Greenwood Subway Yard - Only at yards can TTC trains turn 180 degrees.

Rollsigns!  Those useful little things that tell us where the train is going so that we know where we’re going when we get on.  A small but very important detail in every transit system. 

I remember when I was travelling by transit to get to college (Sheridan’s Davis campus), I would take the Spadina line to Yorkdale to connect with a GO bus.  In the mornings, many trains short-turn at St.Clair West.  And sure enough, both the desitnation signs and the Solari signs (those signs on the platform that tell you where the next train is terminating) would switch between Downsview and St.Clair West as appropriate.

I’ve been noticing something that I typically never saw, or at least saw so rarely that I don’t remember it happening.  For reasons that I do not know, subway rollsigns are losing their accuracy now.  I’ve noticed this now 5 times in about as many weeks.  From “almost never” to “about weekly” is a big jump. (more…)

What gets a person to ride a bike?

This is the $6000 dollar question (the average annual cost of owning a car). Some people need some mentoring and encouragement from a cycling enthusiast to get them started.  Others need to have bike lanes or be fed information about best routes. Others, still, are so set in their ways that getting on a bicycle seems like a far-fetched notion. There are many motivations to ride: saving money, saving the world, saving one’s waistline, or simply enjoying the pleasures a bicycle offers. Conversely, there are many barriers that discourage people from choosing two wheels over four. Safety, weather, distance, health, and facilities are but a few. I aim to explore these motives in this and future postings.

I started riding to work three years ago. Let me provide some context and back up to 1994. When I was in high school, my bike was stolen from my parent’s garage. At the time I didn’t really think it was cool or safe to ride anyways, so for a period of 10 years I didn’t bother to replace it. In university, I was oblivious to the precious minutes of extra sleep I could have had if I cycled to class, in breezy style I might add, instead of making the 15-minute trek by foot. Worse, I drove a navy 1988 Cadillac DeVille around town, an eight-cylinder boat of a car that downed 15L of black gold for every 100 km travelled.

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Vaughan Mills, located north of Toronto at Highway 400 and Rutherford Road, is a shopping and entertainment complex of colossal proportions. With almost 1.2 million square feet (110,000 m²) of retail space, all on a single floor, it is the 13^th largest mall in Canada and 6^th largest in the GTA.[1] The big purple mall sign alongside highway 400 is a beacon for the countless mall-bound shoppers, and I too have journeyed to the oversized stores at Vaughan Mills in search of shopping glory. It has the world’s largest Tommy Hilfiger store, the largest Toys “R” Us in Canada, and of course, Bass Pro, an outdoor enthusiast’s one-stop shop.The mall first opened in 2004 and has been deemed a rousing success.It welcomed its two millionth visitor less than two months after its opening.[2]However, some shudder in disbelief at the short-sightedness of building this icon of urban sprawl.

Vaughan Mills was the first major shopping complex in the Greater Toronto Area since the Erin Mills Town Centre opened in 1990 [3]. The mall, located next to Canada’s Wonderland, attracts big crowds. Here, perhaps, is a grand opportunity for a New Mobility hub; one that connects various modes of transportation like walking, cycling, and transit. It has yet to achieve this, but hopefully it will evolve.

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