(Adapted from this thread.) Background 🎁 (just imagine this in a _Star Wars_ opening crawl): for longstanding grudges largely to do with petro-masculinity, Premier Doug Ford declared that not only would municipalities need provincial approval to remove car lanes in favour of bike lanes, the bike lanes that just happen to be on his commute from Etobicoke to Queen’s Park would be removed—starting with Bloor St. While a court injunction delayed the work for several months, it was overturned on appeal. A large crowd of cyclists deterred contracted construction workers the night the removal was to begin, but notwithstanding the permit limiting them to nighttime work, the contractors returned the next day… **Quick rant:** First off, Facebook is a _horrible_ way to organize time-sensitive things. Not only is much content hidden behind a login wall, posts to groups are not presented newest-first but simply based on “engagement”. I have a dummy account to let me manage a Facebook page for work and was periodically manually checking David Shellnutt’s posts to the Toronto Critical Mass group, which was the only reason I learned that 1) despite the permit for nights only, work _might_ take place during the day on Wednesday, Oct. 14 and cyclists should “stand by”, and, less than an hour later (as I was on my way to Etobicoke just in case), that 2) work had commenced. Next time I am simply not going to bother. If they want more people to attend protests they should provide updates in a more convenient way. A social media account on a platform that presents updates in reverse chronological order and does not have any login wall. A Signal group. Mass text messages. A website or blog with an RSS feed. Hell, a fucking text file with an URL people can refresh. A town crier. Trained carrier pigeons. Whatever. Onwards. Cyclists face off with police guarding construction workers removing the Bloor bike lanes. Cyclists briefly blocked the road in front of one of the trucks. A construction crew had already put up cones along the length of the bike lanes that were to be removed. When I arrived at Bloor and Islington at about 12:25 p. m., one of the contractors’ trucks, parked in the eastbound bike lane, was being hemmed in by a small crowd of people, some of them sitting on the ground directly in front of the truck. Several local news reporters and camera operators were milling around, and a long line of police officers was forming along the lane. (At least one Court Services “paddy wagon” was standing by.) There were also plenty of locals stepping out of shops or offices to watch the show. Geoffrey Bercarich posted this overhead view from a nearby high-rise. A local resident comes out to protest. Not all the protesters were cyclists. One, a young parent with a baby and a handmade sign reading “BIKE LANES SAVE LIVES”, lived in the neighbourhood and had just popped by. (They had to leave, but gave their sign to another protester; it changed hands a few times over the course of the afternoon.) A few minutes after I arrived, word got around that the police would be making us clear out of the bike lane; we were threatened with arrest if we did not move. One person was arrested. I seriously considered it myself, and had written a few lawyers’ numbers on myself in Sharpie just in case (this ain’t your correspondent’s first rodeo), but decided against it. Construction workers remove the parking curbs in front of their truck, which has the company name/logo hidden. Attendees counted at least 30 police cruisers to block the lanes and intimidate protesters. The contractors began pulling up the bolts that attached the concrete parking curbs to the road. They had covered up any names and logos on their truck and gear with tape. However, as Brian Tao posted on Facebook, according to the City website the firm is Verdi Alliance, PCPO donors, implicated in provincial land-grab shenanigans in Ottawa, and chummy with the Premier. Protesters shifted from standing off with the cops to following the construction workers as they gradually proceeded eastward along Bloor. A forklift was brought out to stack up and haul away the concrete parking curbs; a City truck was piled high with removed bollardettes (you know what I mean; the flippy plastic things that cars run over). Quite a few local news teams were on site. News teams stuck around surprisingly long, interviewing locals. Some people approved of the bike lanes being torn out, some douchily (a loud, sleazy guy with a tacky belt buckle who emerged from a Firkin pub), NIMBY-ly in that “oh, I approve in principle, they just weren’t done _right_ ” way (a middle-aged woman who claimed she had cycled in Toronto for over 50 years but complained, just _this_ close to being self-aware, that traffic calming measures were “driver stressing”), or affably (a burrito joint manager who was buddy-buddy with the construction workers and was promptly interviewed by one of the TV reporters). For once curious about the rest of the world’s opinion, I asked folks on the Fediverse from outside Toronto to weigh in. Reactions included: * “nuts” * “batshit mad” * “backwards” * “vapid” * “extremely stupid” * “bonkers” * “objectively bad” * “a brain-dead, mean-spirited waste of money” * “bullshit” * “absolutely bullshit” * “obviously a horrible use of money/effort/time” A few people from areas where municipalities have more autonomy remarked on the egregious provincial overreach. To other Canadians, it was sadly familiar. Some people from other cities—Berlin, Edmonton, Vancouver, Christchurch—mentioned similar attempts, in the past or in the works. While the vast, vast majority of cities around the world acknowledge the reality of induced demand/traffic evaporation and the benefits of making it easier for pedestrians and cyclists to get around safely, there are _always_ people trying to turn the clock back. Cycle Toronto has announced: > Protests resume 6 AM Thursday > Meet at Tom Riley Park > stay together, stay safe

Workers began removing the controversial Bloor Street bike lanes near Islington Wednesday morning, after protests the day before delayed their removal.

Attached: 4 images · Content warning: join me in hell motherfuckers, llm output, biblical word exclusion zone, marked cognitohazard

Toronto’s newest park (🎁), it is widely agreed, is a jewel on the waterfront and a rare example of the city doing something ambitious. The area, once a flood-prone industrial wasteland, has been turned into a lush wetland the Don River meanders through on its way to the lake. There are plenty of attractions and amenities for humans too: self-cleaning washrooms, a zipline, giant animal-shaped climbing structures, and a hilly Cheltenham Badlands-inspired playground with an intriguing variety of water pumps and locks. “A triumph,” says Designlines Magazine. “My six year old cried when we had to leave,” commented some random Redditor. Since the rehabilitation began, wildlife has eagerly returned to the park, flourishing amid native plants, big old dead trees, and rocky beaches. Like, unironically, nature is healing (🎁). There are plenty of photos and sightings of wildflowers, birds, fish, mink and beavers, etc. But I know you all are wondering: what about _spiders_? I had not spent much time in the park, but in mid-August, after seeing the swathes of prime _Pardosa lapidicina_ habitat while cycling through on the way to Tommy Thompson Park, I had to check it out. Just a sampling of arachnids: Likely the willow bead gall mite (_Aculops tetanothrix_). An opilionid that seems to have lost a few legs (don’t worry, they can spare a few). There’s a long-jawed orbweaver (_Tetragnatha_) somewhere on this aphid-infested goldenrod. There it is! A less camouflaged (but still hard to spot if you’re not looking for it) _Tetragnatha_. In the low vegetation by the walking paths, there were many sheet-web weavers (family Linyphiidae). Small mesh-web weavers (family Dictynidae) covered flowers with their irregular webs of fuzzy silk. But let’s get to what I came for: _Pardosa_! This cobble beach by the Don is perfect thin-legged wolf spider (_Pardosa_) habitat. _Pardosa_ love sunning themselves and these sculptures (frogs?) were great territory. One _Pardosa_ I managed to briefly corner on the sculpture. This one was down a few legs but still enjoying the golden-hour sun. Down by the edge of the water, _Pardosa_ sunned themselves on rocks… …and driftwood. Light enough to run over water, they have no qualms about being right next to the river. This larger _Pardosa_ had a great view of the Don on this washed-up log. Not very good close-up (I didn’t want to risk scaring her off.) Of the insects I saw, dragonflies and damselflies were especially abundant. I couldn’t get photos of them in flight, but here are just a few resting ones I got pictures of. This orange damselfly went unnoticed by other parkgoers. Many damselflies were mating. This damselfly was a gorgeous shade of blue. This one was really striking! Managed to get quite close to this one. It’s hard to see, but there is a very large blue dragonfly sitting on top of the rock. The flowers attracted a huge range of insects. Monarch butterflies were everywhere, feeding on flowers. A close-up. This pink milkweed attracted a large wasp (_Sphex_?), a bumblebee(?), and a honeybee. I think this is a _Bembix_ sand wasp, and I know the filename says “boneset” but now I think it’s Joe-Pye weed or similar. One of my favourite finds was this well-camouflaged jagged ambush bug (_Phymata_). I like this view because it seems to encapsulate Toronto’s past (the elevated Gardiner Expressway, relic of a time when the car was king); its present (skyscrapers and condos), and perhaps its future (the lazy green river with a duck paddling in it). Where the Don enters the park, looking northward. I also checked out the more manicured western part of Biidaasige that had just opened, and took a jaunt to the “Don Greenway Trail Loop” in the southwestern corner of the park. By then the sun was setting and I was very tired, so I headed home. Looking out from the then-just-opened western bit of the park. Notice the little islands offshore. An island formed out of a little pond connected to the Ship Channel, at the southwestern corner of the park. There are bird habitats on poles. And just think, this all could have been a casino/ferris wheel/monorail/.

TORONTO – Election day in Toronto is fast approaching, and polls continue to show Mayor Olivia Chow with a lead over challenger Brad Bradford. So, in a desperate effort to court the bland, middle-aged, white vote, Bradford is quadrupling down. “My campaign is promising real change,” said the mayoral hopeful. “That’s why I legally changed […] The post Desperate Brad Bradford adds another Brad to his name appeared first on The Beaverton.

Relentless AI scrapers pushed DNA Lounge's web hosting bill from $800 to $3,500/month. That is a $32,000/year cost shift caused entirely by companies training models on their content without permission. AI companies are externalizing their massive training costs onto independent web operators, effectively taxing the independent web to build their proprietary models. 📉 https://www.dnalounge.com/backstage/log/2026/10/06.html

Kids can vote for Toronto’s 2027 Tree of the Year and start their journey to becoming a lifelong voter during advanced voting on October 10 and 11, from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., at all 50 advance voting places. Find the voting place closest to your home. The winning tree will be announced after the […]

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