The section of High Park known as Dog Hill has been cordoned off by police after two dogs died and a number of others fell ill from ingesting what appears to be liquid antifreeze. The incident comes four years after a series of dog poisonings in Withrow Park caused by pesticide-laced wieners. That crime was never solved, and the whole thing now has a certain Unabomber-esque intrigue to it. Toronto may have a Canikiller on its hands, striking without warning, then lying in wait for years before mounting another sneak attack. And if so, here is an appeal to the perpetrator: please feel free to forward your wacked-out, manifesto-ish screed of complaints and demands to the Toronto Life offices. City State will publish it in full, not because your cause is righteous—it’s heinous—but because we’re all curious.

Ever since the Withrow poisonings, Toronto’s dogs-versus-people debate has been a heated one. The Dog Hill poisonings have now made it one of the defining civic issues of our time. Toronto is a city for people, but is it a city for dogs? Does our embrace of diversity extend to four-legged creatures? Tensions constantly run high. Earlier this spring I witnessed a scene at Withrow’s dog run, which is located in a tiny valley flanked by two steep hills. A few kids on mountain bikes were having fun weaving through the trees, zipping down into the dog pit and climbing back up the other side. The dogs were distracted by the action and their owners were clearly upset. Eventually the cyclists were silently but sternly shooed away by the dog people’s sense of entitlement, but since Withrow’s off-leash area isn’t fenced in, my sympathies were with the cyclists. Imagine: off-leash children harassing dogs! I am one of those people whose love of dogs has been tempered by parenthood. After a couple of frightening encounters between unleashed, panting slobberers and my infant son, I favour enforcement of leash laws, mandatory obedience training and fenced-in dog runs.

Obviously I don’t favour dog poisoning. Nevertheless, the Dog Hill incident threatens to push the issue into the realm of the absurd. The story in the Toronto Star said the cops were considering an increased presence at Dog Hill. Police protection for pets? Here’s hoping they can track down the Canikiller fast, because between the shootings, the stabbings and the handing out of infractions to rogue TTC drivers, the cops have lots of more urgent priorities to deal with.

• 2 dogs die from poisoning [Toronto Star]

The dog days of summer continue for the TTC—and it isn’t even June 21. Tuesday afternoon, a southbound streetcar on Broadview Avenue rear-ended a car near Tennis Crescent. According to TTC spokesperson Brad Ross, the driver of the car was taken to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, while the streetcar operator was charged with careless driving. For those of you keeping score, you can add this incident to the DUI bus driver, the bus driver who lost control in what appears to have been some sort of medical “event,” the 74-year-old man who died after being hit by a bus, and the streetcar driver who didn’t check a track switch and collided with another streetcar. Oh, and don’t forget the ticket-forging collector.

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A couple of weeks ago, City State posted a comparison of the TTC’s logo with transit logos from other cities around the world. The conclusion: the TTC’s art deco identifier, while distinctive, lacks simplicity and ease of recognition. Meanwhile, in an unrelated yet completely related development, Metrolinx—the regional transportation body that is poised to take over the GO system and implement road tolls and parking taxes everywhere and will soon run our frickin’ lives—recently unveiled a new logo of its own. As it happens, the new Metrolinx logo is everything the TTC’s is not. More conspiracy theorizing after the jump.

The new Metrolinx logo, so far as I can tell, appears nowhere on the organization’s Web site. I discovered it in an e-mail the organization sent me just this week, inviting me to a transit conference. It immediately struck me as an excellent candidate for membership in the International Brotherhood of Transit Logos: simple, stylish, uncluttered, and starring the letter M, used globally to signify transit. Take one look at that encircled-M design and try to convince City State that it’s not perfect for marking the entry points to such transit hubs as train stations, bus terminals and, oh I don’t know, maybe subway stations?!

It has been suggested that Metrolinx should take over the TTC’s subway train system and possibly other parts of its network. No one knows what’s in the cards right now, but one thing’s for sure: if there were to be a takeover, Metrolinx now has a perfect replacement logo at the ready. That’s step one.

• Premier backs TTC takeover [Toronto Star]
• Is it time to redesign the TTC logo? [Toronto Life]
• Transit system logos from around the world

At least for TTC staff, anyway. Thought you’d like to know.

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In our youth, we just hopped the turnstile and made a run for the open subway doors. But as we age, we become less nimble, less certain of our ability to outrun even puffing, red-faced collectors let loose from their glass cages. At that stage in our lives, there’s more fun to be had in trying to outwit them: drop less-than-exact change in the fare box, slip them last week’s transfer (I used to keep a collection of old transfers in my wallet), give them a sob story (“The turnstile ate my token!”). The collectors are more annoyed than fooled: they’ve seen it all before, and our bullshit just becomes a staple of their routine. Eventually we mature and pay the full bloody fare. And that’s when they eke out their revenge. Mostly, they just act surly and give us grief. But collector Nafisa Zahur apparently came up with a truly innovative way of outwitting us in turn.

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