🚦 By now you’ve surely heard that blocking intersections comes with a much bigger price tag. But the city is introducing other new measures, like fining developers more for taking up lanes, to help fight congestion.
🚓 The Toronto police officer who stole from victims of crimes he was investigating violated his bail when he tried to flee the country with a fake Bulgarian passport.
🏠 Rosie DiManno profiles Dr. Andrew Boozary, one of the people behind Dunn House in Parkdale, the new subsidized housing complex providing wraparound care to 51 previously homeless people. It’s more than just a profile, though. It’s a look at an innovative and potentially cost-effective model of providing care to the less fortunate.
⚖️ The Toronto Star tells you what you need to know about the first week of Toronto Coun. Michael Thompson’s sexual assault trial.
🏗️ Rogers Stadium, the 50,000-seat megacomplex being built at the old Downsview Airport, is supposed to be finished by next summer. You won’t be chastised for thinking that’s an ambitious timeline, especially by Toronto standards. Why is Live Nation so confident it’ll be ready in time for the Oasis concerts? Well, for starters, it’s not a permanent building.
🚢 Wanna know what $90 million can get you? Maybe eight years of Mitch Marner on the Leafs. But for real, two ferries to replace Toronto’s ancient fleet of nautical vessels that take thousands to and fro the island every year, with only a few crashes. Renditions of the new boats were just released.
🚄 TVO’s John Michael McGrath gives you more reasons to be skeptical the high-speed rail line from Toronto to Montreal will ever get out of the federal Liberals’ group chat.
🌊 It’s not all broken! Toronto’s Humber River Health has one of the busiest emergency departments in the province. It also has some of the quickest wait times. The hospital has also managed to solve its hallway health care problem, according to reporting from our friends at The Trillium.
⛸️ Skating is back at the Harbourfront Centre! It hasn’t hosted a rink for two years but people got pissed and it’s coming back. P.S., I once met Leafs legend Doug Gilmour there.
🎶 Is Roy Thompson Hall worthy of the musicians who grace its stage? For decades, lots of people have complained about lacklustre acoustics. Joshua Chong did a little taste test to see how it stacks up against George Weston Recital Hall, another famed venue.
🏥 Francis Kopun had to take her son to St. Michael’s Hospital and like any good journalist, used it as an opportunity to probe what ails Ontario’s broken health-care system.
🔫 Shots were fired at a North York school for Jewish girls for the second time in six months. Mayor Olivia Chow — who’s recently taken heat from the community for not attending an Oct. 7 vigil — and other political leaders spoke out against a rising tide of violence.
🌳 Toronto’s parks department is severely underfunded, lacks vision, and needs bold leadership. That’s the real lesson to be drawn from last week’s auditor general report that found park workers weren’t doing a ton of working, Shawn Micaellf argues.
🏀 Toronto Raptors legend Vince Carter was just inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame. Brian Mahoney chronicles his contributions to the sport in Toronto and across Canada.
Commuter corner
Until Oct. 18, subway service on Line 2 between Victoria Park and Kennedy will end at 11 p.m. for track work. Shuttle buses will run instead.
Events, dear boy, events
Justin Timberlake is at Scotiabank Arena on Oct. 17 and 18.
Nothing But Thieves is at History on Oct. 15. Brett Young performs on Oct. 17.
Coin is at Massey Hall on Oct. 17.
The 25th annual Planet In Focus film festival takes over the Paradise Theatre from Oct. 15 to 20.
Need a Halloween costume? Check out the Riverside Vintage Crawl on Queen East on Oct. 17.
