Ontario finishes removing Bloor Street West bike lanes

Ontario has removed the bike lanes from a stretch of Bloor Street West in Toronto and put car lanes back. The Ministry of Transportation said on October 30 that it has finished the work along 1.2 kilometres, between Clissold Road and Royal York Road. Crews took out curbs, signs, the posts that mark off a lane and bus pads, the raised platforms where riders board buses beside a bike lane.

Earlier, in December 2025, the province restored a vehicle lane on a 600-metre stretch of Bloor Street West between Resurrection Road and Clissold Road, but kept a bike lane.

Provincial law drove the change. The Reducing Gridlock, Saving You Time Act, 2024 and Plan to Protect Ontario Act, 2025 require vehicle lanes to be restored on specific sections of Toronto streets. A lower court blocked the plan in 2025, finding it violated the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In August 2026 the Ontario Court of Appeal unanimously found that road design is a policy matter for the Legislature, which had already passed that law.

CP24 reported that Transportation Minister Prabmeet Sarkaria said cameras showed only three or four bikes a day in the lanes on some days. Mr Sarkaria said the province will pay for the removal but could not give a final cost. He said more removals are expected in the next construction cycle.

Sources: Government of Ontario · CP24

Tim Hortons' Canadian same-store sales rise 1.8% in third quarter

Tim Hortons, the coffee-and-doughnut chain owned by Restaurant Brands International, is growing more slowly in Canada. BNN Bloomberg reported that same-store sales, which compare sales at restaurants open in both periods, rose 1.8% in the third quarter, against 4.2% a year earlier.

Restaurant Brands said cold beverage sales at Tim Hortons in Canada climbed nearly 5% in the quarter. Chief executive Josh Kobza said cold drinks bring younger customers who visit more in the afternoon and spend a bit more per cheque.

Tim Hortons also faced pressure from cost-of-living worries, with higher gasoline prices affecting some customer behaviour.

Tim Hortons says it is on track to open 80 restaurants and renovate 400 in Canada this year. A holiday collaboration tied to the movie Elf starts in November; the products were not disclosed.

Sources: BNN Bloomberg

Transit-zone projects hold 58.6% of Toronto's proposed homes

Toronto’s proposed housing is concentrated near transit. UrbanToronto reported that projects inside Major Transit Station Areas (MTSAs) are 48.9% of the city’s pre-construction proposals but 58.6% of proposed homes.

MTSAs are specially zoned areas within about a ten-minute walk of subway, GO or light rail stations, where zoning allows taller, denser buildings. Proposed projects inside them average 30.2 storeys, against 14.7 outside.

The count covers 1,830 projects in the City of Toronto that have not started building: 895 inside MTSAs and 935 outside. Those inside hold 496,328 proposed units, against 350,094 outside.

Proposals are not starts. Statistics Canada said Toronto apartment starts fell 33% to 18,986 in 2025 from 28,162 in 2024, the lowest since 2014. Whether the proposed homes will be built is not yet known.

Sources: UrbanToronto · Statistics Canada

Toronto’s new house prices are falling faster than the national rate

Prices of new houses in Toronto, % change on a year earlier, 2016 to 2026

Toronto: -4.9% in September 2026, down 1.2 points from -3.7% in September 2025. Toronto is 2.9 points below Canada (-2.0%).

Source: Statistics Canada, new housing price index, table 18-10-0205-01

TMX Group's third-quarter revenue rises 17% to $491.1 million

TMX Group’s third-quarter revenue rose 17% to $491.1 million from $418.6 million a year earlier. The company owns the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) and the TSX Venture Exchange (TSXV). It also sells trading, clearing and market data.

The growth was led by data products: Global Insights, its market data and index business, rose 26%. Derivatives trading and clearing rose 13%, and Capital Formation, which includes listing fees, rose 12%.

TMX also completed two purchases this quarter: Cboe Australia, a securities exchange that lists and trades exchange-traded funds and will be renamed TMX Australia Exchange; and RAFI Indices, which builds and licenses more than 90 investment indexes.

Sources: TMX Group · Yahoo Finance (TMX Group press release) · TSX: Mining · TMX Group: Cboe Australia · TMX Group: RAFI Indices

Toronto's residential construction costs rise 0.4% in third quarter

Building homes in Toronto is getting dearer, but more slowly than in most big Canadian cities. Statistics Canada said Toronto’s residential construction costs rose 0.4% in the third quarter of 2026, against 0.8% nationally.

Statistics Canada’s index tracks what contractors charge to build new buildings in 15 metro areas, including Toronto. It excludes taxes and the costs of land, building design and real estate fees, so it is not the price buyers pay.

Builders said higher material, fuel, transportation and labour expenses drove the increases. Canadian retaliatory tariffs on US products, at 15% to 50%, also raised material costs, with 50% on some steel and aluminum products.

For context, Toronto apartment starts, meaning homes on which building began, fell to 18,986 in 2025 from 28,162 in 2024, the lowest since 2014.

The latest tariffs took effect on September 8, 2026, late in the quarter.

Sources: Statistics Canada

58.6% of proposed homes in pre-construction projects in the City of Toronto sit inside Major Transit Station Areas, though these areas hold only 48.9% of projects, UrbanToronto’s UTPro data show. Their projects are bigger.

Major Transit Station Area (MTSA): an area within about a ten-minute walk of a subway, GO or light rail station, zoned to allow taller, denser buildings. UrbanToronto counts 895 pre-construction projects inside them.

• Weather: Mainly sunny. Fog patches dissipating in the morning. High 15°C. Overnight low 4°C.

• Daylight: Sunrise 07:51, sunset 18:10; 10 h 18 min, 3 min less than yesterday

• Civic: New council term begins in 15 days (Sunday, November 15)

• TSX: 35,620.03 at the close ▼ 1.74% (The Canadian Press)

• Dollar: 71.63 US cents ▲ 0.18%

• 5-year bond: 3.58% (it steers fixed mortgage rates) ▼ 0.04 (as of Oct 29)

• Gas: 174.5 cents a litre for regular, down 2.2 on the week (as of Oct 26)

Small charts show the last seven readings: trading days for the TSX, the dollar and the bond; weeks for gas.

The fever summer of 1847. In 1847 Irish migrants fleeing the Great Famine reached Toronto, and typhus came with them. More than 1,100 of the new arrivals died in the epidemic that followed. Bishop Michael Power was among the dead. The names of the dead are carved on limestone walls in Ireland Park, which opened on June 21, 2007.

Sources: Wikipedia: Ireland Park

we are not born for ourselves alone

Marcus Tullius Cicero, translated by Walter Miller, De Officiis (1913). Roman statesman and orator (106-43 BC), whose On Duties was read for centuries as a guide to public life.

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