Photo: "Kool Haus" by Tobias Visualbass, member of the theGentries Flickr pool.

What's happening in the GTA (and sometimes beyond), on this Earth Day, 2009:

It was only a matter of time before people lost their cool. Residents in the Junction are GOing nuts, and claiming business loses and health issues are now a serious concern. Very loud construction on the rail lines near Dupont & Dundas (a major project that involves driving piles into the ground) is only 15% complete, and is expected to take a full year to finish [CBC]. And GO doesn't seem to be very well prepared to deal with the concerns of residents and business owners.

The OLGC is dealing with yet another screw up. This time, a number of tickets for various lottery drawings were printed with the wrong dates on them [CityNews]. As a result, the lottery corp is considering them void and offering replacements or refunds on the purchase price. But what happens if one of these glitch-affected tickets were to be claimed as a winning ticket, by a winner not aware of the error?

According to data from Statistics Canada, Toronto has the lowest crime index in the country [Sun] (compared to 27 other large municipalities). The index is designed to put more weight on serious/violent crime, and lessen the impact of less serious crimes, which leaves me a little surprised by the end results. One would expect that T.O. (with all our guns and subway passenger pushers and child molesters and arsonists) would score much worse than the nation's top crime city (Saint John, New Brunswick).

--

City Hall is going green [NP]. $21-million worth of renovations (aimed at making the iconic building a showcase of environmental stewardship) include a green roof, LED lighting, energy efficient windows, a wind turbine for power generation, and more. City Hall is apparently showing the city that spending green to go green is a worthwhile endeavor.

So what now? Are we supposed to lose all sympathy for the father of the dying baby, because he's facing completely unrelated criminal charges [CityNews]?

A car runs a red light, and hits a delivery truck that was turning left, also on the same red light. The result? Serious, debilitating injuries, almost a decade-worth of legal battles, and a unprecedented record $17-million settlement to the car driver [Star]. I'm not sure how I feel about this one.