Categories
Cycling Infrastructure Parks Toronto Walking

The ravine run around

While trail closures frustrate pedestrians and cyclists, the city spends millions of dollars to speed up road work

Categories
Infrastructure Transit Travels

The streetcar returns to Detroit – but who benefits?

After sixty-one years, streetcars have returned to Detroit’s famed Woodward Avenue. But without integration with other transit systems, its usefulness is limited.

Categories
Urban Planning

We came for the cow, but we had no reason to linger in Cathedraltown

Last weekend, a few of us visited Cathedraltown, a newer subdivision near Highway 404 and Elgin Mills Road in northern Markham. We came to see ‘Brookview Tony Charity,’ a new chrome sculpture of a prize-winning dairy cow that was once the pride of a hobby farm that was on the site before it was developed. […]

Categories
Infrastructure Roads Travels Walking

The Halifax Department of Silly Walks

As part of our trip through the Maritime Provinces a few weeks ago, we visited Halifax. Nova Scotia’s capital and largest city is the economic, cultural and transportation hub for Atlantic Canada. In 1996, the City of Halifax was merged with surrounding towns and suburbs, as well as rural Halifax County; the Halifax Regional Municipality […]

Categories
Canada History Travels

A visit to New Glasgow, Nova Scotia

New Glasgow City Hall After our wedding, we went away to Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. I’ve been to Halifax and the Annapolis Valley once before, in April 2004, but I’ve never been to Cape Breton (which has become one of my favourite places in Canada), or PEI. It was a wonderful trip. We […]

Categories
About me

My life, so far

I’ll be taking a break from writing on this blog and elsewhere for a few weeks. I will be preoccupied, as I’m getting married, then leaving for my honeymoon in Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. For many years, I never thought that I would become as happy as I am now. During my three […]

Categories
Infrastructure Transit

Province to look at hydrogen-powered GO trains, but it is it simply hot air?

Electrification for GO Transit and UP Express has been proposed for years At GO Transit’s Willowbrook Maintenance Centre in Mimico today, the Ontario Minister of Transportation, Steven Del Duca,  announced the start of the transit project assessment process (TPAP) that will allow GO to move forward with its plans for electrification. GO RER, the $13.5-billion regional […]

Categories
Cycling Parks Toronto Walking

Wandering the Waterfront Trail in Scarborough

At the bottom of the Scarborough Bluffs, west of Bluffer’s Park Lake Ontario, like all five of the Great Lakes, is more a freshwater sea than merely a lake. It’s over three hundred kilometres long, from Hamilton to Kingston, bordering two countries, with several inhabited islands, and features a varied and fascinating landscape. Lake Ontario’s […]

Categories
Transit

The TTC double-charged me again when I used Presto

Happily, Presto’s customer service stepped up. The problem is that the TTC continues to force a 19th- century transfer policy on a 21st-century solution.

Categories
Election Toronto

A call for a progressive Toronto

I created this website two and a half years ago as a repository for the series of maps I created documenting the results of the 2014 municipal election. Unlike many political observers, I focused not just on the mayoral race, but also on each of the 44 council races; I created poll-by-poll maps illustrating how […]