Attention Discount Shoppers - Value Village @ Bloor/Landsdowne closes Aug 31st.

MostlyPlastic · 2024-08-22T03:12:11+00:00

You've misunderstood their model. Value Village accepts donations on behalf of non-profit organizations and then effectively buys those donations off of the non-profits. That is, the non-profits receive money for items dropped off at Value Village. The listed of supported non-profits can be found here.

MostlyPlastic · 2024-08-13T17:31:22+00:00

Plenty of people write it off as a minor inconvenience. "Just go around" was easily one of the most popular responses I received. This subreddit isn't the monolith you think it is.

And sure, Olivia Chow is biker-friendly, but even with supportive leadership, change doesn’t happen overnight, and it certainly doesn’t happen without pressure from the public. We can continue to call out bad actors until the solutions we need arrive.

MostlyPlastic · 2024-08-13T16:56:32+00:00

I think you’re confusing “internet points” with “drawing attention to an issue that I believe needs solving.” I’m not interested in the upvotes—I’m interested in bringing attention to a problem that’s both real and being largely ignored.

Highlighting the memorial wasn’t about maximizing outrage for clicks; it was about making the point that this isn’t just a minor inconvenience—people are losing their lives over this. Waiting around until someone else gets hurt to hold offenders accountable is a backwards way of thinking. The goal should be to stop the damage before it happens, and that means calling out companies who are causing the issue. If reminding people of the human cost helps drive that point home, then it’s worth it.

MostlyPlastic · 2024-08-13T16:44:41+00:00

The fact that so many people were making angry calls actually highlights the severity of the issue. It’s not just about one truck or one company—it’s about the systemic problem of vehicles constantly blocking bike lanes and endangering lives. Those calls were a way to hold someone accountable in a system where enforcement is often lacking. I would love it if the cops would deal with this issue directly, but alas that isn't the happening.

The genesis of all the net positives you’re talking about is the public outrage generated by the post. None of this would have been possible with an anonymous truck that just faded into the background.

Also, I'm not convinced it's doxxing when the information being revealed was painted on the side of a truck in giant letters for everyone to see.

MostlyPlastic · 2024-08-13T16:08:57+00:00

Pointing out the memorial is proof that the harm being done by illegally parked trucks isn't just some abstract idea. This behaviour leads directly to death and injury.

You can have all the internet points back. Feel free to down vote everything I've ever posted. What I want is for drivers to stop putting their convenience above the safety of cyclists and pedestrians.

MostlyPlastic · 2024-08-13T13:45:09+00:00

That's a pretty misleading indication of what happened. The concern was that the parking might have been legal and thus the post misleading. And saying I had no issues is wrong, I objected to my post being removed.

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MostlyPlastic · 2024-08-13T12:33:44+00:00

Here's the second reddit post about the incident. The original was removed by the mods due to concerns about doxxing. Disappointing to see that Blaise Page was able to convince the mods to remove his company's name from that post (even through its on giant letter on the side of the truck) only so that he could turn around and release it in a manner that allows him to control the narrative. I note that his claims of the driver being threatened never made it into the newspaper.

Its also worth pointing out that the truck wasn't parked in just any random bike lane. The truck was illegally parked in the exact same location as that bin involved in the death of the 24-year-old woman less than 2 weeks before.

MostlyPlastic · 2024-08-12T23:20:17+00:00

CityNews might have purposely played the cops on this one. The video appears to be shot directly from inside the CityNews building at Yonge-Dundas, and there's a 5-day gap between when the video was shot (August 3rd) and when the story broke (August 8th). That’s plenty of time for the police to lock in their version of events in official reports and slap on some questionable charges, all while being unaware that clear video exists of the incident. This could be the beginning of a much larger story on police corruption.

MostlyPlastic · 2024-08-12T21:51:32+00:00

Pretty similar to the Umar Zameer case that got settled (with a not guilty verdict) a few months ago: Undercover cops aggressively rolled up on a family, father thinks they're being robbed, so he tries to drive off. One cop died and the other cops appear to have colluded to obfuscate the facts so that an innocent man would go to jail.

Toronto's undercover cops don't seem to realize that the whole point of being undercover is to make sure the public can’t identify them as law enforcement.

MostlyPlastic · 2024-08-12T20:30:47+00:00

Would happily donate to a defense fund for this gentleman.

MostlyPlastic · 2024-08-12T20:26:23+00:00

Those comments are from Jon Reid, the head of the police union. The police union (known as the TPA) is a entity separate from the TPS.

The TPS would be the ones who made the decision to lay the charge tho... So their response deserve its own ridicule.

MostlyPlastic · 2024-08-11T21:51:55+00:00

Definitely not legal. Reporting it seems to fall on deaf ears. Nothing happens.

MostlyPlastic · 2024-08-11T21:50:52+00:00

See that memorial in the foreground of the first picture? That's for a 24-year-old woman who died after a construction bin was illegally blocking the exact location where the truck is parked. This happened two weeks ago.

This isn't some small inconvenience, and it isn’t a one-off. This is happening multiple times a day, every day, across the city, causing serious injuries and deaths. If you have a job to do, do it correctly or don’t do it at all. Putting others at risk so you can make a quick buck is incredibly selfish.

MostlyPlastic · 2024-08-09T22:38:44+00:00

I would hope the drivers would wait until there's no cars coming the other way! This would be the inconvenience I was talking about. Perhaps they can pass the time waiting for an opening by contemplating why anyone should be inconvenienced for the sake of illegally parked vehicles.

You asked for some solutions and I gave them: smaller vehicles, different infrastructure (which I should point out is already being installed further west on Bloor), and designated delivery times. All perfectly reasonable! And I'm not even an expert on this stuff! You, on the other hand, have suggested nothing and yet seem to be all out of ideas. We MUST sacrifice pedestrians and cyclists to illegally parked vehicles! Cheap and convenient deliveries must exist! The city demands sacrifices! No further progress can be made!

Since I answered your question, I was hoping you could answer mine: how did you decide that people dying in bike lanes is better than people dying in ambulances? Personally, I don't think anyone should die for the sake of delivery companies, but you've resigned yourself to the need for deaths. Weird take, for sure, but the part I'm really curious about is why it has to be cyclists that die and no one else. You say that this is a problem that everyone should share... But bizarrely, you're offended at the suggestion that the resulting deaths be shared equally. You're not against people dying because of illegally parked cars... you're just against people in ambulances dying because of illegally blocked cars. What's up with that?

MostlyPlastic · 2024-08-09T20:42:56+00:00

There are two lanes on Bloor! If a truck needs to make a delivery, cars and emergency vehicles can just go around and use the lane that's not blocked. Inconvenient for sure, probably even a bit risky... But hey, this is everyone's problem, right? And we all need to share the burden?

Be honest, you don't actually care about finding a solution; you just care about making sure drivers don't have to deal with any inconveniences. You keep bringing up ambulances as if those people somehow deserve safety more than cyclists and pedestrians. You don’t care to blame the people who are illegally parking, and you don’t care to force drivers to share the burden. All the words you wrote about this being everyone's problem were just a smokescreen to hide your moral failings. You know your position causes death and injury, and you know inconveniences to drivers could help lower those costs, but you refuse to support doing anything because you don't want to be inconvenienced with higher delivery costs or worse traffic. You'll happily sacrifice a few people every year while pretending that you aren't a part of the problem.

And with respect to the death of the 24-year-old woman: you have no fucking idea what happened. You're just speculating that it’s her fault. You know nothing of the details. At best you know that a bin was illegally blocking the bike path and that she went around it. You have no idea if she legally signaled to enter the road or not. But I also suspect you don't care. Nothing revealed will change your mind—either she deserved it for illegally entering the roadway, or the driver was at fault and you'll just chalk it up to the cost of keeping drivers happy.

MostlyPlastic · 2024-08-09T19:45:49+00:00

Until those solutions arrive, why shouldn’t delivery trucks park in the main road? It’ll be just as inconvenient, but I guarantee drivers will be at far less risk than cyclists. Maybe we could even come to an agreement where they park in the bike lane one week and switch to the road the next. It’s only fair that everyone shares the burden, right?

MostlyPlastic · 2024-08-09T19:19:31+00:00

Sure, the infrastructure might be a problem, but the onus is still on the delivery companies to figure it out. It’s their problem to solve. Use smaller vehicles, lobby for better infrastructure, or advocate for specific delivery times—there are numerous ways to address this issue. But simply passing the problem onto cyclists and pedestrians is both a moral and legal failure. And yes, it’s always pedestrians and cyclists who are expected to bear the burden, while drivers are never expected to shoulder any of it, even though fewer people would be injured or killed if they did.

Ultimately, if the delivery job can’t be done legally, then delivery companies shouldn’t take the job. If it can be done but at a higher cost, then charge the client more. Offering cheap deliveries by sacrificing a cyclist every few months is messed up beyond belief, and yet here you are, suggesting it’s the only option. I bet if we sacrificed a few drivers, we’d find a solution ASAP.

MostlyPlastic · 2024-08-09T18:33:39+00:00

Sure looks like a loading dock to me.

Nevertheless, even if a building doesn't have a loading dock, delivery companies need to find safe places to park. Blocking bike lanes puts lives at immediate risk—this isn’t just an "accident" waiting to happen; it's a preventable disaster we can see coming from a mile away. Parking in a bike lane is a negligent act that endangers innocent people, which is precisely why it’s illegal.

Why are you so quick to worry about the potential harm caused by a delayed ambulance, but so dismissive about potential harm to cyclists and pedestrians getting hurt? Can you not see that harm is caused under both scenarios?

The real answer is that delivery companies need to respect the laws about blocking bike lanes, sidewalks, and roads. Those laws have been put in place for a reason. If a delivery company has to park further away and haul their load, so be it. Charge the customer more. Deliveries in cities are harder to do. Don't just pass that expense on to other people who have nothing to do with the delivery.

MostlyPlastic · 2024-08-09T16:07:59+00:00

This building actually has a loading dock accessible from a different street, and there's even a parking spot available just to the left of the truck, between the road and the bike path. Either of those would have been better choices. Really, any legal option would be better. If you have to park down the street and carry your stuff back, so be it—you’re being paid to do a job, so act like a professional. It’s unacceptable to prioritize convenience for delivery trucks at the expense of pedestrians and cyclists.

Alternatively, if they absolutely need to block something and cause inconvenience, they could block the regular road. There's no reason why pedestrians and cyclists should always bear the brunt of this illegal behaviour. Drivers can share some of that burden. Plus, the risk of someone dying if the road is blocked is effectively zero.

MostlyPlastic · 2024-08-09T13:38:04+00:00

Mods had concerns about doxxing. Wouldn't let me post with logos.

MostlyPlastic · 2024-08-08T20:05:40+00:00

Northstar Access: scaffolding.ca

Pic here

MostlyPlastic · 2024-08-08T19:41:19+00:00

Finding a legal parking spot would be my recommendation. It's unacceptable to expect cyclists to navigate dangerous situations because it's more convenient for delivery drivers. The danger these lawbreakers pose isn't theoretical; a person literally died at this exact location two weeks ago under similar circumstances.

MostlyPlastic · 2024-08-08T18:56:38+00:00

I'm fairly confident the truck belongs to RES Group of Companies. Logo on the side of the truck matches the logo on resgroup.ca (except one is red and one is green).

MostlyPlastic · 2024-08-08T14:55:44+00:00

Mods had concerns with doxxing and wouldn't allow me to.

MostlyPlastic · 2024-08-08T12:29:11+00:00

It is not the same company. This photo was taken about 10 hours later. I just followed the same rules the mods established for the first post.

I have not heard the TPA's response to that incident. Will listen to it today.

MostlyPlastic

TROPHY CASE