Tuesday, March 12, 2024
Wanted: a shared experience that makes it feel like life is getting better
Saturday, March 18, 2023
Saving for a down payment is not the only barrier to housing affordability
Toronto in 2021Time to save for down payment: 20+ years
What is Toronto’s starter home of this decade? In short, it’s further from the core, harder to attain and requires decades’ worth of savings.
Looking at properties that fell around 20 per cent below the average cost in 2021, there were still some bungalows in the mix, such as a raised bungalow that hit the market in the Scarborough neighbourhood of Birchcliffe-Cliffside. A property listing describes the house’s interiors as “well maintained but dated.”
It was offered in as-is, where-is condition, meaning the seller wouldn’t be making any repairs for the new buyer. “Buy to renovate or rebuild,” it suggested.
Like so many properties across Toronto last year, it sold for well above its listing price. Four days after records show it was listed for $699,900, it went for nearly $200,000 more, with a sale price of $875,000.
To reach a 20 per cent down payment, an individual or family would be tasked with tucking away a whopping $175,000. The median household income across the city last year was $84,000 — meaning this “starter” home would take more than 20 years of savings.
This is all true, but let's also look at the mortgage situation.
Median household income last year was $84,000.
Using Tangerine's "How much can I borrow?" calculator (because that's the one I find most user-friendly), with an income of $84,000, the $175,000 down payment calculated above, and all the other settings left to default, we get a total mortgage of $432,946.
Tuesday, March 02, 2021
Things They Should Study: would replacing property tax with a municipal income tax meet our needs better?
Sunday, November 15, 2020
Toronto needs to remove snow not just from sidewalks, but from the areas around sidewalks
I was particularly disappointed to see that the City of Toronto isn't extending sidewalk snow clearing to areas of the city that don't yet receive this service, because that's a giant step in exactly the wrong direction. In a pandemic year we need even more than sidewalk snow clearing. To maintain physical distancing, we need areas around the sidewalk, like curb lanes and boulevards and the edges of lawns, to be cleared as well.
Pedestrian physical distancing isn't just a question of two "lanes" that need to be six feet apart. Faster walkers also need to pass slower walkers. Some people are walking dogs or herding children. Some people insist on walking two or three abreast. Some people are carrying bulky grocery bags. People with wheelchairs or walkers or fragile ankles need to be able to avoid walking on the curb cut.
To physically distance through all these variables -
especially on older residential streets with narrow sidewalks - we need
to use not just the sidewalk, but also lawns and curb lanes. The
sidewalk on my own street is just barely six feet wide, so I'm always
stepping off the sidewalk onto the street, or onto a lawn or driveway, so I can stay six feet away from other people. I probably step off into a curb lane or onto a lawn about three to five times in a typical block of walking.
And in snowy weather, curb lanes and lawns aren't available because they're covered in snow. The curb lanes are full of snow plow windrows, and lawns are, at a minimum, unshovelled, and, more often, covered in snow banks from sidewalk snow clearing.
What the City of Toronto needs to do is clear not just sidewalks, but also curb lanes and at least 3 feet of lawns that are adjacent to narrow sidewalks. (Q: Won't that damage the lawns? A: The City can replant the lawns in the spring. Lives are more important than lawns.) They need to truck away windrows that end up in the curb lane, and go around making sure sewer grates are clear so gutters don't fill up with water.
In the Old City of Toronto - the portion of the amalgamated city where sidewalks aren't cleared - all these sidewalk-related needs and pandemic-related needs are exacerbated. There is higher population density, more people walking as a primary form of transportation, and more people who don't have cars. Older sidewalks tend to be narrower, buildings tend to be closer to the sidewalk, and the curb lane tends to be right next to the sidewalk (rather than there being a boulevard between the sidewalk and the curb lane). Grocery stores and other necessities are more likely to be within walking distance, so more people are carrying bulky packages and rolling bundle buggies. More streets have businesses with patios and lineups and those signs that they put out on the sidewalk.
In short, there are more people trying to physically distance in less space as the second wave of COVID balloons around us. The City needs to help its residents stay safe by extending snow clearing not just to all sidewalks, but to the areas around the sidewalks.
Saturday, April 18, 2020
A pandemic moment
Since I'm not taking the subway during the pandemic, this meant a longer walk, past Mt. Pleasant Cemetery, but the weather was nice and the sidewalk and surrounding lawn/boulevard is wide enough for proper distancing, so it was no hardship.
As I've mentioned before, I live in a high-density neighbourhood with a lot of people around. Under normal circumstances, there are easily 100 people in sight at any given moment. This has scaled back significantly during the pandemic, but there were still about a dozen people walking along the half-kilometre stretch beside the cemetery.
About halfway along, there was a guy standing stock still, staring at the cemetery. That seemed like odd behaviour, so I made a mental note to give him especially wide berth.
Then a jogger started approaching his location. He noticed her approach, and resumed walking like a regular person, taking care to give the jogger plenty of space. Good, I don't have to worry about him now.
Then the jogger stopped and stared at the cemetery. Hmm, maybe there's something there?
Then an older couple started approaching the jogger's location. She noticed them approach, and resumed jogging, taking care to give the older couple plenty of space.
Then the older couple stopped and stared at the cemetery. There must be something there!
And, as I approached, I saw what it was:
A big fat raccoon!
He was so enormously chubby that every step made him waddle, which was just adorable and hilarious as he casually wandered around the cemetery, going about his raccoon business.
The older couple watched the raccoon, pointing and laughing, then noticed me approach their location, so they resumed their walk, taking care to give me plenty of space.
Then it was my turn to stop at the optimal raccoon viewing location and watch him waddle around a bit, before moving on to make room for the next pedestrian.
***
What I love about this moment is not just that that everyone made sure to attend to the public health need for physical distancing, but also everyone acknowledged and made space for each other's utterly frivolous desire to look at the chubby raccoon.
Looking at a chubby raccoon is by no objective measure important. I grew up surrounded by some very vocal people who were, for lack of a better word, stingy about that sort of thing ("What's the big deal? It's just a raccoon!") so, even though looking at the chubby raccoon is important to me, I would never have expected other people (grown adults! strangers!) to see it that way.
Many of those people around me growing up also very vocally espoused the opinion that City People Are Rude. They don't know get to know their neighbours - sometimes don't even know their neighbours' names! They don't say hi to you on the street or even make eye contact!
None of us there walking past the cemetery that day knew each other's names or each other's business. No one spoke to each other, perhaps no one even made eye contact. I would never recognize any of the people if I encountered them on the street again.
But everyone kindly, gently, considerately made sure everyone else got a chance to look a the chubby raccoon. Everyone took their turn, everyone kept their distance, and everyone got to enjoy a brief smile in the middle of the pandemic.
***
I previously blogged my theory that small kindnesses are bigger than big kindnesses, postulating that most people will step up when it's truly important, but it's easier to be selfish and let generosity fall by the wayside when the stakes are lower.
Chonky boi! |
Friday, August 30, 2019
Things the City of Toronto Should Invent: natural gardens as of right
So I went a-googling, and discovered that if you want to have a natural garden (as opposed to a lawn), you have to apply for an exemption.
I think that's bass-ackwards.
In addition to the drainage issues that the ban on artificial turf is trying to address, a natural garden would help with pollinators, native species, and biodiversity. Growing food in residential yards would also boost the city's food sovereignty and sustainability (as well as urban biodiversity, and probably pollinators too.)
In contrast, a lawn is...green and flat. And that's about it.
It's monoculture, it doesn't contribute to biodiversity or pollination, I think it might even be an invasive species.
If the City's priority is green and flat, they should allow artificial turf.
If the City's priorities are environmental, they should allow natural gardens as of right, so people don't have to apply for an exemption, they can just go ahead and have a natural garden - including by neglecting their lawn and letting it revert to nature in its own time.
But let's be brave and bold and take this a step further: what if we make natural gardens the default, and require an exemption for lawns?
"But lawns are important!"
Then it shouldn't be too difficult to get an exemption - just apply for an exemption telling them about why it's so important.
"How do you propose we transition existing lawns to natural gardens?"
I'm a huge fan of benign neglect myself. But when it comes to designing actual policy, a good starting point would be to look at how transitions are normally handled when there's a change in property standards, identify weaknesses in past transitions, and adjust to eliminate those weaknesses.
Saturday, June 08, 2019
Things the City of Toronto Should Invent: monthly property tax bills
What I didn't know was how weird the City of Toronto's billing schedule would be.
I have six scheduled property tax payments a year. Any sensible person would conclude "Okay, so one payment every two months," but it doesn't work that way - they're unevenly spaced! My six payments a year are due in March, April, May, July, August and September.
This spacing means that the payments always feel like a burden. Because I get five months in a row without a payment, it doesn't feel like the kind of regular recurring expense I would mentally take into consideration in my budget. But, at the same time, the fact that it happens multiple months in a row doesn't make it feel like a one-off expense that hurts a bit in the month where it occurs but ultimately my bank account reachieves equilibrium. This arrangement is the worst of both worlds.
Solution: 12 monthly property tax payments
People are accustomed to sizeable monthly payments being due on the first of the month - after all, that's how rent works! So not only would monthly payments make each cheque smaller, but, by fitting into the pattern to which we're accustomed, it would make it more painless.
I previously came up with a conspiracy theory that sales tax isn't included in sticker price to stoke anti-tax sentiment, by making it an unpleasant surprise at the cash register.
I wonder if that's also the intention behind this erratic property tax schedule?
Thursday, December 27, 2018
Metropasses
May 2002 Metropass (source: Colnect) |
I went back to tokens when I was back in school, but once again turned to Metropasses once I graduated and started working full-time. I'm not sure if they ended up being cheaper than tokens every single month, but I loved the convenience - hopping on and off the TTC whenever I wanted, swiping my way into turnstiles. It made me feel like a real urbanite, a true part of my city.
March 2013 Metropass (source: Woodsworth College Students Association) |
I stopped using Metropasses when I started working from home in 2013. But even though I haven't needed them in over five years, I'm still sad that they're being discontinued in favour of the Presto card. My Metropasses have been symbols of and tools of adulthood, independence, urbanity...all the things I never dreamed I was even allowed to aspire to. And so I mourn their loss. My Presto card, while it has the same functions, doesn't have the same emotional weight.
Monday, October 22, 2018
Voted
The physical environment was distressing because of halloween decorations that trigger my panic attacks. I find myself wondering if that's allowed. But the decorations were put up by fellow residents (as opposed to by property management) and I has already politely asked property management to remove the ones that distress me (when I thought property management had put them up), so I don't want to pursue this too aggressively when the resident committee who put them up now know where I live and know my greatest weakness.
This year, I got one flyer from each incumbent councillor candidate, and one from one of the challenger trustee candidates. I got multiple emails from the incumbent candidate of my old ward because I was subscribed to his newsletter in my capacity as a constituent. Weirdly, I also got one email from the other incumbent candidate, even though I don't think I've ever emailed him.
I saw signs for the incumbent councillor candidates, the incumbent school board trustee candidate and both frontrunner mayoral candidates.
Despite the fact that my head injury still hinders my reading, I feel like I was able to make an informed decision. I do have some ideas about how the media could have helped me do that better, which will be the subject of future blog posts.
Saturday, October 20, 2018
Another tool to figure out how to vote: anti-endorsements
I recently figured out another strategy: see who organizations that don't align with your values are endorsing.
While googling some candidates in my ward, I discovered a website I find politically abhorrent was rating various municipal candidates.
It included ratings and comments on some candidates about whom I had, until that point, been unable to find enough useful information. And I found that knowing what politically abhorrent people think of these candidates and why is a useful information to have.
So if you're not finding enough information about particular candidates or about a particular race in your ward and can tolerate some exposure to abhorrent politics, check out who the politically abhorrent are endorsing and why. After all, just because they call it "endorsements" doesn't mean you have to do what they say - you can systematically do the opposite, or otherwise use the reasoning behind their opinions to inform your own.
Saturday, October 06, 2018
How to compare the voting records of incumbent Toronto city councillor candidates
We are accustomed to the situation of one incumbent running in a ward. We keep an eye on the world of our incumbent councillor over their term and get a sense of their work and their voting patterns, especially on issues that are important to us. We keep in mind what works and where there's room for improvement and compare all this with the platforms of the challengers running in our ward, as well as using it to evaluate the incumbent's re-election platform.
Having two incumbent candidates in a ward complicates things. Now two of the candidates have a voting patterns and a record of constituency work, but one of them we haven't been paying nearly as much attention to, since, up until now, they were irrelevant to our everyday issues and our voting decisions.
It would be foolish to disregard the record of the incumbent with whom we're less familiar, but it also takes a lot of work to familiarize ourselves with their years and years of council votes.
However, a more efficient way to do so is to compare the voting records of the two incumbent candidates and see where they differ. After all, there's no point in focusing your time and energy on areas where they're in agreement - your existing assessment of whether your incumbent should be voted for or against will do the job there.
Here's a quick and easy way to make this comparison*:
Go to Matt Elliott's City Council Scorecard. This spreadsheet has one row for each councillor, and as your scroll rightwards you can see how they've voted on every vote, colour-coded for your convenience.
When you find a column where your two incumbents voted differently, simply look at the top row to see what the issue was.
This way you can quickly and easily scroll through years of votes to see where there are areas of difference requiring further examination.
(Here is a link to primary source data about councillor's voting records, which is far less user-friendly, but can be downloaded in .csv format if you prefer to do your own data manipulations.)
*Credit for this idea goes to the author of this comparison of Ward 12 candidates Josh Matlow and Joe Mihevic, which reached me via a tweet from Adam Chaleff. I'm under the impression that the author of this comparison wishes to remain anonymous, but if you are the author and you want credit, let me know in the comments. And, of course, Matt Elliott gets credit for the mindblowingly helpful scorecard spreadsheet.
Friday, July 27, 2018
Tax dollars vs. library books: a personal cost-benefit analysis
The Toronto Public Library's 2017 operating budget was $178.763 million.
$178.763 million / $10.5 billion = 00.0170250476
This means the library's budget is approximately 1.7% of the City's budget.
Therefore, 1.7% of my municipal tax dollars go to the library.
My 2017 property tax levy was $2618.47.
$2618.47 * 0.017 = 44.51399
Therefore, in 2017 I paid just over $44 in taxes to support the library.
In 2017, I read a total of 55 books from the library.
44 / 55 = 0.8
Therefore, I paid $0.80 per book I read.
In comparison, Amazon's Kindle Unlimited costs $9.99 a month, which is $119.88 a year. The cheapest book on their ebooks "deals" page is $0.99, and the cheapest book on their print "deals" page is $3.90.
So what was my return on investment?
According to the Ontario Media Development Corporation (the first google result with relevant information), the average list price in 2016 was $19.12 and $12.86 respectively for trade and mass market paperbacks.
55 * $12.86 = $707.30
55 * $19.12 = $1051.60
Therefore, extrapolating from these averages, I got between $707.30 and $1051.60 in value from my $44 investment.
That's a return on investment of between 1607.5% and 2390%.
Considerations:
1. I also use the library for other things, but I can't figure out how to quantify them and don't have any record of frequency.
2. Since I started working from home, I've been reading less (about 50 pages less a day, since I'm no longer commuting and having a clearly delineated lunch break) and using the library for wifi/third place less (since I'm almost always at or very close to home). People whose patterns are more similar to my going-to-the-office patterns would get better value for money than I calculated.
3. I don't know which of the books I read were trade paperbacks and which were mass market paperbacks. Some of them were hardcover, which tend to be more expensive and therefore make my library use even better value for money than I calculated. Someone more ambitious than I could look up the actual prices of all the books I read in 2017 in the print format in which they were available in the month I read them.
Tuesday, July 03, 2018
What if construction workers weren't even allowed on construction sites during quiet hours?
The thing is, I think that most of the time when they're making noise too early, they think they're not working yet. I think they think they're just getting ready to work.
The noise that wakes me up is stuff like gates opening, trucks being backed up, the external elevator operating, and equipment being moved into position (note to construction sites: moving dumpsters around is the single loudest thing you do!).
Then, at 7 on the dot, the noise picks up - big loud whirring machines spring into action, millions of people start hitting things with millions of hammers, etc. As though they were waiting until 7 to start all this stuff, as though they thought the stuff they were doing before 7 didn't count.
But, nevertheless, the stuff they were doing before 7 still woke me up.
Idea: what if construction workers weren't even allowed on the construction sites before 7? That way they couldn't possibly make noise to wake people up, regardless of whether they think they're working or not.
It would also be easier for by-law officers to enforce (if we ever get by-law officers working outside of business hours - and I'm strongly confident that such an initiative would pay for itself in fines collected if they patrolled the Yonge and Eglinton area between 6 a.m. and 7 a.m.) because if there is any activity or worker presence whatsoever before 7 a.m., that's a violation. Gate open? Trucks present? Violation. No debating whether work is being done or not, instead it's a hard and fast "yes or no" question.
On top of that, it would make life easier for workers by disincentivizing the employer from requiring them to report to work obscenely early. The earliest I was ever woken up by construction was 5:36 a.m. - and this was in the middle of winter! Imagine how early they had to wake up on a cold winter's morning to get to the construction site in time to wake me up that early! But if the construction company got fined for workers being on the site early, the employer wouldn't make them come so early, and would in fact order them to "sleep in" another hour and a half so they aren't there before 7.
Sunday, January 07, 2018
Shelter
And meanwhile we're having a brutal cold snap and the City of Toronto doesn't have enough shelter spaces.
Something has to be done with this. Perfectly functional buildings are sitting empty for the convenience of developers, and people can't find shelter in lethal weather.
My first thought was some kind of fine for leaving buildings unused, but I'm worried that that would incentivize developers to tear down buildings faster. Then I had the idea that developers have to fund shelter/housing for as many people as the old building would house until such time as the new building is actually under construction. But I'm not sure how that would go over, because the approval process takes time and is outside of the developer's control.
I can't figure it out. But someone has to do something! There are empty buildings, there are people who need shelter, and the weather is lethal. This needs to be fixed!
I do have a very early, provisional, inadequate idea that could be implemented immediately with very little effort:
Rule 1: if a building is empty and the owner's stated intent is demolition, the owner is prohibited from locking the building or preventing entrance to the building.
Rule 2: squatting in an unoccupied building that is slated for demolition is henceforth legal.
Rule 3: owners of empty buildings slated for demolition are not liable for any harm that comes to people squatting in them as a result of the building not being maintained.
This is obviously not good enough. Abandoned buildings don't have heat or electricity or water. They might be structurally unsound. These rules might create a loophole where a malicious owner of an empty building could set up booby traps to harm squatters with impunity. There's no mechanism to connect people in need of shelter with abandoned buildings. Basic human decency requires sheltering people in functional buildings under safe conditions.
But doing it would be better than not doing it. Enabling people to shelter in buildings that happen to be empty is better than the buildings sitting empty and the people needing shelter.
Survival issues are really something where we need a "Yes, but..." vote. We need to be able to take "better than nothing" measures while continuing to work towards adequate measures and perfect measures.
Friday, September 29, 2017
Shoes, Star Trek, and the glories of adult life
This didn't even occur to me as a possibility when I was a kid. I wasn't into fashion not because I didn't like fashion, but because it didn't even occur to me that a person like me was allowed to even think about being into fashion. Fashion was for pretty people and cool people, which I most decidedly was not.
One thing I was into as a kid was Star Trek. And that got me bullied. The pretty people and the cool people would make my life a living hell for not being pretty and for not being cool and for being into Star Trek.
Star Trek: Discovery is the first Star Trek I've gotten to enjoy "live" - watching each episode as it comes out rather than watching the whole thing in syndicated reruns - in over 25 years. (And thank you, by the way, to Space Channel for showing Discovery on actual TV, so Canadians can enjoy our Star Trek in its traditional medium - and my preferred medium - without having to deal with streaming!)
So this has me thinking about 25 years ago, and appreciating everything that has changed in 25 years. I got to become the kind of person who has awesome shoes! I can be pretty whenever I feel inclined to make the effort. I'm not cool (although I've successfully tricked one or two people into thinking I am), but I'm in a place where my lack of coolness is irrelevant and I can love the things I love without worrying about coolness. I can watch Star Trek whenever I want without anyone giving me a hard time, and I can also tell everyone that I'm watching Star Trek and they still don't give me a hard time!
Plus, through the magic of 21st-century technology (i.e. Twitter) I can discuss Star Trek with like-minded people even if there aren't any in the room or in my social circle. I can talk to Star Trek cast members and Klingon translators (and have done so - and gotten likes replies - repeatedly!), and discuss serious themes like economics and colonialism interspersed with jokes and fannish speculation.
And I do all this from my very own condo in Toronto, which is significant because all those pretty people and cool people who bullied me aspired to leaving our small town and moving to Toronto, and, even though it didn't even occur to me at the time that a person like me was allowed to aspire to such things, I seem to have achieved it anyway.
My adolescent self would be mindblown!
I wonder if, 25 years from now, there will be elements of my life that currently don't seem like things I am even allowed to aspire to?
Saturday, June 10, 2017
City Shoe Repair in Eglinton station has moved to 2200 Yonge St., 2nd floor
They've moved to the 2nd floor of the Canada Square building at 2200 Yonge St.
If you're standing in front of their old location, go up the stairs to the southwest corner of Yonge and Eglinton, then up the next set of stairs (or the escalator) into Canada Square.
Then keep walking south through the building (parallel to Yonge, away from Eglinton). Go past the little stairs that go down to the lobby, past the elevators, and keep going. It's, on the left side (closest to Yonge St.) about three storefronts past the point where you start thinking "Did I miss it?" You can see the big red boot through the store windows. If you reach TPH The Printing House, you've gone too far.
The nice people at City Shoe Repair have saved my ass and my shoes multiple times, including when my shoes literally fell apart while I was walking down the street and when my boot wouldn't unzip leaving me stuck inside it. So hopefully I can use my googleability to help people find them now that their new location has less foot traffic.
Monday, February 20, 2017
I would never think of borrowing a cup of sugar from a neighbour. Here's why that's a good thing.
This led to a brief flurry of journalists attempting to borrow sugar and documenting the results, but I didn't give it much thought, until it bubbled up in my mind in the shower today and it occurred to me:
I would never, ever even consider knocking on my neighbour's door to borrow a cup of sugar, literally or metaphorically. It just wouldn't happen.
And the reason for that has absolutely nothing to do with my neighbours. And absolutely everything to do with my neighbourhood.
I chose my neighbourhood because it's easy and convenient. And part of being easy and convenient is having stores that sell and services that provide nearly everything I might ever need all within the immediate neighbourhood. I can get a boxspring, a biopsy and a bridesmaid dress all within easy walking distance. And, more importantly, I can get sugar - or any other foodstuff I might need - within a two-minute walk, 24/7/365.
Many urban neighbourhoods - especially high-density neighbourhoods - are like this. There's no need to bother your neighbours because the neighbourhood infrastructure and amenities meet your needs.
That's a sign of a successful, functioning community, where people can get what they need through the normal mechanisms and infrastructure, without having to even consider imposing upon the kindness of - or being at the mercy of - those who happen to be in the vicinity.
Wednesday, July 13, 2016
Things I did invent!
1. Since I discovered the Toronto Fire Active Incidents page years ago, I've gotten in the habit of checking it whenever I hear a siren, just to see what's going on. However, not all sirens are the fire department. So I was going to write a Things They Should Invent that someone should merge the Toronto Fire Calls map and the Toronto Police Calls map (as well as ambulance data, if it is available) into a single "What's that siren?" map.
Making a map isn't in my immediate skill set, but people who are smarter than I am have already turned these data streams into twitter feeds. So I made my very first twitter list, which shows all police and fire calls in near-real time (there's about a 5 minute delay). So now when I hear a siren, I just pull up my list and within moments the answer to my question will appear.
(Although if anyone is feeling ambitious or creative, I still think a map would be a better interface).
2. There was some visible sediment in the reservoir of my coffee maker. Neither running vinegar through the machine nor rinsing it out would budge it, so I figured it needed to be scrubbed. Unfortunately, since it's only a 4-cup coffee maker, the reservoir is small enough that I can just barely get my hand in and couldn't move it around in the way I needed to to scrub the sediment. A bottle brush wasn't soft enough, and that sponge-on-a-stick thing that's like a bottle brush but with a sponge was too bulky. I thought a q-tip would be about the right size and texture, but I couldn't get my hand in properly to manipulate it the way it needed to be manipulated.
I was going to write a Things They Should Invent of extra-long q-tips for these kinds of cleaning challenges, but then I had an inspiration:
I took a cotton ball (the kind you use to remove makeup or nail polish), stuck it on the end of a fork like it's a meatball, and used that to scrub the inside of the coffee maker reservoir. The cotton was the right texture, the fork gives it the kind of stiff support you need for scrubbing, and the fork was long enough that I could manipulate the movements of the cotton fully because my hand could be outside the reservoir. The whole thing was perfectly clean in about 20 seconds!
I've never before been able to actually make one of my Things They Should Invent, and this week I made two in one week!
Sunday, September 13, 2015
Things They Should Invent: different heating/air-conditioning by-laws for different kinds of buildings
However, because it retains heat so well, in the winter the temperature gets cool enough for the thermostat to turn on the heating an average of one day per year. Last year it was zero days. And it only gets that cool if we have the confluence of two sunless mornings plus strong easterly wind plus I don't use the stove during those days.
Because of this, I feel quite strongly that air conditioning is far more important than heating, and would like residential tenancy by-laws to be rewritten so that they don't prioritize heat over air conditioning.
However, not everyone feels this way. Quite often when I mention it on the internet, someone complains most vehemently that heating is clearly far more important than air conditioning! People would freeze to death if they had to be in a building with no heat, they argue. I've never been in such a building myself, but they must exist to lead people to feel that way. If everyone was warm, it wouldn't occur to them that could could be a problem
I previously blogged that they should study whether heat or cold is a problem for more buildings. But now that I think about it some more, that's actually a red herring.
What they should really do is give buildings a rating for how likely it is to get too warm vs. too cold, and have different by-laws for buildings with different ratings. Ratings would be determined by an inspection of the building in the summer and in the winter, or some other similarly reliable method. Repeat inspections may be required every X years if buildings evolve or deteriorate enough to justify this.
It could be a simple system with only two ratings ("air conditioning priority building" vs. "heat priority building"), or three ratings ("air conditioning priority building" vs. "heat priority building" vs. "neutral building"), or there could be a more nuanced scale where buildings are given a rating between 1-5 or 1-100 or whatever makes sense.
Using an extremely simple example, suppose buildings are rated "air conditioning priority" or "heat priority", and suppose they continue to use the current calendar-based by-law system rather than switching to a temperature-based system as some recommend. Heat priority buildings would continue with the current system where the landlord is required to provide heat between September 15 and June 1. But in air conditioning priority buildings, the landlord would only be required to provide heat between, say, November 1 and April 1. Or, perhaps, the landlord would be explicitly required to provide air conditioning between May 1 and September 15 (with no explicit requirement of heat, as an analogue to the current lack of explicit requirement of air conditioning).
Basically, the by-laws should be flexible enough to take into account the fact that different buildings of different construction may require different courses of action to provide a comfortable home for tenants. A one size fits all rule won't work in a city that ranges from Victorian detached houses to glass highrises.
Saturday, July 11, 2015
Unnecessary TTC announcements
Problem: We were heading north from Davisville to Eglinton, which is directly away from Spadina station. To be affected by delays at Spadina station, a passenger on our train would have to get out, board a train heading in the opposite direction, and travel quite a few stations. It's highly unlikely that anyone would do this!
Back in my commuting days, I've been on trains where this happened quite a few times - the driver announces a delay that's behind us, or heading in the opposite direction, and therefore is not going to affect our train at all and isn't going to affect any of the passengers unless they get out and switch to a train heading in the opposite direction. These aren't system-wide loudspeaker announcements, like you hear made by a pre-recorded voice when waiting on the platform. These are announcements made specifically by the driver of our one train.
I don't think they should make these announcements.
One thing I've noticed since I started following @TTCNotices on Twitter is that the vast majority of delays are cleared very quickly, often within just a couple of minutes. I also learned, back in my commuting days, that even delays for which shuttle buses are called are often cleared so quickly that it's better to wait them out than to get on a shuttle bus.
So I think having drivers make a specific effort to announce delays that don't apply to the train will just make passengers unnecessarily worry and stress and think the system is unreliable. This is exacerbated by the fact that the audio quality of driver announcements is not as good as that of recorded announcements, so it produces some unnecessary "Wait, what did he say?" moments.
If any passengers are going to be affected by the delay in the opposite direction or behind us, they'll have plenty of time to find out when they're waiting on the platform for their opposite-direction trip, or when they look at one of the video screens on the platforms, or when they check Twitter.
But I think nothing is gained by having drivers make an announcement just within their train when the announcement definitely does not apply to that train.