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About me Politics Toronto

Sean’s strong mayor agenda for a new era

Who knew, just two weeks ago, that Torontonians would be returning to the polls to elect a new mayor of Toronto? Looking back on John Tory’s last eight-and-a-half years in office, the biggest disappointment might have been that he spent so little of the political capital that he had accumulated after decades as a backroom […]

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Cycling History Infrastructure Roads Toronto Walking

The jarring streetscape of Jarvis Street

Over a century ago, Jarvis Street was Toronto’s most fashionable address, and home to prominent families including the Masseys, who made their wealth from the farm equipment industry, and whose names live on through Massey Hall, Hart House, the Fred Victor Mission, and Massey College. The wide boulevards allowed for lush street trees to flourish, […]

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Election Maps Politics Toronto

Mapping the results of the 2022 Toronto municipal election

As has become my tradition after Toronto’s municipal elections, I mapped out the poll-by-poll results of the mayoral race and some of the more interesting council races. After creating maps for the 2014 election and sharing those on social media, it was suggested that I have a website to host these maps. That is how […]

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Election Maps Toronto

Mapping the 2022 municipal election

This coming Monday, October 24, Ontarians will be electing new city councils. In Brampton, Ottawa, and Hamilton, the mayoral races should prove to be interesting. For Ottawa in particular, with Jim Watson stepping down, voters have a clear choice (and I’ll be cheering for Catherine McKenney). Though Gil Penalosa offers a new vision of a […]

Categories
Infrastructure Maps Ontario Politics Roads Toronto Transit

GO Transit is broken – and other transit updates

GO Transit is broken. So far, I have seen no initiative from Metrolinx or any level of government to fix it. That should outrage all of us.

Categories
Roads Toronto Urban Planning Walking

Deadly by design: Warden and Comstock

On Thursday, July 21, 2022, at 3:10 PM, a 38-year-old man was standing at a street corner in Scarborough, waiting for a signal to safely cross to the other side. Before he even had the chance to enter the intersection of Warden Avenue at Comstock Road, a driver of a 2009 silver Kia minivan heading south […]

Categories
History Intercity Rail Toronto

Toronto’s secret station stairways

The hidden stairways to Toronto’s railway heritage.

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Infrastructure Roads Toronto Transit

A front row seat to Toronto’s Carmaggedon

The new Union Station Bus Terminal doesn’t work with Toronto’s weekend traffic. On Saturday, July 2, it took nearly an hour to get off the Gardiner and into the terminal.

Categories
Canada Election Ontario Politics Toronto

Wards and ridings: not quite representation by population

With the release of the 2021 Census population data, the disparities within federal ridings and City of Toronto wards become quite stark

Categories
Canada Development Maps Ontario Toronto Urban Planning

Mapping Toronto’s population growth

On February 9, data geeks across Canada rejoiced when Statistics Canada released the first round of data from the 2021 Census of the Population. The data was released at all levels of geography made available by Statscan. At the federal level, Canada grew by 5.2% since the 2016 Census, with a total population of 36,991,981. […]