Categories
Infrastructure Roads Urban Planning Walking

Rethinking Downtown Brampton’s streetscape

The City of Brampton is looking to improve Main and Queen Streets downtown.

Categories
Transit Urban Planning Walking

They call this a “SmartCentre”

The word “smart,” like many buzzwords, is thrown around a lot, to the point that it has lost meaning. SmartTrack, for instance, might have been a catchy name for a transit plan, but in the end, it didn’t turn out to be all that smart. There’s also the case of SmartCentres, the retail arm of […]

Categories
Transit Urban Planning

Thoughts on Newmarket’s new Rapidway (updated)

Updated January 4 2017 Effective Sunday, January 8, York Region Transit will impose new service cuts on several of its routes, including Viva Yellow, which I describe below. One bus will be removed from the route, reducing headways from every 15 minutes to every 22 minutes. Service after 10:30PM-11:00PM will also be eliminated. One wonders […]

Categories
Toronto Urban Planning

An exciting future for Old City Hall

Activist New York exhibition, Museum of the City of New York, January 2015 During my last visit to New York City, in January 2015, I visited the Museum of the City of New York. I spent several hours exploring the museum, which is dedicated to telling the story of the city and its inhabitants. The […]

Categories
Intercity Rail Transit Urban Planning

GO Transit’s Grimsby problem

Grimsby’s a great place to go for a hike, but GO Transit passengers aren’t well served.

Categories
Toronto Transit Urban Planning

Ridership has tripled on UP Express, but we can do even better

When UP Express — Toronto’s rail link to Toronto Pearson International Airport – -launched on June 6, 2015, the one-way fare between Union Station and Pearson Airport was set at $27.50, or $19.00 with a Presto card. At the time, Metrolinx, the provincial agency charged with planning and integrating transportation services in the Greater Toronto […]

Categories
Politics Transit Urban Planning

The subway is coming. Let’s improve Scarborough Centre

As the readers of my blog probably know, I am not a fan of the Scarborough Subway extension. Even though the subway will be expensive and less useful than a fully-funded light rail replacement of the ageing Scarborough RT, politicians from all three major parties have backed the subway, promising “respect” and “fairness” for Scarborough. Neethan […]

Categories
Toronto Urban Planning

Farewell to to Bathurst Manor Plaza

This Sunday July 31, another suburban shopping plaza in Toronto will close for good. For over 50 years, Bathurst Manor Plaza, at the corner of Wilmington Avenue and Overbrook Place, served the local community. At its peak, it had Sunnybrook Market, a local grocery store, a Shoppers Drug Mart, LCBO, and a CIBC bank branch. It also had several clothing stores, an optician, […]

Categories
Brampton Transit Urban Planning

Shortsighted short-turns at Bramalea GO

Bramalea GO Station Earlier this week, I took a train from Union Station to Bramalea, as I was preparing for a walk that I will hosting on Sunday exploring Canada’s first satellite city. Bramalea Station opened in 1973 when the Georgetown GO train service — GO Transit’s second commuter rail line — was inaugurated. The station is located at the […]

Categories
Cycling Toronto Urban Planning Walking

On Toronto’s newest ten-year cycling plan

The City of Toronto has released a new proposed Ten Year Cycling Network Plan, which establishes a minimum grid of cycling infrastructure across the entire city. It will be presented to the Public Works and Infrastructure Committee next week; city staff, who have worked long and hard on this project, consulting many stakeholders and members of the […]