Above are aerial photos of six GO train stations on the Lakeshore Line. Can you identify which station is which? Even for someone like me, who is fairly familiar with the system, I had a difficult time putting a name to each one. There are no obvious distinguishing features to make identification easy — instead, there is a typical GO Station recipe: platform, station building, parking lot, and arterial roadway access. For a transit system to be truly visible and integrated into our urban fabric, these stations should not be placeless, featureless landscapes. The above photos show just how far we still have to go. The identity of each of these stations and more discussion, after the jump.

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The economic conditions that supported the tremendous growth of North American suburbs during the last half of the 20th century – cheap energy and the modern industrial production system – appear to be undergoing a sharp reversal. What do these signals of the future mean for the suburbs and the demands that will be placed on politicians asked to respond to these changes?

You don’t have to be a peak oil theorist to recognize – as James Smith, CEO of Shell UK has – that “the era of easy oil is over”. The reality that we are not going to ever return to an age of cheap oil is just starting to sink into the consciousness of the marketplace, electorate and policy-makers. Scenarios of a serious supply crunch and $200 a barrel oil are no longer on the fringe.

The Freakonomics blog at NY Times recently held a quorum inviting a small group of smart and opinionated experts to imagine the future of American suburbia in 40 years time. The responses vary from James Kunstler’s “the suburbs have three destinies, none of them exclusive: as materials salvage, as slums, and as ruins” to the more hopeful “Suburbia will be flexible, it will be smarter, and it will be hybrid” of John Archer.

What about in the Toronto region?

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You know Labour Day is just around the corner when the Canadian National Exhibition opens it’s gates for business during the last two weeks in August. With gas prices rising and parking being a premium in the area, transit tends to be one of the better ways of getting down there. Routes are posted after the jump.

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Are subways better for Toronto, or is light rail the way to go?

This question has polarized the community more than any other in recent memory.

Subways offer a speed and a capacity advantage, and have traditionally been the preferred choice for rapid transit construction in the city. But, modern subway lines are usually built with stations greater than 1 km apart to keep speeds up. This makes mid-block access a bit more difficult. Light Rail Transit, which proposes to run sleek, modern streetcars in transit-only lanes on the surface, offers a cost advantage and, indirectly related, a advantage in the placement of stations. Since they are less expensive and since speeds are lower anyway, LRT stations can be placed closer together. This means that it won’t be a long trek to a destination which isn’t at a main intersection.

Your ability to walk, how you rank speed and ease of access, and your opinion about how much capacity is needed will define where you stand on the endless waltz that is the LRT vs Subway debate, but one difference between the two still has the jury deliberating.

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As a comparison to my photo post from last week, I thought I would share what Highway 401 looks like on a regular day. This scene shouldn’t be a surprise as this highway is travelled by 400,000 to 500,000 vehicles a day, making it the busiest in North America, even beyond the freeway in Los Angeles which sees 350,000 vehicles daily.

Last year, I bought a bell for my bicycle. I installed it on the wrong side of my handlebars and I noticed this one day as I was approaching an opening door. Having survived a near dooring and having moved my bell to the proper side of my handle bars, I now feel qualified to write about usability for cyclists.

Usability is a term that is used in the web design world to refer to interfaces which are ‘user-friendly’ or easy for people to use. During recent travels, I have been reminded to think about how the concept of usability relates to cycling. How can technologies and towns and cities be designed to better meet needs of cyclists?

To begin the discussion, let me introduce you to two brilliant technologies which are widely available in Vancouver and that inspire me: buttons for bicyclists, and bike racks on buses.

Buttons for bicylists: In Vancouver on certain designated routes like 10th Avenue, bicyclists encounter buttons which they can easily control when they reach traffic lights. These buttons are available from on the road, and are located at the proper height for a bicyclist to press while remaining on their wheels.

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This is the first in a series of observations, questions, interviews, opinions and answers about the human experience of using transit.

I grew up in the suburbs and couldn’t articulate why I disliked it. Then, in the middle of high school, I moved ‘downtown’ and couldn’t quite articulate why I loved it.

It’s having different destinations to visit. It’s getting around to different places. Transit is cheap and easy and I felt I had achieved a level of teenage urban independence.

After university, transit turned into an item of necessity. I was a commuter. Waiting for 2 minutes or 25 minutes – waiting was exhausting. Was it worse to have already paid subway fare and hear that there was a delay or emergency, or to calculate how many full trains I would let pass before I would squeeze into one and squeamishly smile at the unhappy commuters whose personal space I was invading.

There are positive transit experiences.

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There’s one thing you notice in downtown Toronto whether you’re a pedestrian, bike rider, driver, or transit passenger: there are too many cars on the road.

A typical trip down Yonge Street reveals broken traffic laws, high tempers, and an inability to get anywhere fast. So how do you fix that?

London’s idea to keep some cars off the streets in their core is a congestion charge.

The premise is simple: if you drive into the congestion charge zone between 7am and 6pm, you pay the city a tidy sum of £8. Any surplus revenue generated by the charge goes to improve London’s transport infrastructure — which, essentially means that people driving into the city are subsidizing things like public transit and road repairs.

Certain vehicles — like alternative fuel cars, buses, and motorcycles — are exempt from the charge in an effort to promote more sustainable ways of traveling in the core.

The system, which launched in 2003 with tons of controversy, is now an everyday part of London life. The system is monitored by CCTV cameras and automatic number plate recognition, and drivers can pay their charges online or purchase cards that allow them multiple entries over designated amounts of time.

This then begs the question: is it time for Toronto to institute its own congestion charge for cars driving in to the city core?

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Today we officially launch the new Metronauts.ca, a group blog of, by and for the Metronauts community. The content will be focused on the future of sustainable transportation in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area, but will also look at the best ideas from around the world on the future of transportation and sustainable city-regions. Please explore the new site and let us know what you think.

Looking for the old Metronauts site? It’s still available at http://oldsite.metronauts.ca/. Looking for the Metronauts Transit Camp event wiki pages? They can be found at http://toronto.transitcamp.org/METRONAUTS.

Follow and Join the Conversation

The Metronauts blog will be updated with new content daily. You can subscribe to new posts by email, by RSS, by Twitter or on the Metronauts Facebook page. Our comments are open, so please help us create a new conversation about a sustainable future for our region.

Be a Contributor

If you attended a past Metronauts event, followed the earlier conversations online, or are a new Metronauts community member with a passion for some aspect of sustainable urban transportation, we’re looking for you. Both experts and everyday citizens are welcome contributors.

Regular contributors get recognized on the Our Writers page, but we also welcome one-time contributions from members of the community. If you have a piece you would like to submit, you can register as a contributor or you can email for more information on how to get published.

Spreading the Word

Thanks to Spacing and BlogTO for their support of our project through media sponsorship and online advertising. Through these and other partners, we are looking to reach out to as many people in the Toronto region as we can. Help us spread the word by sharing this announcement on your email lists and web sharing platforms like Facebook and Del.icio.us.

First of all, I am not a person with a physical disability and can never truly understand the barriers faced by individuals with limited mobility. I write the following not as an expert, but as a concerned citizen who wants public transportation to be accessible to all people.

At one time, accommodation for persons with disabilities on mainstream transit was somewhat of an afterthought. Fortunately, progress has been made to ensure that transit can be used by anyone at any time. Low-floor vehicles are replacing high-floor buses everywhere, and accessible streetcars are about to be ordered to improve access to the transit system for those who cannot climb steps. Elevators are being installed at subway and GO stations, and automated stop announcements have allowed the blind to travel with much more confidence.

Of course, more can and should be done. More bus routes can place accessible stops closer to homes and businesses, and a GTHA-wide Wheel-Trans service could expand the world for anyone who relies on para-transit. Placing accessibility as a cornerstone of new projects is a must, as well as increasing the rate at which existing lines are retrofitted. But, there is one very popular proposal that might but accessibility and cost-effectiveness into conflict. (more…)

You never really appreciate the infrastructure you have, until you don’t have it. This past Sunday, the 401 was closed down between the 400 and the DVP/404 due to an explosion in North York at Sunrise Propane early that morning.

Strangely enough, the lack of traffic left a quiet calm in my apartment, which overlooks the 401 near the Allen. However, commuters on either end of the city were stuck in chaotic traffic.

It’s 8:03am and you’ve just pulled up across the street from the south parking lot at Kipling TTC Station after dropping off your wife at work in Brampton and your kids at the day care in Mississauga. The north lot is always full by 7:30am, but you’re banking on the south lot to still have some spots left.

It doesn’t; the lot has been full since 7:45am, and now you’re stuck driving into downtown Toronto for work. Again.

This isn’t an isolated incident: commuter parking lots (adjacent to GO and TTC stations) do not have enough space to accommodate the multitude of commuters that are looking to leave their cars and take public transit to work every day.

Recently, I got a few friends together to find out just how hard it is to get parking at transit hubs in and around Toronto. The results are sad, but expected:

• Kipling Station (GO, TTC): Lots full at 7:48am.
• Etobicoke North Station (GO): Lots full at 7:39am.
• Cooksville Station (GO): Lots full at 8:06am.
• Finch Station (GO, TTC): Lots full at 8:42am.

Cars that try and squeeze into the lots — particularly those that try and take up the spots occupied by snowbanks in the winter — are actively ticketed by the lot attendants, and privately-owned lots surrounding these commuter lots often charge in excess of $25 to park for the work day.

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