Author: Val Dodge

The Bike Train is coming

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Tickets are finally available for the Bike Train between Toronto and Niagara Falls this summer. If you’ve ever wanted to cycle around the Niagara region without taking the car (or riding your bike all the way there and back), you’ll have your chance when the Bike Train launches its inaugural season in about six weeks.

The schedule has been scaled back since the initial announcement, with service running only four weekends starting in late July and through August. Curiously, neither of the two Mondays with service falls on a long weekend.

I hope that enough people use the Bike Train to encourage a return engagement next year. With enough support, services like this could become a regular feature every summer.

If all goes according to plan, I’ll be making two trips on the Bike Train myself — once with Risa to tootle around Niagara Falls for the day, and once by myself so that I can cycle back to Toronto.

Moneyball

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A smattering of fans take in a Blue Jays game

I posted the message below to a mailing list in 2005, after attending a Blue Jays game in which seemingly everything but the blue sky itself was brought to me by some sponsor or other. It was my first game since Rogers had taken over the SkyDome.

I went to a baseball game at the SkyDome for the first time in a couple of years last night and was struck immediately by how much the experience has changed. I felt like I was sitting in a giant commercial. First off was FedEx Delivers The Game, in which a FedEx van drove onto centre field and then off again without actually delivering anything at all. That was followed by the First Ball, brought to you by a Chevrolet Corvette which, again, drove onto centre field and then drove off again without actually dropping off the first ball.

The first pitch was thrown out by the star of an upcoming movie — a commercial for which was shown later, one of two commercials shown during the game. It was just like watching on TV. The “Game Host” was some guy from Rogers Television who spent the mid- and end-of-inning breaks strolling around the SkyDome running contests — The Staples contest, the Keg contest, the Klondike Ice Cream Bar contest, the Rogers High-Speed Internet contest, the FedEx contest, the Murderball poster contest, and on it went.

There were at least two contests where you had to text message your answer to a special number in order to win. At one point, I realized that the only things not brought to me by some corporate sponsor were the national anthems and, strangely enough, the former JumboTron, which is not the Sony JumboTron or the Panasonic StadiumVision or somesuch, but just “the big screen.”

At one point BJ Birdy Ace, the mascot, ran through the stands with his little uniformed helpers and tossed empty (I assume) FedEx shipping boxes to the most boisterous fans. And believe me, the lucky recipients looked ecstatic to take possession of their newfound, uh, cardboard. It’s possible that something was supposed to be inside, but I must have missed that part. I’d estimate that I saw the Rogers logo more times last night than I had in my entire lifetime before.

At the last game I went to not quite two years ago, I don’t recall anything near the kind of corporate orgy that I witnessed last night. Back then, the highlight of the game was some guy with a grenade launcher shooting free hot dogs up into the crowd. Now that was fun, but I suppose nothing screams lawsuit like a weiner missile.

Oh yeah, the game wasn’t bad, but it detracted a bit from the commercial message.

This weekend, I went to my first Jays game since sitting inside that 3-hour commercial and can report that although things have improved marginally, the impression remains the same. Even the tribute paid to Jays great Dave Stieb was lessened by the reference to his sitting in the big easy chair in the “TD Canada Trust Comfort Zone.”

It’s more than a little sad that the singular experience of watching a baseball game unfold over 9 innings is slowly morphing into just another commercial/entertainment spectacle that has little to do with the game at hand.

Maybe I should start making my biennial baseball pilgrimmage to Christie Pits instead of the SkyDome.

Smart cop, green cop

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There’s a new sheriff in town, and he sure looks Smart

I saw this Smart police car in action on McCaul on the weekend, not too long after it was added to the fleet. The parking enforcement officer was merrily writing tickets a little further up the street.

Add a loudspeaker and some long eyelashes over the headlights, and this Fortwo would make a better police spokescar than Blinky ever was, that’s for sure.

This month’s The Badge (page 6, PDF) reports that Parking Enforcement is also testing a Civic Hybrid as part of its fuel-efficient fleet.

No particular place to go

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The intersection of Fleet & Bathurst Streets is a tad confusing at the best of times. This was the view heading east on Fleet a couple of days ago:

Fleet Street & Bathurst

So you’re in a left-turn lane with a green arrow on a traffic light directing you to make a left turn. Unfortunately, you’re also looking at a “no left turns” sign directly in front of you. A little further down the street, right at the intersection, is a “no right turns” (streetcars excepted) sign. And you can’t go straight ahead because the road ends. Quite the conundrum.

I’m pretty sure that the left turn prohibition is actually directed at preventing eastbound traffic on Lake Shore Blvd from turning north up Bathurst. If you look closely, you can see another sign hanging beside the traffic light in the background at the very right of the picture. The placement of the sign in the foreground makes absolutely no sense: it’s both on the wrong side of Lake Shore for eastbound drivers to notice and slightly canted to face drivers on Fleet.

Note to Transportation Services: Toronto drivers really don’t need to be any more confused than they already are, especially at this intersection. With cars making left turns from the right lane, streetcars making right turns from the left lane, and no turning signs slapped up willy-nilly, it’s a wonder there aren’t more accidents here.

You are caught

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You are caught thinking about killing anyone you want

This little plaque on the facade of 778 King Street West, just west of Tecumseth, has intrigued me for years. Either it’s wrong, or there are a lot of angry people walking along King Street.

It seems that this is the work of an American artist named Jenny Holzer, as part of a collection of works called Survival. That said, I don’t know if this is an original installation, a reproduction, or merely an homage.

Doors Open – Must-see TO

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Most people reading this won’t need reminding that Doors Open Toronto returns this weekend. Here’s a short list of some of my favourite sites from the past that will be participating this year. I’ve previously posted about some buildings that are not participating, and about some of the sites I hope to visit during this too-short weekend.

Toronto Archives

If you’ve never been to see the “miles of files,” use the research hall, or view one of the exhibits, you really should stop by the Archives. But you don’t have to go during Doors Open. Just drop by any day, Monday through Saturday. The staff is incredibly helpful and patient, and there’s enough to see and do to pass the rainiest of afternoons. For fun, I especially recommend looking at old aerial photos of your neighbourhood and looking up friends and family in the old city directories.

Elgin & Winter Garden Theatres

The Elgin is a nice theatre and all, but it has a pretty standard red-and-gold colour scheme that could be almost any elegant theatre almost anywhere. The Winter Garden, however, is a real beauty. If you’ve never been to a performance in this theatre in the woods, Doors Open is your best chance to get a peek. I wish I had a room in my house that looked like the Winter Garden.

Arts & Letters Club

A friend of mine is a member of this club so I got to poke around inside once. Check out the impressive dining hall and all the different arts and letters hanging on the wall. On our visit there, Risa discovered that she really likes John Joy paintings, and I discovered that a lot of books in my personal library were written by club members.

Fort Rouillé

This is Toronto’s first fort, built by the French and abandoned in 1759. Unfortunately, nothing remains of the structures. So what’s to see? A monument to Toronto’s early French history and a couple of cannons. A walkway traces the outline of the original walls. The imaginative among us can gaze upon this little fort and marvel at how they squeezed five buildings into such a tiny space. The practical among us can wonder how a fort this small could ever hope to defend anything. It’s not the most immediately engaging of sites participating in Doors Open, but it is definitely the oldest. It’s also right beside the Scadding Cabin at Exhibition Place.

John Street Roundhouse

All aboard! It’s one of the most fun locations during Doors Open, with mini-train rides for kids (and overgrown geeks like me) and model train displays. They also throw open the doors of the roundhouse where you can see the various pieces of railway history that have been squirreled away for the promised future of a rail museum. Until I have one in downtown Toronto, I’ll have to make do with Travel Town in Los Angeles and the Halton County Radial Railway near Guelph.

Royal Canadian Military Institute

This is one of those places where the tour guides wistfully explain how the club used to be smoke-filled, sexist, and exclusionary. Ah, the good old days. It’s definitely still a man’s place, even if women are fully accommodated today. Still, it’s a fascinating club with museum displays throughout.

St. Jamestown Sailing Club

The St. Jamestown Sailing Club, next door to my own sailing club near
Cherry Beach, will be a revelation for people who don’t know about
Toronto’s active sailing scene. Go for a sail if it’s a nice day — you
may get hooked.

Todmorden Mills

The history of Todmorden Mills is closely tied to that of the Don River and the Valley. Although the buildings survived the construction of the DVP, the river was moved away from the site and the mill building seems strangely landlocked. If you follow the road back to the parking lot, you’ll cross a bridge that goes over what used to be the Don River. The site is also home to the lone remaining station from the Belt Line Railway, transplanted from Queen Street a few kilometres south. The station’s window coverings are sometimes opened for Doors Open so that you can peer inside, but I don’t think the public is allowed in. The Todmorden Wildflower Preserve provides a beautiful, brief, walk in the woods.

Don Valley Brick Works

Go see this wonderful industrial ruin while you still can. By this time next year, its transformation into something completely different will likely have begun.

Toronto Botanical Garden

The formerly grandly-named Civic Garden Centre got a substantial addition and makeover last year and is quite a bit larger and more colourful than before, both inside and out. It’s amazing how many people know all about Edwards Gardens but have no idea what’s in the buildings beside the parking lot.

BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir

This Hindu temple in Etobicoke has seemingly endless and incredibly detailed carvings throughout, the likes of which you won’t see on most modern buildings. My sister tells me that an even more impressive building is going up right next door as part of the same complex, but won’t be ready for Doors Open this year.

Silly cycling restrictions: Don't ride down the hill

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The City’s web page for E.T. Seton Park claims that, “cyclists can enter E. T. Seton Park from […] Don Mills Road behind the Ontario Science Centre.” If only this were true. Oh sure, there’s a roadway from Don Mills Road down to the park, but there are no bikes allowed on this hill:

No bikes allowed into the park

You can drive a car here, or a truck, or even a bus — it’s the roadway to the Science Centre’s main receiving area and employee parking lot, with an entrance to E.T. Seton Park at the bottom. But don’t you dare think about cycling or skating into the park. Even the official park sign a little further up the hill omits cyclists from the list of welcome visitors:

Cyclists need not apply

How silly. This must be what happens when you let lawyers get involved in a matter as simple as entering a park. While I’ve seen a few people walking their bikes up this hill, I’ve never seen anyone walk their bikes down. It’s not even a particularly steep descent, as roads into the Valley go.

This is not a new restriction. I remember the cycling prohibition on this hill from at least the early 90s. It’s from a different era, when cyclists were regarded as fragile nuisances to be inconvenienced and shunned at every turn. While this view is still held in some corners, much of the world has moved on. Few are the hills that still carry warnings for cyclists to dismount lest they travel too fast and lose control of their bikes, endangering themselves and offending the tender sensibilities of any nearby drivers.