectives around the importance of mental health diagnoses and use of online material to self-diagnose.Prior to…

The first publication on perceptions of diagnosis and social media use of youth in psychiatric treatment is out now!

We are now conducting interviews with these patients and the conversations have been fascinating. Very excited to share those results soon.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Would love to write an Atlantic-style article (light on the facts, heavy on the sensationalized opinion) about how American culture is no longer dictated by Hollywood but by the LDS. Everything from fashion and celebrities to cookies seems to be coming out of Utah these days.

Just nice to see Canada’s national public media stand up to the bullshit. We don’t have to give space to people whose agenda is to destroy our democratic institutions.

From Rosemary Barton re. “The post-debate scrum has been cancelled due to an altercation”:

“Let me be clear, this was not a fight between journalists, these were right wing extremists with their own agenda who harassed us”

Also remember that parliamentary democracy can produce vastly different outcomes from merely winning or losing. A conservative plurality in the house could result in a progressive coalition. We’re not a monarchy like the US, and it’s much harder to have a mad king.

Now granted this is a pretty unusual election in many ways so that makes accurate prediction harder. But you certainly shouldn’t feel pessimistic. The sense I got from last night is Poilievre can’t shake the Trumpy language that’s turned off voters.

English debate is tonight so last night’s debate doesn’t really “count” (please don’t kill me Quebeckers).
Common poll sentiment is that the Liberals are doing definitively well and barring a major event tonight, it’s unlikely to move the numbers enough to give the Cons a win.