Some things I've learned about legislative advocacy, and I think my record speaks for itself. 1. Start by asking for everything you want. Stop preemptively negotiating against yourself. The process of passing the bill will whittle it down. Why started with a whittled down product?

I thankfully don't have to use it much but this quasi-slip lane at Richmond and Jarvis makes it one of my most hated intersections in the city. Trying to think what else makes the list. Dupont and Annette. Bathurst and Lake Shore.

Nope, not fighting for a third day. You can only see the same thing play out so many times.

Going to periodically repost this donation guide for the Toronto municipal election through the rest of the campaign. We're almost at the end of candidate registration. A different phase of the election is about to kick off.

Damien Moule@damienmoule.bsky.social · last mo.

Since the last municipal election, I saved up $1,200 to donate to candidates this election. Here is a🧵that goes through my decision making process and hopefully serves as a donation guide to you if you're thinking about donating (which I hope you do as you can have a disproportionate impact) 1/

I saw someone wearing a "train heavy" shirt today and I initially interpreted it as a dig at GO transit.

Final Toronto thought. This is a completely insane way to run a Tram system. What is wrong with the city, why don’t they even seem to care about the streetcars

There is really no reason for minimum lot sizes, except to make it illegal to build starter homes, block housing, and raise costs; state regulations already cover well and septic concerns in these places.

Feel pretty conflicted about Matt's latest column. I agree without electoral reform we have way too much incumbency bias and can't really remove bad councillors. On the other hand I think term limits, even longer ones, don't quite achieve that either. www.thestar.com/opinion/cont...

Matt Elliott: Gord Perks left Toronto council with a bang. Why won’t his long-serving colleagues ever leave?

With Toronto councillors serving for decades and Doug Ford blocking key reforms, term limits may be the only way to get new voices at city hall.

thestar.com

This building was made possible by the Avenues Policy that Toronto passed in Feb 2025. Although this section of King was technically still low-rise Neighbourhood because of delays in policy implementation, it was identified as a new Avenue for mid-rise development.

zac@10amlunch.bsky.social · 2d ago

i love this building that just got approved by the toronto government to start development thats an 11 story residential apartment building with retail space on the ground floor, with a buddhist temple on the very top

If I thought the city could make 2km of new streetcar track for anything less than a disastrous amount of money then I'd suggest that a streetcar service from the junction to the new Ontario line exhibition station would be something cool and useful.

So I went to go run on the newly re-opened lower don trail tonight, only to miss the turn that was apparently through an unmarked dark tunnel and then to find myself running up Bayview unsuccessfully looking for a way over before just deciding against it anyway because it was unlit.

I feel slightly like how Derek Guy describes arguing with people on old clothes forums tonight. But people are being annoying on the internet gosh darnit.

The drip drip drip of councillors introducing motions to add extra provisions to make multiplexes less attractive is really starting to get on my nerves. www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

How multiplexes meant to ease Toronto's housing crisis are creasing a crunch for parking spaces | CBC News

As more multiplexes sprout around the Dovercourt area of Toronto, some residents are increasingly finding they need to drive blocks away from their home to find a parking space.

cbc.ca

I have a related but unsupported belief that markets for most goods are turning into a bimodal distribution of "I don't care, just get whatever" and "I care about this way too much and I will pay all the money"

Max Dubler 🏳️‍🌈@maxdubler.com · 3d ago

I think my most genuinely unpopular take is that a widely held and genuine consumer preference for cheaper, lower-quality goods, not private equity, is driving the decline in quality of consumer goods like clothing and housewares.

I've never been to Singapore but this was a very close match to my prior beliefs about the urbanism of the country youtu.be/E_SJ1NBMrH0?...

Is This Peak Hot-Weather Urbanism?

YouTube video by Not Just Bikes

youtu.be

The wasps are here. The summer has begun to eat itself.

The much higher efficiency of the Montreal bike share system compared to Toronto irks me. Yes mostly downstream of better bike infrastructure, but that also irks me.

Three weeks left until candidate registration closes in the Toronto municipal election. Three incumbents have yet to register: Matlow, Fletcher, Kandavel.

Omg, the railpath is open at Bloor again. West enders rejoice.

While only 13% of people live in a 1-person household, 30% of households have 1 person. I think this is part of the reason people underestimate the level of demand for smaller (e.g., 1-bedroom) apartments.

The only parts of Toronto's transit system that are "at capacity" are pieces of the bus network in suburban areas where they feed into the subway and where the solutions to the capacity problem are the easiest. There's nowhere in Toronto that should turn away development because of transit.

"Let's celebrate, right? Meeting is adjourned!" says Nunziata. Speaking of celebrating, if you enjoyed this thread and found it useful, consider a subscription to my newsletter, City Hall Watcher. It funds coverage like this and supports indie journalism. toronto.cityhallwatcher.com/subscribe

Spent the afternoon at Christie Pits two Saturdays ago with my daughter and friends as we rented the pizza oven to have a nice little pizza party. Offered our extra watermelon to all the families on the playground. Couple visiting from Brooklyn said it was amazing. Be afraid apparently.

Alex Bozikovic@alexbozikovic.bsky.social · 6d ago

This is a bizarre bit of fearmongering. I was in this park with my kids last night. It was chaotic, but not a hint of conflict among the hundreds of people there. What it needs is a restaurant, coherent design, and a dedicated manager. nationalpost.com/opinion/yoni...

Noooooo, conservative group that's been trying to influence the Toronto mayoral election is actually based in Mississauga is too on the nose. Who's writing the script on this? Dial it back would you?

Jonathan Goldsbie@goldsbie.bsky.social · 6d ago

The municipal election has its first third-party advertiser, a sole proprietorship that was registered on Tuesday (and which may or may not be connected to A Better City (ABC) Toronto):

I'm giving it all I got over here in Don Valley West. Not enough. Heritage Longo's should be for everyone. 😔 secure.toronto.ca/council/agen...

Matt Elliott@graphicmatt.com · 6d ago

And we're back. Councillor Rachel Chernos Lin moves to REFUSE an application for a 7-storey building on Millwood Road in her ward. "The building is simply too large for the site.” She points to more than 80 letters of opposition received on this item. secure.toronto.ca/council/agen...

I foresee problems here. The Official Plan is written to direct growth to transit corridors and to improve transit corridors as necessary to support growth. You won't be able to refuse an application because the city didn't do the second part. It will just create OLT churn.

Matt Elliott@graphicmatt.com · 6d ago

Councillor Dianne Saxe's motion for the TTC to let the city know when new development applications would strain nearby transit capacity is APPROVED 22-0. (Nunziata was also a yes.) secure.toronto.ca/council/agen...

Perruzza making a bold play for the old luddite vote. Unfortunately none of them will have any way of knowing he made this speech because that would involve using a computer to watch it.

Matt Elliott@graphicmatt.com · 6d ago

Perruzza laments that kids today are always using their phones to pay for things, even movie tickets and popcorn. He says he misses when people could use travel agents to book trips. "We have all fallen victim to the CARDS and the DIGITAL DEVICES," he says, waving his phone around.

This is why many of us were always skeptical of demand-side housing solutions. It is ultimately just an excuse to move the goalpost and build less housing.

Colleen @cbailey6.bsky.social · 6d ago

Many said that we had to cut immigration so governments could "catch up" on housing. I tried to explain, based on my experience in housing advocacy, why I thought that was unlikely. Immigrants were just a scapegoat for governments who didn't prioritize new homes. I wish that I had been proven wrong.

Many said that we had to cut immigration so governments could "catch up" on housing. I tried to explain, based on my experience in housing advocacy, why I thought that was unlikely. Immigrants were just a scapegoat for governments who didn't prioritize new homes. I wish that I had been proven wrong.

Jacob Loo Dawang@jacobdawang.com · 7d ago

Surely they made Alberta agree to the conditions of the program right? Right? www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

I appreciate this sentiment but if he meant it he would have had a very different focus as PHC chair.

Matt Elliott@graphicmatt.com · 7d ago

Councillor Gord Perks says it's fair to discuss whether sites should include housing or other uses like parks or commercial. "Where people go wrong — horribly, horribly, immorally wrong — is when they start demanding consultation about what kinds of people live where," he says.