Urban Etiquette

Toronto is in a construction boom. Downtown, especially, has become a labyrinth of closed and narrowed streets to accommodate the staging required for 50, 60, 70 and 90-storey buildings under construction (about 130 in 2014).

Along with encroached street space are the pedestrian gangways. Just a bit more than two people wide most of the time, two-way foot traffic through these passages presents urbanites with new challenges for considerate behaviour.

For example, on rainy days it is considered polite to close your umbrella in the sheltered walkways. Also, unless you are on a fairway, it is always rude to use a golf umbrella.

More Signs of Progress

While still on the campaign trail, the current leader of the free world felt he needed to close the country's borders in response to the senseless gun deaths and injury of more than 30 people in San Bernadino in December 2015. He needed to find out, he said, what the hell is going on.  Fast forward to last week and the senseless slaughter of 26 people in Texas, and the now-president has it all figured out.

Finally...

The phrase has currency elsewhere, but I never heard "boil the ocean" before I joined the public service. A Google search shows it is most often used to suggest that the person saying it thinks the person hearing it has come up with an unrealistically ambitious approach to a project.

That's how we do things where I work.

Thanks for reading!

Karen