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
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 […]

Categories
Maps Toronto Transit

Line 3: struck from the maps

Line 3 – the Scarborough RT – is gone from the TTC’s maps. But what’s left on is even more puzzling.

Categories
Election Maps Politics Toronto

Mapping the 2023 mayoral byelection

Last week Monday, I was at Spacing’s election night party at a pub in the Annex, watching the results of the election roll in after 8PM. Public polls consistently saw former Toronto city councillor and NDP MP Olivia Chow leading an especially crowded race of 102 candidates for mayor. It was the most exciting election […]

Categories
Development Infrastructure Toronto Transit

Toronto’s saddest subway stop

Islington Station, opened in 1968 as part of a major expansion of the Toronto subway system into Etobicoke and Scarborough, is now literally falling apart. At platform level, Islington looks little different than most stations on the Bloor-Danforth Line with the faded wall tile, coated with a layer of brake dust. Upstairs, on the concourse […]

Categories
Ontario Toronto Transit

Reviewing GO Transit’s big April changes

On Saturday, April 8, GO Transit will introduce big changes to its rail and bus services. Brampton and Waterloo Region will see the biggest benefits, while a major gap in Ontario’s intercity bus network will finally get filled. However, major construction work on the Barrie and Stouffville Lines will require the bustitution of most trains […]

Categories
History Toronto Travels

I went back to Toronto

Toronto, Ohio, that is.

Categories
Maps Politics Toronto

Voter turnout in the 2022 municipal election

Ever since John Tory was elected mayor of Toronto in 2014, voter turnout in municipal elections has been in decline. In 2010, the year Rob Ford was elected mayor, turnout was 50.4 percent. Four years later, 54.7 percent of all eligible voters went to the polls to elect a new chief magistrate. However, in 2018, […]