@stephenwickens
Retired after 47 years at four Toronto papers. Transportation researcher and author of Station to Station (a report on the soaring costs of subway building in the Toronto area). https://rccao.com/research/files/RCCAO-STATION-TO-STATION-REPORT-APRIL2020.pd
a pack of kittens closes in a a large dog standing on a chair
David Attenborough [whispering]:
“As the predators close in on their helpless prey, we can only watch in silent horror, for it is not man’s role to interfere in the hierarchy of nature.”
Not necessarily and almost certainly not in this case.
If it were a straight right of way, slight chance.
Unfortunately, Alto seems more focussed on just getting some infrastructure built rather than thinking seriously about putting in place the best infrastructure for the best service outcomes.
You haven't missed a lot on that other
social-media site, but this is a good one.
Embrace Description Two shapes emerge from frozen ground. At first, shimmering slivers against the sand. They move as you do, looming silhouettes against the sun. Colossal hands, reaching out. To hold the horizon. To present the day. An invitation to behold and to be held. Welcome their embrace. Change your point of view. Gain a vibrant new perspective. A prismatic reflection of the warmth and light of the day.
Chimera Chimera engages with the notion of mirage through a twofold perspective. On a material level, it offers a direct, tangible interpretation of illusion, employing fisheye mirrors as aesthetic modules that distort perception. On a sensory and conceptual level, it serves as a dialectical reflection on the fragmentation of physical and digital realities, exposing the delicate imbalance between control and security – two cornerstones that define modernity. From a distance, the installation blends seamlessly with its surroundings, dissolving into space through a cascade of mirrored repetitions. Moving closer – the illusion unravels, revealing the framework that sustains it. In this encounter, the viewer meets their own reflection multiplied and displaced, a shifting constellation of selves that provokes an uneasy awareness of being observed. The viewing platform becomes a temporary sanctuary – a cocoon of quiet detachment – from which the gaze can wander freely into the open expanse beyond.
Self Portrait in Glaciate The lifeguard stand has become the fixed marker of the Winter Stations competition: an element that survives each annual installation, anchoring every design to Woodbine Beach. A series of vertical polycarbonate panels, filled with water from the lake nearby, creates a set of ice lenses that glaciate the stand. As the lake water freezes and thaws, the panels cycle through phases of transparency, translucency, and full opacity. The stand is never wholly visible or wholly concealed; instead, it appears through fragments, outlines, and momentary flashes of red. This collage of visual clarity creates a celebratory mirage of the lifeguard externally, and a mirage of Woodbine Beach from within.
Winter Stations
Art on the Beach! Free! Until the end of March.
winterstations.com
#toronto #winterstations #x100vi
For the 60th anniversary of the #TTC's Bloor-Danforth subway, let's honour the 9 (NINE!) workers who died building the it.
John Blaney
Edgar Ostkamp
Albert Low
Rosaire Beaudry
Lauri Karkas
Tommy Kerr
Attilio Tricinci
Frank LaPlante
Larry Linyck
(Best coverage was by Toronto Telegram's Frank Drea)
Recently, at the new Cedarvale station, I felt like I might have stumbled into the 2026 version of Cumberland Terrace that had deked out parameters of the time-space continuum to skip Disco, Grunge and the functioning-mall stage of its nascent existence.
It can feel a tad hopeless, late in what seems like the longest Toronto winter I can remember ... then you turn on the radio and there's a #BlueJays pre-season baseball game. Yeah!
I asked a plow operator about some blocks of Coxwell that never get sidewalk clearing. He said they can't because (recently installed) hydro poles don't leave enough room. Don't know if the guy is right about that. He is right when he said it's a mess because there's often nowhere to plow snow to.
Chow & council now have to - must - own this but it really seems like Tory signed the city into a shit contract that almost has these contractors laughing at residents.
Louis Armand, long-time chief of France's national railway system, didn't live long enough to see le Train à Grande Vitesse, that country's high-speed rail system. But he was a seer, proclaiming that "railways will be the mode of transport for the 21st century, if it can survive the 20th".
If true, it is truly remarkable.
Indonesia breaking temperature records
for more than a 1,000 consecutive days?
Withrow Park in Toronto, erased to reveal people skating on the same spot exactly 100 years before.
Feb. 10, 1923 📸: City of Toronto Archives
Feb. 10, 2023 📸: ©Jeremy F. Hopkin.
#waitforit #thenandnow #OnThisDay #1920s #skating #parksandrecreation #TorontoHistory #toronto #canada #jeremyhopkin
Those sick of provincial overreach
might want to form a Parti Torontois.
Yes because “being positive” obviously is the best strategy for unraveling this clusterfuck of a transit quagmire. Somedays Ontario politics feels like it is a @thebeaverton.com story waiting to happen
The Eglinton Crosstown fiasco has been more a symptom of dysfunction at Metrolinx and Infrastructure Ontario. The inquiry we need goes well beyond studying this project or Finch West. We need to seriously end the secrecy and change how agencies with the power to buy votes report to the politicians.
C'mon #Metrolinx and your 'communications' staff:
You have a #derailed #GO train. Trying to soften
the message by calling it a 'disabled' train
reflects badly on you. This reluctance to level with the public in simple, clear terms says so much about where this troubled organization's priorities lie.
@thebeaverton.com - making news make since, since, I'm guessing Confederation? This one is heart-warming and so true thebeaverton.com/2026/01/nati...
For decades I've tried to get to Ottawa to skate the canal.
Finally made it yesterday with a brother and a friend.
We had so much fun we went back for more today.
Thousands and 1,000s of skaters were out having fun, including nuns in full habit and a couple saying 'I do'.
Do it! I highly recommend!
Further to your point: Some of the troika's people would go out of their way to ignore or even, occasionally, troll fairly knowledgeable people who've been warning them about impending problems for decades.
#EastEndLove Round 2 @dylanreid.bsky.social :)
@anthonyfarnell.bsky.social @pialiroy.bsky.social @marvinmacaraig.ca @stephenwickens.bsky.social @dmrider.bsky.social @dontmesswiththedon.bsky.social
@evergreencanada.bsky.social @grahamwithers.bsky.social #EastEndTO
a person walks in front of a streetcar's headlights and is framed in shadow against a huge amount of falling snow mid-storm on 01/25/26
Snow Crossed
#toronto #snowTO #ONstorm #x100vi
How New York is dealing with the snow.
I don't know how well it's work and at what price, but it's an interesting model that might be of interest here in Toronto.
@toronto.ca
Might just be a glitch, but it should be noted that reliable meteorological reporters are telling us the east end got it hardest by the storm.
Walk their words kinda works, but I meant walk their WARDS
Apparently I've been unfair by not including a bsky link for the other councillor representing Coxwell. I did include him in my parallel X tweet, but Brad Bradford doesn't appear to be on Bluesky. All councillors and their staffers need to walk their words and see what their constituents are facing.
Don't get me started about TTC stops. There are so many stops where you can't use the back doors of the buses because of the wall of snow. Lots of places, the sidewalks at the front doors are only marginally better.
I'd click the like, but I can't like what I'm seeing.
How much longer should we be patient with @toronto.ca over half-assed sidewalk clearing? Three days after the storm, the walk down Coxwell was an eyeopener, dangerous. Scooters in the street and seniors struggling with shopping carts. @paulafletcherto.bsky.social @mayoroliviachow.ca how.ca #SnowTO
Doesn’t Toronto have the ability to do Montreal-style snow removal? (Just more slowly because they don’t have to do it as often.)