Categories
History Roads Toronto

The continuing history of Dundas Street

Nearly three years ago, I wrote about the complicated history of Toronto’s Dundas Street. Calls to rename the street, which honours Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville, came during a time of reckoning in Canada and the United States with racism, colonialism, and our ongoing relationships with First Nations. Ryerson University (my alma mater) changed its […]

Categories
Roads Toronto Transit Urban Toronto

Bussing the gap: Scarborough transit after the SRT

On July 24, 2023, 38 years of Line 3, the Scarborough RT, came to an ignoble end when a car came off the tracks just south of Ellesmere Station, four months ahead of the scheduled closure of the deteriorating line. Though the City of Toronto and the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) were hesitant to say […]

Categories
Roads Toronto Transit Walking

Make streetcars king once more

On Tuesday, November 28, the University of Toronto’s School of Cities released their report that looked at vehicle movement and traffic violations on the King Street Transit Priority Corridor. They found that there are, on average, 6,800 illegal turns and through movements at intersections on the corridor, and less than 0.3% of offenders are stopped by […]

Categories
Infrastructure Transit Travels

How to run a street railway: riding trams in Central Europe

Back in October, my spouse and I had the opportunity to visit several countries in Central Europe: Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, and the Czech Republic, though we spent the majority of our time in and around Vienna, as that is where my spouse attended business meetings for several days; we also took time to explore the […]

Categories
Infrastructure Ontario Transit Walking

A visit to GO Transit’s New Old Elm Station

GO Transit’s new Stouffville Line terminal overlooked one important detail.

Categories
Ontario Travels Urban Planning

The decline of Downtown Chatham Centre

Anchored by Sears, Chatham’s downtown mall declined later than other failed urban shopping centres in Ontario, but is now a dead mall. What will be its future?

Categories
Design Transit

The case against transit advertisement wraps

Transit wraps that cover passenger windows are unpopular with customers, they diminish the transit agency’s brand, and bring in a very small amount of revenue. Why do transit agencies do this?

Categories
Brampton Transit

An innovation in station naming rights?

The Brampton Innovation District, in the city’s downtown core, is one of the great things going in my hometown. Yet, I still feel uneasy about renaming the station there.

Categories
Maps Ontario Transit

The slow way to Peterborough

Peterborough has useful GO bus service, but it’s a slow ride from Toronto. New coach bus competitors offer speed, but not much else. There’s an opportunity to do better here.

I also updated my Ontario Intercity Transit map for September 2023.

Categories
About me Cycling Toronto

How Sean got his bike back

On Saturday August 19, while my spouse and I were paying a visit to the renewed AKG Art Gallery in Buffalo, a thief broke into our building and made off with my bicycle. The well-equipped thief broke into our building’s front entrance using a pry bar, and then used a heavy-duty bolt cutter to cut […]