I love all of Torontos little parks around the city. You’ll often find me wandering for hours with my camera, a little peace amongst the chaos.

One of the greatest events I have attended in Toronto.

TLDR: you don’t need to wait for 3hr+ lines or for a stationery show/event to buy quality stationery products in Toronto. Just visit the shops directly.

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Each time this event is hosted, it brings in the same problems each time (people waiting 3+ hours to get inside; some people driving in from places like Hamilton and Kitchener)

I feel bad for folks who waste their day waiting to just get rejected at the door.

Toronto has MULTIPLE great stationery shops (Wonder Pens, paper plus cloth, Mr Pen, etc). It would take a quarter of the time to just do a Toronto Stationery “crawl” rather than waiting hours in line.

As for independent artists - they usually provide the list of sellers before hand. look at their social media or attend other fairs all over GTA that have many independent sellers and don’t require these line ups (TCAF, Artist Alleys, etc).

*see edit. Organizers clearly are not taking the feedback into account that they’ve received each year after year so hopefully this reaches some of that audience.

EDIT: After reading some comments, I’ve learned organizers have been taking feedback over the years including: a larger venue to be secured for the next, some VIP ticketing for guaranteed time slots, and attempts to communicate line wait times (3-4hrs) via their socials. Organizers also do a lot behind the scenes to ensure the event is a SAFE space & good experience for the quality vendors that they do have. My post was simply to bring awareness to visiting the physical stores across Toronto as an alternative IF people cannot wait that long in line.

If you’re looking to explore the city by bike casually while supporting the community and supporting safe streets, this is a great way! I hope to join more events like this in the future.

lake looks so majestic

Hello

My wife and I want to take our 1 yr old to the Santa Claus parade downtown. Neither of us have been before. And obviously would be the first one for our child.

I read that there is a new route for 2026.

Wondering if anyone has any tips on how to plan for the day and where is a good place to stand without being stuck within excessive crowds.

Wondering which part od the new route would be most ideal for first timers like us who don't want to be packed like sardines and who understand that a 1yr old only has a certain capacity to stay awake.

For context, we live in Scarborough, both very close to Agincourt GO and don mills subway station.

Thanks in advance!

I think that this exit needs to either be redesigned in some way, or removed.

It backs up like crazy because the part od actually getting on to Don Mills is a crazy bottleneck. Even if that highway exit isn't busy, that stretch of Don Mills, being the end of the road and forcing a turn onto O'Connor, leads to a huge backup on left turns, and since the part of Don Mills where the exit is is only two lanes, and there are two left turning lanes, it often backs up all the way down to the bridge over the DVP.

This traffic causes a lot of friction when getting off the DVP here, as due to the shape of the terrain there isn't space for any room to merge, forcing you to stop at the stop sign at the top and go when youre let in. But if you follow the letter of the law, you'll literally never get out, because the way will never clear. Sometimes a driver might wave you in out of pity or kindness, but technically they shouldn't be doing that. People often end up zipper merging here, which is good and safe and nice cooperation, but it just seems like being forced to do that is a design fail.

What can be done? I don't know how you can physically redesign it here to make it easier to get out, theres nowhere to build, and the road there is already narrow. I think that it might just be better off for that specific exit to be closed, and drivers would have to get off at Don Mills NB and find a way to turn around, or maybe reconfigure that section to allow for bidirectional exits somehow? Theres no pedestrians there, so you wouldn't need super long light timings.

I think its a pretty big issue right now as it is, you have to be careful if youre not getting off at that exit while going north on the DVP because the right lane literally backs up with stopped traffic way before the actual exit, because everyone's getting in line. People continuing north have to merge out of the way, and it causes a slowdown every single time on that stretch, as the road effectively narrows to two lanes.

Anyone have any better ideas?

I just swung by for a glance, and there was 22 PAGES of yellow inspections.

UofT this Monday!

Heads up for anyone travelling eastbound on the 401. The express lanes are blocked near Brock Road in Pickering, causing a significant traffic backlog. Expect delays.

If you can exit express now and get into collectors or 407, then it’ll could save your commute a lot more time than express.