Toronto Earth Hour 2008, originally uploaded by denmar.
It was Earth Hour yesterday. Here is a fun picture. I had to find one where you wouldn't be able to see what was very likely MY bedroom light still on as I studying through earth hour.
Toronto Life: March 2008 Archives
There are two really good posts up at Spacing Toronto today. One about rebuilding the Bathurst St bridge over the train tracks and the other about property taxes in cities. While I encourage everyone to read both, I especially encourage people to read the one about property taxes. Most people in general have no clue how taxes in general work, and property taxes are at the bottom on the list in order of taxes people do understand.
I should also point out that the TTC recommendation to open up the stations to redesign most of the subway stations passed. Based on what I read, only one member of the public showed up to talk about it and all he did was request more escalators and elevators. It should also be pointed out that Wellesley is a heritage property. Call me a gay conspiracy theorist, but I have an inkling that it's only that way to keep a rainbow inspired redesign out.
Dear Joe Clark,
I enjoy your website - almost. I agree with you that we should have good signage, and use the TTC font. From your writing, I also feel you are an egotistical prick.
For future reference, it's very unlikely that the Museum redesign was unwanted. Although the fact that you didn't want it can technically qualify it as so, you hardly speak for the people of the City of Toronto. Also, it's tacky to use yourself as a source. Especially when referring to the unwanted redesign.
Furthermore, the signage trial at St. George does in NO WAY qualify as heritage. It was a trial, that in the end failed (as one would label any trial that didn't lead to implementation). Please stop trying to pass it off a heritage, it irks me.
Finally, because I'm an asshole, I sort of hope you cry yourself to sleep at the thought of the future station redesigns. Not because I have anything against you. More because I would enjoy something that ridiculous, and because you think it's cool to throw around schoolyard gay. Schoolyard faggot.
Sincerely,
Mike
Dear Toronto,
Fix the potholes on Steeles East. Seriously.
Mike
I was just reading over some of Laurier's UPASS stuff. That was the opening line; a four month term cost you $40 ($10 a month). One month at U of T is set to cost about $60. We really need to get on some provincial subsidies like the other systems.
Looking for something..., originally uploaded by Splintar.
I've had a really long day. Here's another picture of Main St in Houston. It's what Queen could be if we took the time and energy to do it properly.
I didn't even go to Laurier when they voted on their U-pass proposal. For a school that was so small, it was a bitter fight - catty even. Things were said that I wouldn't say to the fag who just spilled his drink all over my new shirt at Crews. I sort of understood the people who weren't supporting it too, even though my relationship at the time made supporting it a necessity. GRT is more that a little useless. Kitchener, Waterloo and Cambridge aren't made for taking transit from point A to point B. It is kilometre after kilometre of suburban nothing. Usually you have a friend who can drive you to the mall (not that either of them were very good). You can walk to the bars - unless you're gay, but then there was always someone who could drive to Ren. People didn't want to pay for something they weren't really going to use.
Fast forward to now. The referendum has long since passed and Laurier got their U-pass. It even spurred UW to get one of their own. My friends who are still at UW love it. They say it costs them $50-$60 a term, and they use it to go everywhere. U of T on the other hand is in the earliest stages of considering one.
The offer is $480 for the school year, which breaks down to $60 a month. That's about half of what the Adult Metropass costs now and amounts to a total of 11 round trips - anywhere. I can understand people not being so keen on it. Luckily it seems most of the people who aren't keen on it are also the kind of douchebags who throw around terms like "theft" and "communism". Nothing like being over the top to get some attention.
Being a U of T student means you're not going to get the best deal for your U-Pass. The TTC is one of the most expensive transit systems in the world, thanks to years of underfunding and low subsidization. My economics schooling aside (it leads to a lot of criticisms of how the TTC is run), and doing my best to keep my personal bias to myself, the U-pass proposal is still a good deal for the majority of U of T students. Unfortunately for the ones it isn't for government at all levels from Student up to Federal in Canada are broken, so it doesn't matter if they're getting hurt. That's why I think it's going to pass.
The reasons why I think the U-pass SHOULD pass are numerous, but I'm too exhausted after my midterm to go into them all. Dealing with my personal bias, I make far more than 11 round trips a month. Second I know tons more people who WOULD make 11 round trips or more. A person who's taken more than first year economics will realise how utility suddenly rotates to a position where transit is the most desirable option when it's offered at what amounts to a 50% discount.
The problem with this is that (aside from the poor writing) the people who should read it won't. The ones that do read it will just get bitter and angry, and fume about the fact that I'm such an obnoxious socialist (despite the fact that the know better) because of what I've said. It probably didn't help I called them cunts. Whoops.
Houston Metro, originally uploaded by j-a-x.
501 Queen has been listed as one of the top 10 trolley rides in the world. It's an incredibly long route starting from the Beaches in the east end crossing all of Queen St, onto a ROW on the Queensway and then south onto Lakeshore all the way to Long Branch GO Station.
It's also been targeted for improvement. The TTC is looking at using the Queensway ROW and additional Lakeshore ROW for the Transit City Waterfront West LRT line (with I assume passing tracks to allow the LRTs to bypass the local 501, or possibly 507, service). I've always been curious about how they would help Queen St. It's not as wide as Spadina, and therefore would not allow for a ROW plus two lanes of traffic in each direction.
Houston, which I would take as a very transit unfriendly city with terrible drivers (see: Metro's Greatest Hits) seems to have done just this.
Earlier, in Main Street Houston I posted picture of how nice the LRT has actually been for the street environment. If there's any street in Toronto that deserves this, it's Queen. I wish it was something the TTC would look into.
I took some extra time before class today to check out the progress at museum station to see if I could find what Joe Clark found so bad that he needed to use the term "desecrate".
The walls look almost done on the platform letter. It also looks to me like the name uses the original TTC font, which I will admit to prefer over the altervatives. On the top band there are sighs posted in what I will assume is Helvetica (presumably because the original didn't have a lowercase). In mixed case, white-on-black it tells me the platform is southbound to union, next station being Queen's Park. The Yellow Y-U-S band is on the top.
More important for me was the reaction of all the people in the station. It's march break so I guess they were all at the ROM enjoying the (lovely) Crystal. They all loved it. Wasn't that the point?
museumssssssssss...., originally uploaded by katierin*.
For anyone who hasn't read about it yet, the TTC has been planning a station revitalization involving a redesign of Kipling, Islington, Pape and Victoria Park. This is separate from the redesign of Museum, St. Patrick, and Osgoode, that I wrote about here, and not to be confused with the Union Rail Station Redevelopment. I am very excited about both of these things.
This is despite what Joe Clark has to say about the matter. But then again, why would I take anyone seriously when they throw about terms like "sodomized" when referencing the ROM Crystal expansion. I know nothing about the subject, but I would be willing to wager that Joe Clark just can't deal with change well. I would also wager that he never used any of the three stations in the first redesign (Museum, St. Patrick, Osgoode). Those stations are dingy, ugly, and unpleasant. The new Museum design, which I originally feared would be incredibly tacky was coming along really nicely the last time I saw it.
Dear University of Toronto Students for Life,
My disagreement with your beliefs aside, I find it incredibly obnoxious that you have no qualms breaking Toronto and TTC bylaws and posting your posters on the glass off ttc shelters.
Sincerely,
Mike Haddad
I saw the funniest advirtisement over a urinal at LM today before my ECO239Y lecture for the website succeedsooner.ca, promoting business in Edmonton. I hope Toronto has ads like these in other cities.
Turns out that there was a broken down streetcar just east of Jarvis. 501 seemed to be diverting north (Dundas?) presumably to come back down at Parliament. My guess is southbound cars were 508s. Of course, I found nothing about it anywhere online. I feel bad for anyone standing in the cold waiting for a car that never came.
I just witnessed what is the most bizarre streetcar behaviour in my life. There must be some sort of accident screwing up the Queen St. Route. That or everyone is being short turned to go home (in the middle of rush hour).
I live in an apartment overlooking the Church & Queen Intersection. In the past 15 or so minutes I've see two ALRVs and a CLRV come up north on Church and turn onto Richmond. I've seen Two ALRVs come east on queen, turn south at Church and then turn west again at Richmond, followed by a third ALRV that turned south and kept going south. A CLRV followed later, while an ALRV followed by a CLRV followed by (I think) another ALRV turned north at Church. Somewhere in between there was another CLRV that came up north on Church and turned west at Richmond. Finally two more ALRVs turned south onto Church from Queen (the first went West on Richmond, the second continued south). I'm no where near close enough to see the car numbers to know if any of those were duplicates (I suspect the one ALRV I've seen continue south on Church was a north Church to east Richmond turn. I also feel like I lose a southbound CLRV in there somewhere.
But the point is, there's been no eastbound service coming from east of Queen since I started watching just before 9am. And there hasn't been one streetcar continue east past Queen, along Queen, either. That can't be right. There's no news story on google news yet that would suggest a disruption, and nothing on spacing. I would check the TTC site but I can never find what I want past the first page (and they never update anyway).
I kind of wish I had taken pictures.
