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History Toronto Travels

I went back to Toronto

Toronto, Ohio, that is.

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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, […]

Categories
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 […]

Categories
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
About me Design Infrastructure Roads Toronto

Shining a light on Toronto’s streetlamps

Street lighting is an important, yet overlooked, part of any city’s standard infrastructure. For over seventy years, Toronto’s streets were lit with an elegant and increasingly unique streetlamp design. But modern standards and a desire for standardization will see this change, just as Toronto’s streetcars and street signs have. Toronto Hydro, which is responsible for […]

Categories
About me Brampton Toronto Transit

Podcast News

This week, I appeared on two podcasts, talking about municipal open data, crowdsourced mapping projects, and Brampton’s success in building suburban transit ridership. For Spacing Radio’s Future Fix series, I spoke about a recent Walk Toronto initiative to map sidewalk pinch points during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. We used Google Maps to […]

Categories
History Toronto Transit

The last run of the Rogers Road Streetcar

Westbound Rogers Road Streetcar at Old Weston Road, 1972. Photograph from Toronto Archives – Fonds 1526, File 72, Item 61 Forty-five years ago today, on Friday, July 19, 1974, the Rogers Road Streetcar made its last run. The route ran from a loop at St. Clair and Oakwood Avenue to Bicknell Loop, located on Rogers […]

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About me Toronto Transit

Toronto’s Transit Secrets

Earlier this week, I attended a book launch at the Spacing Store at 401 Richmond Street West here in Toronto. While I have been to numerous book launches, often to support friends and colleagues, it was the first time it was for a book that I contributed to. As some of you may know, I […]

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About me

A farewell to 2017

At the top of the Franey Trail, Cape Breton National Park For me, 2017 was a great year. In June, I wrote about my life up to that point, looking back at some of the challenges I faced over the years, my ability to overcome them, and my accomplishments. I wrote that shortly before I […]

Categories
Politics Toronto Transit

A new low for the Scarborough Subway champion

Note: a version of this article has been cross-posted to Spacing Toronto For 2016’s annual Torontoist Heroes and Villains feature, I nominated Toronto Councillor Glenn De Baeremaeker (Ward 38, Scarborough Centre) as villain of the year. (“Pedestrian blaming” won that dubious honour.) But I remain proud of my choice. As I wrote back in December: […]