Random Wanderings and Wonderings
All it takes is a bit of time. This is my great-grandparents’ North York house around 1942 and again in 2007. The sapling they’d recently planted is barely a lawn ornament in the 1942 shot. Sixty-five years later, you can’t see the house for the tree.
I swore to myself when I started this blog that I’d never just post links to other people’s photos or YouTube videos. After all, if I found it on another blog, you could find it just as easily too. But this one is intriguing enough for me to temporarily break my vow.
I really wish that I had the metalworking skills to pull something like that off. I’m a pretty decent woodworker, but with only a handful of hours of welding under my belt, I’m still a few years away from being able to construct such a fantasy bike. It’s the perfect answer to all those signs throughout the city admonishing cyclists to walk our bikes across the road, the bridge, the driveway, and every other obstacle that could possibly lie between points A and B.
Back in the mid-70s, there was big controversy on Brooke Avenue in North York. The owners of 196 Brooke, just east of Avenue Road, wanted to add a second storey to the house to create room for their growing family. It was quite the scandal in this suburban neighbourhood dominated by bungalows.
Petitions circulated in protest and several residents declared that it would mark the end of the neighbourhood as they knew it.
The proposal didn’t even include a full second storey addition: the roof peak was only moving up by about six inches. In fact, it was closer to a shed dormer than a second storey, effectively a protrusion from the side of the attic that changed the shape of the roofline but had virtually no impact otherwise.
Granted, it’s not the prettiest addition ever to grace a house, but it’s hard to see what the uproar was about, especially considering that the street already hosted a handful of modest two-storey homes.
My great-grandparents lived a few doors up the street and were virtually alone in their non-opposition to the planned abomination. I remember listening from the kitchen one day when my great-grandmother told one of the petition-toting neighbours that it was none of her business if the family wanted to add to their house. It didn’t affect her one way or another and she didn’t understand why any of the other neighbours were so pig-headed. Even though the entire neighbourhood seemed to be against the development, North York council allowed the construction anyway.
Thirty years later, Brooke is one of those streets overrun by monster houses. In the block between Avenue Road and Elm Road, only 4 bungalows remain on the north side, surrounded by monster homes built within the last 20 years. A few more bungalows survive on the south side. The original monster house (on the left in the picture below) that caused the uproar 30 years ago now looks tiny compared to the true monsters that line the street.
But wait, there’s a bonus to this tale: one of the few bungalows left on the block is the one where my great-grandparents lived. The house of the only people who didn’t oppose development is among the small handful that haven’t since been developed. You can’t buy irony that good.
The zoning application for 2050 Ellesmere Road in Scarborough covers all the possibilities except, strangely enough, condos.
There seems to be a lot of angst and disappointment in the cycling community regarding the West Toronto Railpath. In particular, some cyclists are upset that this new multi-use trail isn’t a dedicated bicycle highway heading downtown. The disappointment is especially evident in a post titled This is not a bike path at the Spacing Wire and the comments that follow it.
Some cyclists seem to have built this route up in their mind so much that anything less than a DVP for bikes leading straight into the train sheds at Union Station would have disappointed.
The main issues with the Railpath seem to be:
Let’s look at these issues one at a time:
It’s too short. Well, yes. All parks and paths are. I wish the Don Valley trail system ran uninterrupted all the way up to the headwaters on the Oak Ridges Moraine.
The complaint here is that the northern section of the trail, the only part being built right now, doesn’t really “go” anywhere and thus isn’t usable as a commuting route. And that’s fair. But as the first phase in what we all hope is a 2- or 3-phase project that eventually lengthens the park when the city gains control of the southern sections, it’s a good start. No one would be happy if we simply sat on the barren corridor until the entire thing could be built, either. We have to start somewhere. The “all or nothing” approach advocated by some is unreasonable here.
It’s not a bicycle expressway. Again true, and this ties into the previous issue. But I think a lot of cyclists have been taking this expression a little too literally. There is no dedicated bike expressway in Toronto. There never has been. And there never will be, unless the city is taken over by rabid cyclists who implement Velo-city. Yet there are plenty of routes that offer speedy and/or scenic commutes.
The Railpath is, first and foremost, a park that serves its community. Expressways, whether for car or bike, divide neighbourhoods. They discourage visits to a neighbourhood and instead encourage speedy travel through them. While this may be desirable to the commuters, it is undesirable to the neighbourhood. I would certainly agree that a highway for bikes is less invasive than one for cars, but it still wouldn’t properly serve the neighbourhood that it slices through.
It’s not dedicated to cyclists. It simply doesn’t make any sense to build infrastructure solely for cyclists at the expense of other non-motor-vehicle users. The best you’ll ever get is a multi-use path. Even in parks where parallel trails exist, one is signed pedestrian-only and the other is signed multi-use for pedestrians, cyclists, bladers, and whoever else wants to use it. Cyclists will always have to share the trails with other users, and that’s the way it should be. Cyclists and pedestrians shouldn’t be adversaries. If your sole goal is to ride as fast as possible from A to B, stay on the road. And lobby your politicians for more on-road bike lanes.
The pathway is too narrow. Actually, it seems to follow the same specifications as other mixed-use paths in Toronto, including ones that are used as de facto “bike expressways” like the Lower Don and Martin Goodman Trails. I cycle the narrow Lower Don pathway frequently and rate it as far worse than the Railpath ever could be. The main problem along most of the Don south of Riverdale Park is that the park is not much wider than the pathway. If you’re not on the path, you’re in the river or scraping your face along a chain link fence.
Much of the Martin Goodman Trail and virtually the entire Don park system feature similarly narrow trails, although the parks themselves are usually wider. Yet the kind of conflicts between users that cyclists are imagining will take place on the Railpath are virtually non-existent, particularly during typical commuting hours. Yes, it would be nice to have wider or parallel pathways, but what impact would that have on the park as a whole? At just 10-15 metres wide, there isn’t a lot of room in the corridor.
It lacks links to surrounding streets. This is a valid point. The worst thing about riding the Lower Don is trying to get out anywhere other than at the very bottom or top of the trail. Leaving the trail at Riverdale Park or Queen Street means having to haul your bike up a long flight of stairs. Those bike gutters beside the steps don’t help much and most people can’t quite figure them out. I find it faster and easier to just put my bike over my shoulder and sprint up the stairs, but I’m not an occasional cyclist out for a leisurely Sunday ride.
Unfortunately, they’re proposing this same kind of stairs + gutter configuration for access to the Railpath from Bloor and Dupont. It’ll probably discourage use of the Railpath by some cyclists.
As for connections to other cycling routes, the Belt Line is similarly isolated, directly connecting only to a scary-to-the-novice pathway in the Moore Park Ravine to the south. In the north, it’s a few blocks away from the Cedarvale Ravine system. It crosses a smattering of signed routes along its length, but no streets with dedicated bike lanes. Yet the lack of direct connections to the Belt Line doesn’t prevent it from being an immensely popular and beautiful ride.
The city probably won’t plough the route. Yes, welcome to the reality of off-road routes in Toronto. I’m not aware of any mixed-use path that receives city attention in the winter. There’s no reason that the Railpath would receive winter maintenance that no other trail in Toronto does.
That said, I think the Railpath should be ploughed in the winter. As should all of the other paved mixed use paths commonly used for bicycle commuting. But the city can’t afford it, you say? Nonsense. Since it’s already the responsibility of landowners to clear the walks in front of their homes and businesses, I’d like to see the city stop its sidewalk clearing service and instead dedicate its sidewalk ploughs to clearing park pathways instead. It would even end up saving money, as there aren’t nearly as many park pathways to clear as there are sidewalks. The city could continue to shovel for seniors and the disabled.
Although some parks are used in the winter by cross-country skiers and snowshoers (of which I’m one), they should still be able to ski or shoe beside the cleared paths. Dog walkers, cyclists, and nature lovers would rejoice.
I’d lobby my out-of-touch city councillor in this direction, but I highly doubt that he would take any cycling issue seriously.
No, I’m not talking about the kind of inspiration you get from Successories.
A post on the Spacing Wire last week pointed to a short film called Drum 13 (requires QuickTime 7) by Tony Round. The description read, “a banjo and a massive abandoned Cherry Beach oil drum really do belong together.” Drum 13 was filmed in February 2005. It turns out that in April 2006, I had visited the same location and taken these pictures, among many others, of that oil tank:
While I was there, I was struck by how this big old boring piece of industrial detritus could be so compelling a subject and offer so many interesting studies in light and form. I’ve always enjoyed taking pictures of industrial ruins, but this place was special. I couldn’t believe that I’d ridden my bike past it for so many years without once venturing onto the site and vowed to come back as the seasons changed throughout the year.
But by June 2006, the site had been leveled, and you never would have known that the empty field had ever held anything more substantial. It is currently being developed into the transitional sports fields in the port lands. The experience underscored the importance of timing: if you have a chance to take a picture, take it — the scene may not exist an hour from now, never mind next week or next month.
I lamented the loss of the picturesque location, but didn’t know that anyone else had appreciated its interesting features before I saw Drum 13 posted online last week. I wondered if anyone else had been artistically inspired by this storage tank. Some quick Googling found that at least a few other photographers and some musical experimenters have documented the location over the years. It’s good to know that I wasn’t the only fan of this abandoned piece of the city.
There seems to be a rather ambitious beaver at work in the Don Valley.
He still has some work to do before toppling this 30-footer at the forks of the Don, but he’s getting there.
I’m reminded of the fossilized giant beaver tooth found at the Brickworks. Whether this modern beaver eventually succeeds or not, I’m pretty sure this tree has seen its last leaf. I wonder if Parks and the TRCA would allow a beaver to dam up the West Don at the forks. Probably not, but it would be something to see.
(The tree is visible from the park bridge that runs under Don Mills Road near the entrance to Taylor Creek Park. From anywhere on the bridge, look across the river toward the forks. You could also approach the tree directly from the eastern end of the Crothers’ Woods trail in the Flats.)
The Toronto Police issued a press release (thanks to Martino for the link) on Sunday announcing the start of Operation Safe Journey, a week-long blitz against drivers and cyclists who endanger pedestrians. Bravo! But tellingly, the press release also promises to target “pedestrians who fail to obey traffic signals or who fail to yield to traffic.”
If you believe the CityNews take on the crackdown, it’s aimed almost entirely at pedestrians. City’s story typifies the blame-the-victim mentality of the media and the police, stating, “Many of those killed last year were guilty of crossing the street in the worst possible place and at the worst possible time.” Mmm, smells like Rob Ford. Yes, it’s your own damn fault if you venture into the city without a car. You’ve got some nerve, not waiting (and waiting, and waiting…) your turn to cross the street. Don’t you know that streets are for cars?
So as a public service to the Toronto Police, I’m rewriting their press release. This is how it should read:
In 2006, there were 57 traffic fatalities in the City of Toronto. Thirty were pedestrians, with one?third of them over 65. In contrast, 38 people were killed by guns in the City of Toronto in the same period.
These were tragedies that need not have occurred.
As members of our society and as road users, whether as pedestrians, cyclists, or motorists, we share a responsibility for preventing these tragedies.
Motorists must exercise more caution when manoeuvring their 2-tonne vehicles around the city, and remember that pedestrians don’t have crumple zones, air bags, or seat belts to keep them safe in collisions. In fact, in your haste to be the last car turning through the advanced green a full 5 seconds after it stopped flashing, or make that right turn without looking where you’re going, or zip past the bus stopped in front of the crosswalk, you’re putting pedestrians’ lives at risk. Oh, and your premiums may go up a little after your insurance company pays a few thousand dollars to scrape a dead pedestrian out of your grill.
Being in a car does not automatically give you the right of way. Shaving a few seconds off your mad cross-town dash isn’t a good enough reason to endanger someone’s life. Just because a pedestrian isn’t in a car doesn’t mean that she isn’t in as much of a rush as you are to get to where she’s going.
Pedestrians should remember that many motorists don’t see you unless you’re inside a shiny metal box on four wheels. Many of those that do see you consider you to be a nuisance, serving no purpose but to delay them on their appointed rounds. The motorists who do treat you with the respect you deserve risk being rear-ended by all of the other motorists. Please look both ways before you cross the street.
On Monday, March 19, 2007, the Toronto Police Service will embark on a one?week education and enforcement campaign entitled “Operation Safe Journey”. This campaign will target motorists whose aggressive driving habits endanger the safety of pedestrians.
And next week, we’ll be running Operation Safe Shootings, a blitz targetting people who get shot. It’s their own fault, you know.
Of course, what they really wanted to write probably looks something more like this:
Hey Pedestrians! Get outta the way!
Note for the argumentative: I am a motorist, cyclist, and pedestrian, though not necessarily in that order. Of the three groups, motorists have the largest burden to act responsibly because of the amount of damage they can inflict on the other two groups when something goes wrong. Yes, there are irresponsible cyclists, and irresponsible pedestrians, but let’s be honest about where the responsibility lies.
“Nope.”
— The acting store manager in the Loblaws at Broadview and Danforth on Sunday, when I asked if he could do anything about the lineup that snaked from the one open non-express checkout all the way across the front of the store and up the dairy aisle.
“I keep forgetting not to come here anymore.”
— A frustrated woman making her way to the end of the line.
You and me both, sister. The newly-renovated Sobeys up the street beckons.
The TTC released its Transit City plan yesterday, to a predictable mix of hope and FUD (video) from the usual suspects. I freely admit that I’m no TTC expert, nor am I artistically inclined enough to offer alternative fantasy maps. Even most of my comments on the specifics of this plan would simply echo what’s available elsewhere, so I won’t add my voice to the cacophony. But I do have some preliminary thoughts on Transit City.
First, despite the upcoming hysterics of the naysayers — which will no doubt include my own city councillor and notable small-thinker Case Ootes — this plan is easily achievable if accompanied by some political will. Keen transit advocates are right that subways are just not practical or affordable for blanketing the city with transit and that LRT is the way to go. Will this network be expensive? Yes. But unlike the expense of, say, the Sheppard subway or the Spadina subway extension to Vaughan Corporate Centre, it will also be extensive.
Money and political issues aside, the two biggest threats to the success of this plan are internal: the city’s transportation department and the TTC itself. The TTC has become notorious in recent years for managing service quite poorly. In particular, they seem to focus too much on easily-graphed and ineffective internal performance targets rather than real-world performance from the customer’s perspective. This singlemindedness absolutely must change.
As for the transportation department, they have to be forced to give the TTC true signal priority along all of these routes. No ifs, ands, or buts. No half-baked priority like they’ve implemented down Spadina. Cars should always stop for an LRT; an LRT should never stop for cars.
Simply put, the city’s directive to the traffic managers should be that a TTC vehicle on a dedicated ROW should only need to stop when picking up or dropping off passengers. If an LRT vehicle is approaching an intersection, the lights should change in its favour, even if that means cutting short the cycle for intersecting traffic. Even if it means preventing cars from turning left until the LRT has passed. Even if it means stranding pedestrians at a traffic island. To be a true transit city, we have to stop treating the TTC in general, and surface routes in particular, like some kind of transportation backwater.
Although a lot of reports are labelling Transit City as more dream or fantasy than realistic plan, I hope that the Transit City network is only the beginning. The details aren’t set in stone and will be quibbled over for years to come, even as construction proceeds. But we finally have a real and achievable vision for a city-wide rapid transit system. We shouldn’t let this one slip away.
