Archive for December, 2015

A lot of Informed intelligent and exciting people have chosen not to join in, what reasons they have?
 

click. image. to visit the JRA site

2. People who front residents Association’s are all planning to become politicians. Nope, many just want to fix a pet peeve problem, or get a new water fountion for the park. 

3. It will Wallop my life, take more time than I have and can give. Well maybe if you are using it as a stepping stone to running for that council seat, but if you join in to help the work can be split up amoung a bunch of like minded people.

4. A resident association is a very powerful organ in Toronto, with a voice that leads to political movement, Why? A) People acknowledge the good RA’s do and support them so city staff and council listen.  City councillors often use discussions and agreements with local RA’s a pointer to validate their decisions. 

This last point is a standard in the Junctions.

All text above the blog, all text below the Junction Resdents Assoc.

BE ACTIVE IN YOUR ‘HOOD: Join the JRA executive!

  

We’re looking for a few new people to join the JRA executive. Want to be part of a group of fellow Junction-lovers who are committed to helping foster a supportive and engaged community? Have a particular skill set or background you’d like to use to engage others in the ‘hood? (In particular, we’d love to have someone with web and tech skills join us, but we need others, too!) You must live within the JRA boundaries to apply. Current or new JRA members are welcome. We will present all candidates (current executive members and new applicants) at the JRA annual general meeting on Jan. 14, 2016. Please send your expression of interest to the JRA by Dec. 18. To apply or for more details, drop us a line at info@junctionra.ca.

BE

ACTIVE IN YOUR ‘HOOD: Join the JRA executive! We’re looking for a few new people to join the JRA executive. Want to be part of a group of fellow Junction-lovers who are committed to helping foster a supportive and engaged community? Have a particular skill set or background you’d like to use to engage others in the ‘hood? (In particular, we’d love to have someone with web and tech skills join us, but we need others, too!) You must live within the JRA boundaries to apply. Current or new JRA members are welcome. We will present all candidates (current executive members and new applicants) at the JRA annual general meeting on Jan. 14, 2016. Please send your expression of interest to the JRA by Dec. 18. To apply or for more details, drop us a line at info@junctionra.ca.

Text description of the JRA’s boundary makers. (Source JRA)

JRA is bounded by the railroad tracks on the north, Keele Street on the east, Runnymede Road on the west, and on the south by Humberside Avenue from Keele to Quebec Avenue, and by Annette Street from Quebec to Runnymede. For Keele Street, the boundary is drawn down the middle of the street, limiting the area to Ward 13; for other streets, both sides of the boundary street are included in the JRA area.
All above text the group.

The CPR is Canada’s. railway

Where it the merger stands now,

…47% is what Norfolk railway woul own if the merger of the CPR and Norfolk Southern

…proxy fight is likely as Norfolk Southern is against the merger and thinks it’s worth more that the CPR is offering.

…if the structure is granted, Canadian Pacific’s Mr. Harrison would sell his shares in the railway and take the reins at Norfolk Southern, before retiring. The blog is seeing red here, is he really going to make the new railroad run from the Norfolk bulwark rather than the CPRs!

…a strong 71% majority of shippers said they would not support a CP-NS merger
More background below,

The U.S. rail network is made up of 21 regional railroad companies and 510 local ones, but is dominated by four big names: BNSF, Norfolk Southern, Union Pacific and CSX, which CP tried to buy past year.
when it came to a specific CP-NS merger, a strong 71% majority of shippers said they would not support a CP-NS merger; 16% of shippers appear to be open to considering such a deal; while 13% noted they would support the combination.
Below is the full text of the revised offer letter sent to NS CEO James Squires:
Mr. James A. Squires                                                                         

Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Norfolk Southern Railway Company

Three Commercial Place

Norfolk, VA 23510
Dear Jim,
In order to address the concerns you have publicly expressed, we have improved our prior offer by: 1) dramatically reducing the regulatory risk for NSC’s shareholders, 2) making it substantially more financially attractive by increasing NSC shareholders’ ownership of the pro forma company from 41% to 47%, and 3) agreeing to complete due diligence in no more than three weeks while contemporaneously negotiating definitive documentation. 
To alleviate any regulatory concerns that NSC shareholders might have, we are prepared to close the transaction into a voting trust. By utilizing a voting trust, NSC shareholders will receive a substantial cash payment and shares in a new investment grade company which would be listed on both the NYSE and TSX. Based on extensive work done by our lead transaction counsel, Simpson Thacher, and our United States and Canadian regulatory counsel, Stinson Leonard Street and Bennett Jones, we anticipate the closing and listing of shares to occur on May 1, 2016.
At the closing of the transaction, NSC shareholders will receive $32.86 in cash and 0.451 shares of stock in a new company which will own NSC and Canadian Pacific. We estimate the total value of the stock and cash consideration to NSC shareholders to be worth $125 to $140 per share at the closing of the transaction in May 2016. The revised transaction offers a 37% to 53% premium to today’s closing price of $91.52 and a 58% to 77% premium to the unaffected price of $79.14 per share.
We remain ready to work with you and your team immediately on this transformational opportunity.
This offer has received the unanimous support of our Board of Directors.
Yours sincerely,
____________________________ _____________________________
E. Hunter Harrison, CEO Andrew F. Reardon, Chairman
Canadian Pacific Railway Canadian Pacific Railway

Mr. Harrison is the Chief Executive Officer of Canadian​ Pacific Railway Limited and Canadian Pacific Railway Company (CP). He joined CP in 2012. Mr. Harrison served as President and Chief Executive Officer at Canadian National Railway Company (CN) from 2003-2009 and as the Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer from 1998-2002. He served on CN’s Board of Directors for 10 years.
Prior to joining CN, Mr. Harrison was President and CEO at Illinois Central Corporation (IC), and Illinois Central Rail Road Company (ICRR) from 1993-1998, during which time he was also a member of the Board. Mr. Harrison held various positions throughout his time at IC and ICRR, including Vice-President, COO and Senior VP of Operations.
Before his time at IC and ICRR in 1989, Mr. Harrison served as Burlington Northern’s Vice-President of Transportation and Vice-President of Service Design. Mr. Harrison has served as a director on several railway companies and industry associations, including The Belt Railway of Chicago, Wabash National Corporation, The American Association of Railroads, Terminal Railway, TTX Company, CN, IC, and ICRR.
Mr. Harrison was recently named 2015 Railroader of the Year by railroad industry trade journal Railway Age. This is the second time he has been so-honored; the first time was in 2002, when he was chief operating officer of the then-recently combined Canadian National/Illinois Central system. He will be honored on March 10, 2015, at Chicago’s Union League Club.​
* Member of the Health, Safety, Security,​ and Environment

   
 
The 600 m² (1800 ft²) garden consists of a pavilion, a fountain, and surrounding plantings.
The gazebo is a stone-clad cube with arched openings on all sides, capped with a pitched roof, and with one corner of the structure is deconstructed, to signify conflict and the fragility of civilization.

All text below from the University of Toronto site.
Alan Christie
“We are non-ideological,” says Professor Eric Miller of U of T’s Transportation Research Institute, which is assessing Toronto’s transit needs and examining the SmartTrack Plan. “It has to be evidence-based.” (photo by Roberta Baker)

For years, the University of Toronto has been an “under-utilized resource” for the City of Toronto, Professor Eric Miller says – but he is at the forefront of changing that.
A civil engineering professor and the director of U of T’s Transportation Research Institute, Miller has had a close working relationship with the City of Toronto for many years.
But with both President Meric Gertler and Mayor John Tory stressing closer ties, that relationship has intensified. 
Earlier this year City Council awarded a contract to Miller and the institute to do a major study on the transit needs of Toronto, including an examination of Tory’s SmartTrack proposal he made during last year’s mayoral election campaign. The report is due in January.
Miller told U of T News that “it is very important that we not look at just one project is isolation,” suggesting that the study could make recommendations about walking and biking as well as public transit.
During the municipal election campaign Miller wrote in an op-ed column for The Star that Tory’s SmartTrack plan, tabbed a “regional relief line,” was a good idea. But he also said Olivia Chow’s proposal for more buses was welcomed as well, because “increasing the capacity of the surface transit network is essential.”  
The TTC is planning to add more buses, though its attempt to add more streetcars has been stymied by manufacturing delays.
Many transit advocates are pushing for a downtown relief line to ease the congestion on the Yonge/Spadina line. Miller noted though that the SmartTrack plan would also offer such relief. The SmartTrack line will provide service from the Airport Corporate Centre in the west, southeast to Union Station and northeast to Markham in the east. It would have 22 new station stops and five interchanges with the TTC rapid transit network.  
Tory promised that the line would be built in seven years with service starting in 2021. 
Miller stressed that the institute is not an advocate for any one plan. “We are non-ideological. It has to be evidence-based and, technically, make sense or not.”
While not coming out in favour of any plan, Miller made it clear that one of the frustrations for transit planners is the lack of political will to get things done.
“The root problem is the total unwillingness [of politicians] to deal with transit funding. The idea that they are not willing to pay for it is so ridiculous. We are setting ourselves up for failure” by not coming to grips with the issue.
Full article here 

Toronto council to look at lifting Grenadier Pond skating banThe $50,000 program would see an “ice engineer’ test Grenadier Pond daily and post coloured flags to signal the safety.

Link to Torstar article 

http://m.thestar.com/#/article/news/city_hall/2015/11/23/toronto-council-to-look-at-lifting-grenadier-pond-skating-ban.html
Last winter many people went on the ice of Grenadier Pond despite warning signs, and bylaw officers played cat-and-mouse with them trying to hand out $125 tickets.

Published on Nov 23 2015

David Rider

CITY HALL BUREAU CHIEF

Despite warnings from city lawyers, councillors are gliding forward with a plan to legalize skating on part of Grenadier Pond.

On Monday the Parks committee unanimously endorsed a $50,000 ice-monitoring program championed by Ward 13 Parkdale-High Park Councillor Sarah Doucette. 
Doucette said she understands the liability concerns. However, skaters ignore warning signs that went up in 2001 and have been gliding and playing shinny on the High Park pond for more than a century.

City staff originally said, if council wants to abandon widely ignored signs saying it’s illegal to skate on the pond, there should be a rigorous monitoring and safety program costing $192,000 to start and $123,000 a year to operate.

Staff heeded Doucette’s request to come back with a cheaper, limited program, which was approved Monday.
The committee also approved a Perks motion that, should council approve the program, the city solicitor’s advice be made public.

click on image to view a interesting report on the transport of crude oil

Crude oil trains moving though the Junction, which have traveled though New York state if US federal transportation regulators to impose new safety rules governing the combustibility of crude oil shipped by rail are passed.

New York State attorney general calls for less volatile gases in crude by rail shipments
(Source: Dow Jones Business News, December 1, 2015)

NEW YORK — New York’s attorney general is calling on federal transportation regulators to impose new safety rules governing the combustibility of crude oil shipped by rail. Attorney General Eric Schneiderman wants energy companies to treat crude oil using a process that removes volatile gases before the fuel can be loaded onto trains. These gases have been linked to fiery explosions after railroad accidents, including the deadly 2013 crash in Lac-Megantic, Quebec.

Full story: www.nasdaq.com

More about the issue from the Wall Street Journal,

On Tuesday, Mr. Schneiderman petitioned the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration to impose a cap on the vapor pressure of crude transported by train. The rule he is proposing would require energy companies to use equipment known as stabilizers, which use heat and pressure to remove light hydrocarbon molecules such as butane and propane from the oil. While common in Texas, this equipment is rarer in newer oil fields like the Bakken Shale in North Dakota.

Full story at their site here

Energy companies and industry groups have argued that vapor pressure isn’t the best predictor of whether a train’s cargo is likely to exve derailed and exploded since 2013, prompting concerns about the safety of both the trains and their cargo. Federal safety regulations issued this year largely focused on making sure the cars that carry the new oil pouring from shale formations are sturdy enough to handle a derailment, and improving trains’ braking systems.

This year, North Dakota began requiring companies shipping oil from the state to strip gases from crudes that show high vapor pressure. But the state rule has a higher threshold for vapor pressure—13.7 pounds per square inch—than the 9 pounds per square inch that Mr. Schneiderman wants.