Nine years ago, on January 31, 2006, “Steve Munro’s Web Site” appeared. It started small, but has grown to hold over 1,600 articles and 37,000 comments. Some of them have nothing to do with subways or LRT in Scarborough!

First off, huge thanks to my readers who have engaged, sometimes with great vigour, in debates on this site. Some of you are more prolific than others, some make occasional appearances, and some just lurk in the background. The comment threads are what make this more than me talking in a vacuum, and give the articles a life they would not have otherwise. They also have the benefit of honing my arguments and occasionally [gasp!] changing my mind.

Second, thanks to my long time, but about to be ex-host for stevemunro.ca, Trevor Jacques. The site has lived on a few machines in a closet for years, but the traffic outstripped its capacity some time ago. Last year, I decided to move the whole thing over to wordpress.com, and that migration is now substantially complete. The last of the content will come over in mid-February, and I will point my domain name at the WordPress hosted site at the beginning of March. Trevor will get far fewer phone calls from me saying “er, you’re down again” for which I’m sure he will be grateful.

For recent arrivals to this site, you may wonder what Swan Boats have to do with public transit. In a flight of fancy, back in April 2005, my dear friend Sarah Hinchcliffe and I came up with Swans On The Don published as one of the first articles on this site in 2006. Few people acknowledge or understand the vital role that Swan Boats could play, but that is only one of the many setbacks Toronto has seen over the years. This is lonely calling.

When I finally set up a Twitter account, @swanboatsteve was my handle, and that’s the name the WordPress version of this site uses. (After the migration is completed, the old and new site names will be interchangeable.)

Thanks for reading!