Glenn Kubish

Here are 20 pictures from my wandering through downtown Toronto with Shelagh, and a couple of memories called up in the wandering. This was the view last night from up on the canyon wall. 42nd floor Forty-two flights down the elevator shaft, we set out this morning. A broadsheet page tumbled by. The wind did what it seems to do to western Canadians with a cold smugness to them, which is to send them back to the hotel for another layer. Newspaper blows by The wind also moved Shelagh into a walkway over York St, just up the street from Air Canada Centre. This part of downtown was hollow on a Saturday morning. It was built for the business crowd, and it waited for Monday. Shelagh in walkway The needle on top of the CN Tower looked like it could pop the saggy balloon clouds. Above Union Station  Along Front Street we looked into the window of the Hockey Hall of Fame. From the street, I could see the plaques of Rogie Vachon (who I operated on my Cole...

Here are three of my favourite quotations from three of my favourite mayors on the status of flesh-and-blood human beings in the current iteration of the urban landscape. Thank you Rob Ford, Don Iveson, Enrique Peñalosa. What I compare bike lanes to is swimming with the sharks. Sooner or later you're going to get bitten. And every year we have dozens of people that get hit by cars or trucks. Well, no wonder: roads are built for buses, cars, and trucks, not for people on bikes. My heart bleeds for them when I hear someone gets killed, but it's their own fault at the end of the day. The [city's bicycle transportation] plan recognizes that Edmonton's transportation infrastructure is built and maintained primarily for automobiles, and describes the creation of a bicycle network using roads and shared-use paths that makes it easier, safer, and more comfortable for cyclists and motorists to co-exist. The essence of the conflict today, really, is cars versus people. We can ...

Today, I gave Toronto Mayor Rob Ford a lift. There he was, I was almost certain, walking along Jasper Avenue across 101 St, and there I was, I was pretty certain, watching him walk in front of my car as I waited to turn and head back to work at ATB Financial. "Mayor Ford," I said, throwing my arm out the window with a handshake offer, "welcome to Edmonton!" He took the offer, and there we were, I was still fairly certain, shaking hands, he on foot, me in the driver's seat, at Edmonton's major intersection. He asked me which way to city hall, and I started to explain the route, but then offered to give him a lift. At first, he politely declined, but I asked again and he obliged, and slipped into the backseat. In the five-block drive we talked about the Leafs' playoff chances, Corey Boyd's ouster from the Argonauts, the Edmonton Eskimos and their defensive prowess, the construction cranes in the city, his recent appearance on TSN's Off The...