The City of Toronto will be resurfacing Dovercourt Rd from Bloor St to Hallam St starting the week of October 26. Please see below for the full construction notice.

The City of Toronto will be resurfacing Lansdowne Ave from Bloor St to Wallace Ave starting the week of Oct 6. Please see below for the full construction notice.

The work to replace the deck on the Gardiner Expressway, from Strachan Avenue to just west of Bathurst Street, resumes August 19.

While this work is taking place, two lanes of traffic in each direction will be open. The work is expected to be completed October 31, 2016.

While this work is taking place, the City is taking steps to minimize disruption to the travelling public, including implementing traffic signal timing changes to enhance traffic flow on nearby routes and working to plan improved co-ordination and response to incidents on the Gardiner Expressway

In addition, the daily closure of the westbound ramp from Jameson Avenue to the Gardiner Expressway will be temporarily suspended during the construction period.   When the construction work is completed, the normal closure on weekdays from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. will be reinstated in order to enhance driver safety and reduce congestion.

Drivers who use this route should consider options such as carpooling, taking transit, cycling to work, or travelling outside the usual rush hours.

The City has a web-based map to help residents and visitors make their travel plans, available at http://www.toronto.ca/roadrestrictions. Information about the City's planned capital construction work, which also affects roads, is available at http://www.toronto.ca/inview.

A summary of media coverage on our community's newest landmark, the Jenna K. Morrison Reflexology Footpath in Dufferin Grove Park

• Pathway to healing: Dead cyclist's family and friends cut ribbon to memorial footpath - Toronto Star reports

• Foot path at Dufferin Grove Park honours cyclist Jenna Morrison - CBC News reports

• Jenna Morrison’s Memorial Is Full of Life - Torontoist reports

• Dufferin Grove reflexology footpath to be unveiled in honour of Jenna Morrison - Bloor West Villager reports

• Memorial for pregnant cyclist killed 3 years ago uses reflexology footpath - CTV News reports

• Jenna Morrison Memorial Footpath Opening - Biking in a Big City (blog entry)

• New reflexology footpath unveiled in memory of Toronto cyclist - CityNews reports

• Jenna Morrison Reflexology Footpath opens in Dufferin Grove Park - Toronto Sun reports

• Commemoration of the Jenna Morrison Reflexology Footpath in Dufferin Grove park - YouTube video of my opening speech by Jo Fergus

Also, here is the City of Toronto media release and a few great photos from opening day. If you have more stories and/or photos to add to this list, please email [email protected]

Media Advisory

July 25, 2014

City of Toronto to open Reflexology Footpath in honour of Jenna K. Morrison

Councillor Ana Bailão (Ward 18 Davenport) and City of Toronto staff will join Jenna Morrison's family and members of the community to honour her life and the opening of a reflexology footpath with a ribbon-cutting ceremony in Dufferin Grove Park.

Date: Saturday, July 26
Time: 2 to 3 p.m., remarks at 2 p.m.
Location: Dufferin Grove Park, 875 Dufferin St. (south of Bloor St. W.)

The footpath is a concrete path embedded with stones of different shapes and sizes that knead your feet as you walk barefoot along it. It was inspired by a similar footpath Morrison saw in a South Korean park. This footpath is believed to be the first of its kind in a public park in Ontario.

Morrison was a loving mother and devoted wife who passed away suddenly in a traffic accident. Her loss has greatly affected her community. The footpath is located in Dufferin Grove Park where Morrison and her family spent many afternoons.

Toronto is Canada's largest city, the fourth largest in North America, and home to a diverse population of about 2.8 million people. It is a global centre for business, finance, arts and culture and is consistently ranked one of the world's most livable cities. Toronto is proud to be the Host City for the 2015 Pan American and Parapan American Games. For information on non-emergency City services and programs, Toronto residents, businesses and visitors can visit http://www.toronto.ca, call 311, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, or follow us @TorontoComms.

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Media contact: Parks, Forestry and Recreation media line, 416-560-8726, [email protected]

I am happy to announce the installation of 16 solar panels on the roof of the City of Toronto EMS station (EMS 33) at 760 Dovercourt Road in Ward 18. For some time now, I have been working with the City of Toronto's Renewable Energy Office on efforts to place solar pv systems on City-owned buildings in Ward 18 and this is the first of several possible installations. 

The installation at EMS 33 is part of the City of Toronto and Ontario Power Authority's MicroFIT Solar PV program. This program allows institutions or individual homeowners to be paid for producing power and contributing to the development of renewable energy in Ontario. The micoFIT Program is for projects that will have an electricity generating capacity of 10 kilowatts (kW) or less. The FIT (Feed In Tarrif) program  is available for larger project and we are also pursuing opportunities under FIT.

Total system size is 3.8 kW. The system is connected to the Toronto Hydro electrical grid. The installation utilizes Jinko 300W solar panels, which are manufactured in Vaughan. The SolarEdge inverter, with power optimizers per module, is manufactured in Newmarket. In total, 68% of the system components were manufactured in Ontario. The modules are pre-assembled into arrays off-site, delivered on trailers and craned onto the roof. This minimizes the array installation procedure to less than one day.

The City will receive annual revenues for 20 years from the sale of electricity generated by the system, through Ontario's Micro Feed-in Tariff program. The capital cost of the panels and installation will be paid back over 9 years by outputting an estimated 5.5 MWh of power, which will generate $2,979 in annual revenue. Perhaps the most important statistic that comes as a result of this installation is that over the 20 years (at minimum) that this system will be operational, it will reduce carbon dioxide emission by 12 tonnes!

As a City it is important to do everything we can to move toward more environmentally sustainable operations. This project represents a small, but important step in the right direction and I am very pleased that we were able to move this project forward. In the coming months, we will learn whether a much bigger Ward 18 solar project will be moving forward. I have been working with the City of Toronto's Renewable Energy Office on a FIT program application that, if accepted, would see the installation of solar panels on the roof of McCormick Arena and Community Centre. We expect to hear back in June and I will be sure to keep the community informed on the outcome of that application.

In addition to bringing more sustainable energy sources to City-owned buildings in Ward 18, I encourage residents to take advantage of City and Provincial Programs to make their own homes more sustainable. The MicroFIT Solar PV program is also available to individual home owners City-wide and right now the Home Energy Loan Program (HELP) is being piloted in the Junction Triangle neighbourhood (M6P postal codes). If you have any questions or would like assistance with regard to these programs, please contact my office.

Major road re-construction work is under way on Dufferin Street between Dundas and Peel and the Dufferin Bridge was recently closed. As a result the 29 Dufferin bus has been temporarily re-routed to Brock Avenue.

For these reasons, I hosted a public meeting to deal with Dufferin Street Transportation Issues on July 10^th, 2013 at McCormick Community Centre