Grinch?

There's a rumour flying around that Rob Ford is going to completely kill Transit City. Like tomorrow. Despite the fact that $137 million has already been spent investing in it. That's right, before we even look at the costs of breaking the contracts with Bombardier and the other companies, not to mention the wasted time and lost productivity to the city as a whole resulting from failure to build the promised lines (for me alone, using the classic time = money calculation, that will add up to more than I pay in municipal taxes a year), he wants to take the equivalent of $54 from the pocket of every man, woman and child in the city and just flush it down the toilet, producing nothing and hurting many Torontonians.

When thinking about money, I find it useful to think of it in terms of what it will buy. So when I started composing this blog post, I started thinking about what $54 would buy in terms that we can all identify with. And sitting here on the cusp of December, with all the lights on people's balconies and carols being played in stores and even my fricking Tim Hortons cup being decorated, what came to mind was xmas gifts. $54 each sounds about right for a present under the tree for everyone (plus one from Santa if you're a kid and you've been good), and a stocking full of candy and tchotchkes. Everyone gets something that's a little bit nice and a little bit useful and makes life a little bit more pleasant.

So picture this: you come downstairs all xmas morning, all anticipation, to see Santa came! There are presents under the tree, there are candy canes poking out the top of the stockings, and there's even a bite out of the cookies you left out for him! Then your dad grabs a green garbage bag, throws all the presents in it, and throws it away.

As you all scream some variation of OMG WTF, he announces "We don't want toys and candy and sweaters, we want a Mercedes!"

Except that not all of you want a Mercedes. And some of you do actually need the warm cozy mittens that were in your xmas presents. And throwing out the presents isn't going to get you any closer to having a Mercedes, because the money has already been spent on it. And the price of a Mercedes would take up that entire new contract Mum just got at work, except that much of it has already been earmarked for various other household expenses. And a Mercedes doesn't even have enough seats for everyone in your large family.

If this rumour about killing Transit City is true, that's exactly what Rob Ford will be doing tomorrow.

Prove us wrong, Mr. Ford.

More information please: why does the law care how many cars are in a driveway in the first place?

Recently in the news, someone got a ticket for parking in her own driveway. Apparently there's a by-law that if you have a single garage, you're only allowed to park one car in your driveway.

What I really want to know, but isn't mentioned anywhere in this article: how did such a thing come to be law in the first place?

The only hint in the article:

The restrictions are meant to reduce clutter in residential neighbourhoods, but city officials have said bylaw officers won’t actively seek out offenders.

So it sounds like someone thinks it's a problem when there are numerous cars in people's driveways. And because it's a law, it sounds like either enough people complained loudly enough about similar things or powerful enough people exerted enough influence to make this become a law. In any case, a critical mass of people seem to be looking at their neighbour's driveway and being bothered enough by the sight of multiple cars to take action.

I literally cannot imagine any circumstances under which I might care how many cars are parked in my neighbour's driveway. I cannot fathom any way that it might possibly affect me badly enough to want to get changes made to laws.

So how on earth did this all come about in the first place?

The remaining mystery of the Toronto municipal election

One of the councillor candidates in Ward 22 was one Elizabeth Cook. I couldn't find any information about her. Her profile on the City of Toronto election site didn't include a website or even a campaign office phone number. She received no media coverage that I could find (with some media outlets even saying they weren't able to get in touch with her), and was not present at any of the candidates' debates. I put quite a bit of effort into looking, but the only evidence I could find of her existence was the fact that her name was on the candidates' list.

But she somehow got 1,900 votes. And what's even weirder is that she came in third out of the four candidates! And the fourth-place finisher, William Molls, had a website and a platform and attended all the debates and was mentioned in the media a few times, and even talked to people on twitter!

So I'm still super curious about who is this Elizabeth Cook? Did she have an actual campaign that I didn't see and couldn't find (and media outlets couldn't find either)? Who voted for her and why?

Things They Should Invent: prominently indicate on monuments the year they were built

Disclaimer for this post: I saw something, I had an emotional reaction to it, and that ultimately led to an invention that I'm blogging. I don't have enough knowledge to know if my emotional reaction was founded or not and haven't done the research, but my point for this post is to explain the reasoning for the invention.

Walking down University Avenue, I noticed that the great big war memorial thing has old-fashioned colonial names for places in Africa on it. I thought it was a generic cenotaph - never really gave this much critical thought - but it turns out it's a Boer War memorial.

That makes me vaguely uncomfortable. From what little I remember from history class, my impression of the Boer War is that it was hella colonialist, with a goal of claiming or keeping parts of Africa for Britain. I'm not really comfortable with the idea of a massive epic monument to warmongering in the name of colonialism and the glory of the empire displayed so prominently in my city, especially since my Toronto welcomes newcomers from all over the world, including the parts of Africa memorialized here by being carved in stone under their colonial names.

But, at the same time, it wouldn't do at all to take the monument down or edit it. It is a memorial to actual specific dead people who still have living descendants. It's also a well-executed piece of public art, and a historical artifact from the Victorian period. All of these are perfectly valid reasons for letting a monument stay where it is.

I understand why this heroic colonialist sentiment was expressed at the turn of the 20th century, and I'd have no qualms about the monument if it was clear "This is what people thought in the early 1900s." It's actually important to know what and how they thought of colonial wars back then. But my concern is that it seems, to my eye at least, to be saying that we still think the sentiment is unwaveringly relevant and appropriate. If only there was some way to put an asterisk on monuments saying "The ideas expressed here are those of their era and do not necessarily reflect the society of today."

So here's the solution: Every time they put up a monument, they include a readily visible cornerstone or plaque clearly indicating the year when it was commissioned or erected. It would work like the cornerstone on a building. You know how if you go past an old building you sometimes think "Hey, an interestingly old building!" and look for a cornerstone to see how old it is, but if you live or work in the old building it's just your home or your office and its age isn't especially relevant? The monument would work the same way. If it's still relevant and pertinent to observers and therefore fulfilling its original intended function, no one will pay any particular attention to the cornerstone. But if time passes and the monument becomes less relevant, the cornerstone will mark it as from the past, and anyone wondering "WTF, Rhodesia?" will see that it's over 100 years old and interpret it as a historical document.

Powerlessness and yelling and rudeness and job security and Toronto politics: messiest braindump ever

Last August, I read this Miss Conduct post about how rudeness comes from a lack of power.

My first thought was "This is HUGE! I must blog about it!" And I've had writer's block ever since. I know what I want to say but I can't make it into a blog post, so I'm just brute force braindumping. Each of these points should be developed into a couple hundred words, but I'll just spew now and maybe clean it up later. There's something in here, and I'm not going to get at it unless I braindump.

1. My first thought was about childhood. When you're a kid - or at least when I was a kid and based on my experience with other kids - you yell more. That's because you're powerless. You're completely at the mercy of the grownups and their rules. I've blogged about this many times before. As I became a proper grownup and especially because I started living alone, I found myself yelling much less. It's not that I became more polite, it's that I became better able to be polite. I had the [insert word that's halfway between "empowerment" and "agency"] to be polite, because I had the option of walking away.

2. This became even more pronounced when I got my first proper grownup Good Job. It was easier to be polite, and it was easier not to yell, because I was suddenly in a position that is, by general social standards, respectable. On one hand the world treated me with more respect, and on the other hand I had the security and the confidence, and, frankly, the trump card of paying my own way. More "power" (insofar as this can be considered power - it's more privilege but emotionally it fits the originally analogy) meant fewer people were aggravating me, fewer stresses were aggravating me, and it was way hella easier to be polite and not yell.

3. My second thought was about working in fast food when I was a teen. The restaurant was located in a poshish suburb, where people had big houses and fancy cars. And they yelled. Looking at it with adult retrospect, I can't see where they were coming from. Why would you yell at a fast food cashier? So you have to wait two minutes for fries, or you have to pull around away from the pay window, or someone accidentally drops your change. Why is that even on your radar? As an adult with a proper grownup job - albeit one that's nowhere near posh enough to buy big houses and cars - I can't even imagine caring. So why didn't money/power/privilege buy them the calm that it bought me?

4. At this point, I realized that I'd drifted away from rudeness vs. power and into yelling and anger vs. privilege and respect. But I know in my gut it's the same thing or closely related. So that's why this blog post got paralyzed way back in August.

5. And then Rob Ford got elected mayor of Toronto.

6. Rob Ford yells. People who are inclined to vote for Rob Ford think he's down-to-earth. In my corner of adulthood, down-to-earth people don't yell - that's what makes them down-to-earth. What are these people's lives like that their definition of down-to-earth includes yelling?

7. Rob Ford's target audience is skewed towards houses and cars, which, in Toronto, are hella expensive. They must, necessarily, have several times more money than I ever will. But they're angry. Why are they angry?

8. The non-selfish aspect of my personal politics is focused on Good Jobs. (The selfish aspect doesn't contradict this, it's just focused on very specific things that affect me personally.) I know, from my personal experience and those of my family and friends and everyone I know who's ever had a Good Job, that a Good Job is transformative. And, in my own experience, it's what makes the angry go away. And this might even be multi-generational. If I have a Good Job, and I'm not angry, then my kid not only has a secure environment to grow up in, but doesn't have to face generalized anger at the dinner table every evening, thus making them feel even more secure and less prone to anger themselves.

9. But the Rob Ford people, the people who are angry, are working against this politically. Why? Do they not know that Good Jobs make the angry go away? Do they already have Good Jobs (since they have all houses and cars and expensive things like that) that didn't make the angry go away? Do they not have Good Jobs but have somehow managed to acquire houses and cars that they now have to pay for and they're scared? But, if so, why are they trying to get rid of what few Good Jobs exist?

10. Then I read an article in the Globe and Mail on stress as a serious social-medical problem, and was struck by this quote:

Combatting these feelings is not easy and begins with resilience. Just knowing you have a Plan B for any problem can often reduce the brain’s physical response to stress.

That's what a Good Job does - resilience. It creates opportunities for a Plan B. If my glasses break, I can drop everything and get them fixed without running out of money or losing my job. If I get cancer, all I have to worry about is nausea and hair loss - I'm not going to lose my home or my job. It's less scary, less stressful, and ultimately means that there's less yelling in your life. And, politically, I want that for everyone. I've had a glimpse of it, and I want to share it. But my city seems to be run by people who are angry and yelly and stressed and scared, and yet want the opposite of this situation that creates resilience. I don't understand it. It doesn't make sense.

11. I realize I have no right, authority, or credibility to go swooping in and saying "You voted wrong! I know better than you!" But what I'm saying here is my truth as I have lived and experienced it, as I have observed in those around me and those I admire from afar. Rudeness and anger and fear and yelling decrease as empowerment and agency and respect and social credibility and resilience increase, and all these things increase with good employment conditions.

12. Growing up, I'd probably yell at someone every other day. Now, I can't even think of the last time I yelled at anyone. I like this, and I want everyone else to have it too. But the people who look to me like they need it the most don't want anyone to have it.

I don't know what to do with this.

My political strategy oracle lives on

I've blogged before about this weird pattern of my blog posts becoming political strategy.

That pattern seems to be continuing.

Yesterday, I told you to tell Rob Ford what we need from our city.

This morning, Rob Ford said:

If people didn’t vote for me, I have to convince them to vote for me next time. If they want to call me and talk to me they’re more than welcome to, and I’ll try to respond to all the calls.

(I'm not sure what's up with the emphasis on calling - surely it's quicker, easier, more effective, and more informative for everyone involved to do this by email - but the gist is the same.)

Now if only I could influence actual policy rather than just strategy...

So what now?

In the wake of last night's election results, here's the plan:

1. Everyone tell Rob Ford what we need from our city. Mr. Ford has a reputation for being very good at constituency work. We are all now his constituency. Let's all email him and tell him in specific terms what we need, whether it's a crosstown LRT or better pest control in TCHC buildings or longer library hours. He has built the indisputably positive part of his reputation on it, so let's make use of that for the greater good of our city.

2. Rely on your councillor. We all have a city councillor, directly elected to represent our ward. Many of them are newly-elected, an number of them have strong mandates. They each have a vote on council equal to Mr. Ford's. Let's make it clear to them what we need, and that we need them to stand up for and defend us.

3. Don't allow others to define the narrative. If politicos and media are telling us something that doesn't reflect our reality, don't blindly accept it or assume they must be right and your situation must be a fluke. Express your truth as unmitigated truth, speak up when someone is lying to you about your truth, and don't let anyone tell you differently.

We are more than these election results (especially as presented in the media) make us out to be - more complex and more nuanced, with a broader and more long-term point of view than they're giving us credit for. All we have to do is be the fuck out if it. Remember the #MyToronto hashtag? We just have to live it every day. #OurToronto

How accurate are voter turnout numbers?

This should be a tweet, but I couldn't get it down to 140. Real blog posts coming later.

My sister and I both received voter registration cards at our parents' address. Neither of us has lived there in years. I've never even been eligible to vote municipally there (i.e. there were no municipal elections between my 18th birthday and the day I moved out).

Therefore, official statistics show voter turnout at my parents' address as 50%. In reality it was 100% - both my parents voted, and my sister and I both voted in our respective cities.

In addition to the voter card I received at my parents' address, I also received one at my own address and used it to vote here in Toronto. Therefore, official statistics show my own personal voter turnout as 50%, whereas in reality it was 100%.

This causes me to question whether low voter turnout numbers are really as low as they seem.

Voted

You know how movies set in New York City are disproportionately set in that tiny window of fall when there's a perfect ratio of colourful leaves on the trees to colourful leaves on the ground, and they can dress the characters in skirts or dresses or scarves or coats or boots or any combination thereof in that flawless balance that works so well fashion-wise but is hardly ever appropriate to the weather in real life? That's what my city looked like as I headed out to work this morning. The fog was lifting, my ipod was playing U2, all the usual characters were out and about, and life was beautiful.

My walk to the voting station this evening took me on a route I haven't taken since I moved, up the street I used to live on and along a street where I haven't had any reason to go in years. My ipod was playing Aerosmith and the golden afternoon sun was just starting to turn into a sunset. Some things had changed in that part of the neighbourhood, but all the changes were for the better. Some buildings were new and some had been renovated. That one Halloween decoration that utterly freaks me out isn't there any more. There were more people, and they were more diverse. It makes me feel good about my city.

My new driver's licence arrived today, just in time for me to use it as ID to vote. A sign? The line was long but moving well, and people were relaxed and groovy. I saw a lot of newbies without existing registration cards. The kid who gave me my ballot was an earnest Justin Suarez doppelgänger, explaining municipal ballots to me as though I've never voted municipally before. I let him. A mildly suspicious-looking man sat right next to me at the voting table rather than choosing a distant, unoccupied table. I pulled the cardboard thing over my ballot and voted away. I saw a few cute doggies that made me squee, but I didn't get a chance to pet any of them. (For those of you just turning in, when I get to pet a doggie on the way to vote, the election always turns out well.) But I feel good about how I voted. Really, disproportionately good.

May the rest of my beautiful city do the same.

Open Letter to Torontonians who are not planning to vote tomorrow

Dear fellow citizens who are planning not to vote:

I assume you're planning not to vote because none of the candidates whom the media has arbitrarily deemed viable strikes you as acceptable.

So here's what I want you to do: vote for someone interesting, regardless of whether you think they have a chance to win.

We are a diverse, complex, nuanced city with dozens and dozens of candidates for the position of mayor alone, and the media has not been reflecting this. That does us all a disservice, and is most likely ultimately the reasons why you aren't hearing of any candidates that sound acceptable.

To combat this, to show the media - and the world - that we're more complex and nuanced and interesting than they're treating us as, everyone needs to pick someone interesting and vote for them. It could be someone with a fantastic platform. It could be someone whose pluck and audacity in running for public office you admire. It could be the candidate who actually answers your questions on Twitter. It could be the candidate whose platform is of most benefit to you personally, without regard for the greater good of the city.

"But they have no chance of winning!" So? It's not like you were going to vote for one of the people who does have a chance of winning. Besides, there's no penalty for voting for someone who doesn't win.

"But there's so many candidates, I don't have time to figure out who's best!" You don't have to figure out who's best, you just have to figure out who's good. You already have a nose for who's bad (or you wouldn't be choosing not to vote), so pick someone who isn't bad, who you think is better than the people whom the media has deemed to have a chance at winning. If you don't vote, the best candidate definitely won't get your vote. If you do vote for someone who you think is good, the best candidate just might end up getting your vote.

"But I don't have a full sense of the issues, I can't make a fully informed choice." Because you're considering not voting, you're obviously savvy enough to determine when a platform is unacceptable. So read the platform of the candidate who interests you and make sure it's acceptable. By voting for someone whose platform you find acceptable, you're making the statement "See, this is the sort of thing I'm looking for."

To get you started, here's a Twitter list of all the non-frontrunner mayoral candidates who are on Twitter. And here's where to find all the candidates for all offices. Pick one who's interesting and has an acceptable platform, and vote for them. Help show the media and the world that there's far more to us than this false binary they've boxed us into.

I am not happy with media coverage of the Toronto election

I am not at all happy with how the media has been handling this Toronto election.

I think the electioneering started far too early, and I'm not happy with how the media was complicit in this by scheduling televised debates seven fricking months before election day.

I'm not happy with how the media has deemed the candidates of its choosing frontrunners and then practically ignored all other candidates. We have 40 mayoral candidates, and I have only seen 8 of their names in my newspapers, with only 5 of them treated like serious candidates! My ward has 4 city council candidates, and what little media coverage we've gotten has arbitrarily deemed only 2 of them viable.

I am not happy with how the media has allowed the candidates rather than the people to define the issues and narrative. Nearly every day for the better part of this year I've opened the newspaper to find someone trying to win my vote by lying to my face about what I want and need from my city.

I'm not happy at all with how the media has given me absolutely no information whatsoever to help me make an informed vote for my school board trustee. There are no current, past, or future TDSB students in my household. I don't even actually know what the issues are, and the media has done nothing to help me in this area.

What I want from the media is extensive objective information. I want all candidates and their platforms profiled and given equal space, and to be allowed to decide for myself which ones are viable. I want newspapers to track down that one candidate in my ward who doesn't have a website and profile her just like all the other candidates, not completely ignore her. I want an objective overview of the issues, as defined by the people, not the candidates. I want factual information readily available - What does the city's budget currently look like? What are the cost and capacity per kilometre of LRTs vs. subways? - and zero spin. I want objective primers on how to decide how to vote for people who haven't voted in Toronto or in their ward before, or are otherwise unfamiliar with mayoral/councillor/trustee issues. And I don't want any of this to start before Labour Day.

I can make snap judgements based on the loudest elements of candidates' reputations myself. I can ignore candidates I've never heard of myself. I can sit passively by as the candidates define the issues and take their every statement at face value myself. If I wanted to do this, I wouldn't need the media. I'm going to the media because I want more than I can do myself. And it's time for them to step up and deliver.

Things I Don't Understand: city councillor candidates endorsing strategic voting for the position of mayor

The more I think about it, the more I think there's no point in strategic voting for the position of mayor of Toronto. The mayor only gets one vote on council, equal to the votes of every one of the 44 councillors. There are no political parties at the municipal level, unlike the federal and provincial levels where the party with the most seats wins. Locally, if the mayor wants to ban subways, he'll vote against subways and every reasonable councillor will vote for subways, whereas federally and provincially if they want to ban subways, they can whip the vote and make every member of the ruling party vote against subways. It seems to me the worst the mayor can do is embarrass us as a figurehead, which barely even enters into it. (If you were a tourist, or a band trying to decide where to take your tour, or a business looking to open a new branch office, would you be thinking about the pleasantness of the local mayor?) The more I think about it, the more my opinion moves in this direction.

However, there have been some city councillor candidates (primarily incumbents) who have endorsed strategic voting for mayor. Why are they doing this? Are they saying their votes are powerless? What do they know that I don't?

And why are they running for city councillor if they feel their votes are so useless?

Maybe I should be tracking these candidates down and asking them...

Analogy for the dropped G20 charges

Some people have said the fact that the G20 charges were dropped means that everything's fine, the system is working like it's supposed to. But the problem is that the people in question were still arrested, detained, and subject to bail conditions (some of which could seriously inconvenience a person or hinder their ability to live life normally) for four months.

Here's an analogy to explain why that's a problem:

Suppose you are abducted. You're blindfolded, tied up, taken somewhere far, far away, and locked in a basement. After a few days you manage to escape, but you find that you're in another part of the world where you don't speak the language. You can't even read enough of their alphabet to tell where in the world you are. You have no money, no resources, no language in common with the people around you, and look (and probably smell) scruffy and questionable after several days locked in a basement. You have to survive and evade your captors and make your way home, all without money or the ability to communicate or the general social credibility that comes from being clean and neatly dressed. So on top of the fact that you need to convince someone to give you money or let you use their phone or pick you up while hitchhiking with the hindrances of looking scruffy and not being able to communicate, you also have to worry about what's going on at home. You haven't been at work for a while. Do you still have a job? Rent was due the other day. Have you been evicted? Did someone pick up the baby at daycare? Is someone feeding your cat?

It takes weeks and weeks and weeks, but you finally get home. And you want justice for all that you've suffered! Now imagine if someone says, in response to your cry for justice, "What? You're home now, everything's fine."

A mission for Toronto language professional, language geeks, and second generation Canadians

One of the many things needed at the Wellesley community centre is interpreters. According to someone who was there on the ground, languages include Arabic, Punjabi, Urdu, Turkish, and Farsi.

I don't know in any official capacity and wasn't there on the ground (and if I'm misconstruing the situation, please do correct me in comments), but based on what I've heard of this situation I don't think an interpreter-quality skill set is necessary. An amateur translator, a second-generation Canadian who can talk to Gramma in the old country's language, or someone with the equivalent of two years' classroom instruction should be able to be of some help.

If this is in your skill set, please do consider popping in to see if you can be of any use. If this is in the skill set of someone you know, please pass on the tinformation.

Journalism wanted: contextualize the G20 expenses

Recently in the news: many many dollars were spent at the G20 for many random things.

All the news reports I've seen simply mention large numbers of dollars and the things they were spent on. But what does it actually mean?

For example, they say that $300,000 was spent on sunscreen and insect repellent. Notwithstanding my firm and abiding belief that any undertaking requiring insect repellent should be relocated to somewhere that doesn't require insect repellent, how reasonable an amount is that? How many people was it intended to equip? How much sunscreen and insect repellent did they allocate per person? Is that a reasonable amount to allocate per person? Is that a reasonable amount to spend for that quantity of sunscreen and insect repellent? How much would it go for retail? How much would it go for wholesale/bulk? What SPF did they get? How much DEET did they get?

That would be informative. The dollar amounts without context are practically useless. If I wanted to clutch my pearls because an amount greater than my own net worth was spent on supplies and logistics for a large-scale international event, I'd read the Toronto Sun. Do better, legitimate media!

Things They Should Invent: "Are you knowledgeable enough to vote?" quiz

I'm really struggling with the fact that I have to vote for a school board trustee. I've looked at all my candidates' websites and have some vague thoughts on the matter, but I don't know enough about the issues affecting TDSB and its students. I'm a generally politically aware person, I've been to school myself, and I've read all the candidates' websites. Is that enough? I have no idea. I've never even set foot inside a TDSB school except when I go into one to vote. There could be vast amounts of stuff I'm missing. I think it's inethical for me to vote if I'm doing it in ignorance, and I think it's inethical for me not to vote if I can do it informedly. And I have no way of knowing whether or not I can do it informedly.

I want someone to make an internet quiz that will tell me (and other people) whether I'm knowledgeable enough to vote. Then I could use that information to either choose not to vote, or educate myself some more. Maybe there could be like a total of 100 questions but the quiz randomly selects 10 each time you take it, so you can study up and take the quiz again, but you have to learn more than just the answer to 10 simple questions.

Half-formed idea: algorithmic approach to TTC expansion

This post arises from a combination of ideas.

1. A number of very loud political candidates want to wreck Transit City because they want subways. They seem to think LRTs now preclude subways later.

2. There is a sysadmin approach whereby hardware upgrades are algorithmic. They make a rule (presumably based on some calculations or intelligence or standard procedure) that if the system reaches X% capacity Y% of the time, they upgrade capacity.

3. It is possible to do vast 20-year economic projections of population growth, service use, and revenue generation, and to project how all of these will be affected by certain factors. They can then use these things to work out random crazy things like "If mortgage rates jump sharply today, how will that affect passenger loads at Pearson a year from now? Five years? Ten years? Twenty years?"

So we combine all three of these things, and we get an algorithmic approach to TTC expansion. They determine that if a bus hits a certain capacity, it gets upgraded into an LRT, and if an LRT hits a certain capacity, it gets upgraded into a subway.

We know that better transit service will eventually lead to intensification, which will lead to a broader tax base and more transit users. This is the sort of thing economic forecasting can quantify, which can be used to cost out the upgrades, determine which will be most profitable most quickly, and ultimately work out an algorithm for prioritizing them.

So they get a bunch of smart people to figure all this out in specific terms and make a massive plan specifying conditions under which transit lines are upgraded and a method for determining which lines will be upgraded first. They make a plan to grow using internally generated revenue, and another plan for outside funding from other levels of government, so transit improvement isn't paralyzed by withdrawl of outside funding. Maybe internal funding is used to target the areas most in need, and external funding is used to target areas with most revenue-generation potential, so it can be presented more as an investment on funding applications. The plan could of course be tweakable as new factors come into play, but in general it should come down to "Once a route reaches X capacity, it gets upgraded."

Then this approach, and the algorithms and economic forecasting used to work it out, are all made publicly available, so people can see what exactly is driving specific expansion decisions, and can see that, yes, they will get a subway eventually. Hopefully this will protect our transit system from politicos who want to dismantle existing plans and remake it in their own image every election cycle (or at least make their plans look foolish) and encourage more long-term thinking.

Now, it's quite possible that the TTC already does this. I'd be very surprised if they didn't already have an economic forecast. If so, they should publicize this information - post it on their website and make people aware of its existence, to give more credibility to their plans and make "NO! Kill it and build a subway to my house!" politically unviable.

What is the meaningfulness of the gap between mean and median household income?

Torontoist's ward profiles include both mean ("average") and median household income for each ward. In some wards the mean and median are very close, and in others there's a huge gap. This is intriguing, but I can't figure out why it's happening or what it means. (I do know the difference between a mean and a median, but I can't wrap my brain around the significance of these gaps) Help me out here:

1. What is the meaningfulness of a large gap between median and mean as opposed to a small gap?
2. Large gaps tend to occur in wards with higher income. Why is this? Is it meaningful? Is it possible for it to occur in wards with lower income, and, if so, under what circumstances?
3. Why does mean tend to be higher? Is it always higher? Is it mathematically possible for it to be lower, and, if so, under what circumstances?

Things They Should Invent: self-obsoleting road tolls

There has been talk of introducing road tolls to reduce congestion and help pay for infrastructure, and of course car people are vehemently opposed.

I previously came up with the idea of congestion-based tolls - the more cars on the road, the higher the toll. Let's build on that and charge tolls only when there are so many cars that traffic isn't flowing smoothly. If traffic on a particular road is flowing smoothly, everything's fine, we don't need tolls. If traffic is congested and yet people are still trying to drive on the road, we start charging them tolls. (There would be signage before you enter the road).

If you're a Metropass subscriber, you get a special transponder that allows you to drive on the toll roads for free. (Alternate marketing idea to attract the motorist demographic: It's an All-Access Pass that, in addition to giving you unlimited travel on the toll roads, gives you unlimited travel on the TTC.) This is good because your money is going to the TTC (which ultimately gets cars off roads).

There would also be incentives for carpooling. If you have two transponders in your car, you get 50% off tolls. If you have three or more, you get to ride for free. Since each transponder must be issued to a registered and insured vehicle (but doesn't have to be physically attached to the vehicle, so you can take it with you while carpooling), this will make sure that carpooling incentives to go actual carpoolers, not people just driving their kids around.

So ultimately, if enough people take the TTC or carpool or take alternate routes, road tolls will never be collected. But if people continue to insist on engaging in congestion-producing behaviour, road tolls will be collected. But the tolls will be used to improve infrastructure so as to reduce congestion in the long run, so ultimately they will go extinct either way.

Why people who support mayoral candidate Rob Ford's ideas should be concerned about him

1. Rob Ford "forgot" that he was charged with drug possession in the US. Regardless of whether or not the drug charges themselves are a problem, forgetting that they happened (and this only 11 years ago) is a problem. Do you remember your last encounter with police? Yes you do. Do you remember every encounter you've ever had with police? Probably. I do, and they weren't even negative. Dealing with police is unusual, inconvenient, a break from routine, and pretty scary. Having it happen in another country with strict drug laws is even scarier. So how could he have forgotten it? Is he losing his faculties? Does he face police charges so often that they've become routine? Or does he think his constituency is so stupid they won't notice that there's something wrong with this picture? I can't imagine any scenario that wouldn't be a cause for concern among his supporters.

2. Rob Ford wants to stop immigrants from moving to Toronto, saying we have too many people already. Remember when you first moved to Toronto? All the application forms you had to fill out? The stress of waiting for acceptance? Of course not, because it doesn't work that way. You just show up. Secure housing and move in. Or don't secure housing first if you don't want to, just show up. Being able to live wherever you want in Canada is an actual, enshrined-in-the-Charter capital-R Right. The mayor of a city can in no way do anything about it. So why bring it up as though it's actionable? Does he egregiously misunderstand the scope of powers of mayor? Or does he think his constituency is so stupid they're unaware of how it works? I can't imagine any scenario that wouldn't be a cause for concern among his supporters.