About

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10,001 Comments

As I write this, there are now 10,001 approved comments on this site.

Congratulations to you, the readers and prolific writers (and even to those of you who only lurk most of the time) for making this site as good as it is.  If I only wrote articles hoping that someone read them, it would be a dull place.  The comments, both those supporting what I write and those of a differing slant, really make this a discussion, and the threads evolve very quickly.

So, as they used to say, keep those cards and letters coming!

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Coming Soon

The past few weeks have been rather quiet for news, and I, along with half of Toronto, have been getting over a bad cold that dampened my enthusiasm for writing.

Very little of substance happened at the February TTC and Metrolinx meetings, and that’s why there was virtually nothing here about them.

Recently, I received the vehicle monitoring data for Queen and related routes for the months of December 2008 and January 2009, and I have just started to work on formatting it for analysis and comment.  This period includes some truly appalling weather, as well as different approaches to line management.  It also brings GPS location to the route (most of the time, most of the vehicles), and this has required some programming changes in the analysis software.  (The data are still quirky, but in a different way.)

I hope to start publishing articles based on these new data in a week or two.

Meanwhile, work by Waterfront Toronto and TTC on the Queen’s Quay east line has surfaced after a long hiatus, and I hope to report on updated plans for this project soon.

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Three Years / A Grand Design Revisited

Today, January 31, 2009, is the third anniversary of this site.  I started out posting a collection of Toronto Film Festival reviews just to get things rolling, but the primary focus here has always been transit.

For a moment, I will indulge my ego and say that the amount of exposure, the references, the cross-links to this site are gratifying.  However, you, the readers, contribute a lot with your comments, even those I don’t agree with, because there is a real sense of people caring about how the transportation system in Toronto and surrounding areas should grow and improve.

Indeed, having this ongoing conversation hones my own thoughts on many issues.  Would that some politicians and professional transit folk had to undergo the rigour of hourly challenges to their policies and assumptions.  Some days here it’s like a non-stop Question Period.

My thanks to all who have contributed and to those who merely drop by to see what’s new.

At the three-year mark, it’s worth looking back at one major post that declared my position on regional transit planning.  A Grand Design, published in March 2006, was an attempt to “draw a map” even though I hate doing that sort of thing.  The debate can quickly descend into miniscule details of how each line would be built rather than a discussion about the overall philosophy.  Some of you will remember excruciatingly long threads where writers battled over the exact alignment, construction techniques and service plans for routes that wouldn’t open for two decades.  If I had allowed people to upload images, I am sure we would have debates about the colour of tiles in Barrie subway station.

With the recent publication of Metrolinx’ A Big Move in December 2008, GO Transit’s GO2020 and the TTC’s Transit City plan, I decided to look back at A Grand Design to see how it fared.  Before I do, let’s remember the context of January 2006.

  • The TTC was still digging out of the Harris legacy, and broad support for transit from Queen’s Park was in the future.
  • The GTTA Act (Metrolinx’ enabling legislation) was introduced in the Ontario House in April 2006 and received Royal Assent in June.  (Some sections relating to the takeover of GO Transit and other transit operations in the GTAH have not yet been proclaimed.)
  • Transit City was unveiled in March 2007.
  • MoveOntario 2020 was unveiled in June 2007.
  • Metrolinx began serious work on a regional plan in fall 2007 culminating in publication of A Big Move in December 2008.

Also, before appearing to claim all of A Grand Design for myself, I must repeat the acknowledgement from page 1 of the document.

I must acknowledge the many people — professional planners, engineers, transit management and staff, urban thinkers, writers, politicians, transit fans, fellow advocates, friends and even a few political enemies — for the long education they gave me in how cities work and what transit can do.

My own contribution was to show what a consolidated plan might look like, and particularly what one that didn’t assume all the prejudices, political and technical, of how things were done for past decades. Continue reading →

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Santa Rides the 502

Today’s Star contains an article about yours truly.  While I’m really not one to bang my big bass drum (I will leave that to the politicians), I felt that some of you who either don’t read the Star or are further flung than its circulation territory might like to know about it.

Many thanks to Tess Kalinowski for such a flattering piece and to others for their kind, if occasionally frustrated, words.

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Sixty

On Sunday, I celebrated my sixtieth birthday by spending a great deal of time at the Film Festival.  You will all have to put up with a series of reviews later in September as is my wont at this time of year.  Yes, there was a party, but on Saturday and the hard core who stayed up late enough got to hear the City Hall clock chime in the day itself.

To my many friends and allies in the transit wars, thanks for helping to make this site a vital part of Toronto’s transit discussions.  It’s not just my opinions that make the site work, but the interplay among the comments left by many readers.

To those who regard my views as hopelessly misguided, you’re welcome to your opinion, but I don’t have to publish it.  Certain newspapers in this town don’t exectly line up with my political views.  I may read them now and then, but I don’t waste my time on letters to the editor, and if I did, they certainly wouldn’t get printed.

Yes, I can be feisty at times and give ground rarely in debate.  Over the decades, I have learned that feisty works with consistent, well thought-out positions.  Being ever so concilliatory in the “please, Sir, will you read my humble submission” manner is a fast way to be ignored.

Underlying all of my activism on transit and other fronts is a strong desire to see a better Toronto.  We have been waiting far too long for far too much.  Toronto basks in a reputation earned when I was young, and we are still nowhere near building a 21st-century Toronto that comes up to the city’s mythology.

Retirement from my “real” job will come next April, but there’s much to do on the transit scene and retirement there is a long way off.

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Coming Soon (August 18, 2008)

I have a few things “in the hopper” that will appear over the next week or so:

  • Comments on the forthcoming Metrolinx Draft Regional Transportation Plan:  What should be in it?  What would constitute a “good” plan?  Given the short two-month span for consultation (assuming Metrolinx is even listening), it’s important that the debate get underway as soon as possible.  This post will set the framework for my comments on whatever Metrolinx actually publishes.
  • An analysis of the Don Mills 25 bus route.  I have just started on this and probably won’t publish anything until next week.
  • More Stratford reviews.
  • The TTC meeting on August 27th promises to be an interesting agenda including an update on the streetcar RFP and a discussion of bus technologies.

I’m still debating whether to post more detailed data on Finch East 39, and may hold off until I have a few more bus routes to compare with each other.

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Coming Soon

We’re in a slow news period for the next few weeks, and this is a good time to catch up on some unfinished business.

Way back when I started working on route analyses, I obtained data for several routes that have languished on my hard drive waiting to be transformed into beautiful charts.  Over the past few days, I have been working on 35 Finch East and expect to publish some of the results over the weekend.

Other routes for which I have unpublished data are Finch West, Don Mills, Victoria Park, Bathurst Bus, Carlton and Dundas.  Although this is for December 2006, TTC operations have not changed all that much, and it’s still worth looking at these routes.  I don’t expect to get through them all in August, but I’ll publish what I can.

Some of you may ask “doesn’t he have anything else to do now that it’s stopped raining?”  Well, yes, I wonder that too, but my sense of public duty [you can groan here] calls me back.  There’s another trip to Stratford coming up, concerts in Toronto, and planning for the Film Festival.  Don’t worry.  I will get out into the world now and then! 

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Coming Soon – May 2008 (Updated)

Things have been a bit quiet here, but fear not, new postings are in the works.

Right now, I am hard at work on data for the Queen route for December 2007 and January 2008, and I hope to publish information from this analysis by the weekend or early next week.

December 2007 was much worse, as we all know, than December 2006, and the charts from 2007 show the effects of the bad weather.

I have not yet turned to January’s data to see if there was some visible change in operating strategy regarding short-turns following the public meetings in December.  As usual, each new set of data brings its own wrinkles, and I have been further streamlining the programs that digest the data.  December is the guinea pig, and when I turn to January, it should be a fast process to generate another month’s set of charts.

I know that a few of you are waiting patiently (or impatiently — you know who you are) for this information.  These things take time, and I’m doing the work in odd moments when I’m not embroiled in blogging about labour relations, or attending and reviewing films, or various other pursuits some of which actually don’t have a thing to do with transit!

Updated:  I now have the details of the service changes taking effect this weekend and will summarize them likely on Saturday.