Typical Toronto timeline...

...glacial, that is, glaciers themselves melting faster than locals move to act sensibly regarding basic urban transportation issues.

http://www.thestar.com/article/472866 "Cyclists cheer progress of rail trail" &
http://www.thestar.com/article/467117 "New subway in sight at last"

Around a decade for a subway extension, and another decade still for a full "pan-Toronto network of off-road bike paths". Over one hundred years ago the nation-building CPR line is completed in around half the time said needed to build a several-mile subway extension. Protected bicycle corridors have been proposed for Toronto since the 70s, so we wait 50 years. My favourite was a proposed covered right of way elevated at lakeshore and maintaining the same elevation until meeting ground level at city limits about 10 miles north, with escalator access at intervals. The traffic & thus danger density has drastically increased since the 70s, making separate bike routes so much more urgent, apart from urgency on other grounds. Tall buildings dwarf lowly bike paths in complexity, yet the former are developed in a small fraction of time we wait for the latter. Canadian-style overweening safety concerns slow progress on the trail mentioned in the article because of proximity to an active rail line, but no sense of urgency about the ongoing danger faced daily by cyclists who should be maybe compensated for public duty, never mind simply benefit from a carbon tax. What a culture.

Both these issues directly affect us in our central Toronto riding. And here's more glaciation in our riding: Downsview National Park, declared around a decade ago, still bearing almost no resemblance to one. It does incorporate past Liberal governments' ideas about "sustainability", financially so by splitting off public lands for big box stores &c, you know, the money moves kind of in a circle, to pay for the substandard "park", itself until recently I believe snagged in jurisdictional matters (sponsorship affair had roots around then, too -- you know, those circular moneys...).

More unpleasant riding news: Two Sundays ago we were not far outside the evacuation zone around the propane blast site, itself adjacent to our "national park". One Sunday ago also in the middle of the night multiple gunshots, unsolved by police, were heard much closer than last week's blast. And, even as some of us suspect air traffic as having the most dire & direct disturbing atmospheric effect of all, from another section of our "national park" flights of all residential peace-disrupting kinds have drastically increased of late. It's all of a piece here in York Centre, accelerating dangers, trudging to solutions.