On My Mind, Volume 1

I have the house to myself, I’m waiting for water to boil behind me in the kitchen, and, perhaps most importantly, I have a few things on my mind. So lets do this.

The first thing is the gym. Is it just me, or is there an element of the personal training profession that requires convincing a person to not believe in themselves? It seems counter-intuitive when you read the statement, but today I totally experienced it. I had been doing pretty good, following a workout strategy from Men’s Health, when one thing led to another and I wound up today in a “free fitness assessment”.

I expected the trainer to push personal training, but I wasn’t expecting him to literally promise me results at the tune of $5000. I expected him to motivate me, but instead I’m left with the impression that, like just about everything in the world, you can’t get what you really want unless you spend a lot of money. The sad part is, before today I truly thought I could do it on my own. I was motivated, and had fit the gym into my schedule with, surprisingly, little effort. So I really thought I could do it. Men’s Health told me I could do it. The trainer said I could try doing it, but I’d end up failing. I had told him I had tried in the past with little result, and he pretty much took that and used it against me.

He put me on a schedule that went from now all the way till December, at which point I would be good to go. The first part was the most important—on correcting problems with my posture, the way I used certain joints… I didn’t really understand the issue, but he stressed it was the most important.

So I decided that, if it was so important, I’ll bank for training on that part, which is oh-so-important, and opt to do the rest myself. Because, in the end, I still do believe in myself.

[I just realized the irony of writing about commitment on a blog I haven’t updated in about a year… moving on]

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Today also happened to be the Royal Wedding. I think it would be interesting to study what it is about these types of events, or the monarchy in general, that fascinates people so much. I have to admit, I don’t know enough about the monarchy or how it works to really put a point forward here. Who’s paying for the wedding? How did she end up meeting and then marrying him? Does it matter? I would hate to see them split up after all this publicity that’s been going on for the last week, but didn’t that already happen with Prince Charles and Princess Diana?

I don’t get it. The only reason I can suggest for people adoring this wedding is because it lets them see a fairytale lived out in real life; princes marrying princesses, horse-drawn carriages, flowers, kings and queens. It’s almost like Disney but in London, 2011. Another reason stemming from that might be that people sort of live vicariously through it, or it lets them sort of be a kid again when watching the TV at 5 AM (this is further supported by the dress-up-and-watch events that happened all over the place).

In any case, it would be an expensive method for people to relive their childhood dreams. I could be totally wrong, but, in the end, it has to be because of something, right?

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I should also point out that I started reading my old LiveJournal from the beginning, which may or may not have propelled me to write in this blog (it’s probably a combination of things). It was kind of interesting to see what I remembered and what I didn’t remember. It was also interesting to see what’s changed since then; who I talked to more, what was available, what things cost (I think somewhere I put that I had dinner for $6, which is pretty damn good). These entries were from exactly six years ago, so it’s especially interesting to read them now, just after finishing my undergrad. I have them all downloaded to a PDF book just in case something happens to the website—I discovered that Photobucket deleted all the photos I had uploaded without even warning me, and some of them were ones I don’t think I have anywhere else.

So maybe this is just a temporary phase and I won’t write again for another year. The difference, though, is that last year at this time I would start a year in which most of my courses had at least some form of writing that I had to do on a regular basis. Now I’m done school (for a while at least), and apparently there are things on my mind, so hopefully I can put this blog to good use once again.

A little bit of this, a little bit of that

So first things first: my entries have been a little short lately, but I haven’t had one of those oomph moments where I can write and write and write about something. Hopefully soon though, one will come. Or maybe not, if it’s about a bad thing.

I don’t have anything in particular to discuss this week, but I can at least touch on a few things.

First off, it was revealed this morning that Trinity-Bellwoods has been dropped as the official location for protesters during the G20 meeting next month. This makes my entire previous post irrelevant, but that’s OK; the important thing is that someone somewhere came to their senses. The new location? Probably Queen’s Park. Wait, you mean that giant park in the middle of downtown, surrounded by non-residential buildings, and somewhat close to but not directly by the location of the G20 meetings? Why yes! That park! I honestly don’t get why they didn’t consider it in the first place. Oddly enough, I forgot about it too, since I didn’t mention it at all in my last entry. Whoops!

In other news, there’s been a lot of Toronto Mayoral Race happenings in the past few weeks. I honestly don’t know who I’m going to vote for; it’s like they’re all in a mayoral race edition of “Hey Arnold”, where their platforms all seem to have a quirk to them that makes me uneasy to choose them.

• I don’t really know what big ideas George Smitherman has, or if he has any at all. He’d probably be the safest choice, though.
• Joe Pantalone is basically the next version of David Miller, and while he’s the most adamant about keeping Transit City alive, he seems a little bit wishy-washy.
• Rob Ford is the most brash political politician Toronto has right now, and electing him would be like electing Mel Lastman on steroids. This is something Toronto doesn’t need, and who knows what he would cut out with his obsessive penny-pinching.
• Rocco Rossi seems to be very car-centric, to the point where he wants to remove bike lanes from major streets and completely stop Transit City. His alternative is to build subways at a glacial pace… no thanks.
• Sarah Thompson has a big subway plan herself, and a concrete way of funding it; by road tolls. It’s a feisty plan, but I don’t see how anyone will agree to pay $5 as they drive to fund subways they aren’t using (and perhaps won’t be using when built).
• Then there’s Georgio Mammoliti, who wants to set up a red light district and a casino… yeah.

As much as I want subways to be built in the city, there has to be enough demand for them, and building them is an urban pain in the ass. Plus, these are all election promises, just like the promise to cut GST made before the federal election many many years ago. Did that happen? Nope, and now it’s being combined with PST to make an even bigger tax burden… but I digress. Maybe next week I’ll write about HST.

Moving on, one thing I’ve been thinking about a lot lately, believe it or not, is hockey. Toronto has ended up in this awkward position of not being in the playoffs while other Canadian teams are, such as Montreal and Vancouver this year. It’s been this way since the hockey strike that one year, and, frankly, it sucks. It’s odd how a team such as the Blue Jays (or is it just the Jays now?) can perform somewhat decently and have low turnout, while a team that continues to suck royally always sells out. It’s actually somewhat sad. I think the best thing for the Jays would be if the Leafs won a Stanley Cup, since that would probably dilute the city’s absurd obsession with them. That obsession, though, is weird, since even I’m a little bit obsessed with it; I want them to win, but I won’t stop supporting them even if they lose. Are all sports teams like that? Also, a sad confession; I secretly don’t want another Canadian team to win the Stanley Cup because then they would get a chance to shove it in Toronto’s face. Is that bad? It’s at the least very Torontonian.

But then after that there’s the World Cup, where it’s not where you live, it’s where you’re from. It’s a lot more fun in my opinion.

When I lived in the woods, everything was alright

I’ve been thinking about topics to discuss in my blog, and on the streetcar today it hit me like a ton of bricks: G20! Oh my goodness! I almost forgot!

Actually, my memory should have been jogged today because it was revealed earlier that Trinity-Bellwoods park will be the designated site for protests. At least it is, according to its organizers. I was unaware till today that the protest sites were actually designated… but then again, Toronto really hasn’t had anything like this before, has it?

Why Trinity-Bellwoods? No clue. There are so many people who live right around there, not to mention the businesses that usually get the bad end of the protest stick. According to the Star, it’s 2 km away from the outer barrier… couldn’t they have done better, like at Exhibition Place or something? Better yet, couldn’t they have done the summit itself at Exhibition Place?

Did they pick Trinity Bellwoods because it’s off West Queen West or something? Why not High Park, where they won’t be totally surrounded by houses on all sides? I’m guessing it’s the only park big enough and close enough to be suitable, but, still…

And what about Toronto as a whole? I was actually in London during the last G20 meeting, and I can at least say that the entire city didn’t shut down or go up in smoke or anything. There were protests that marched through the streets. The area of the actual summit was a mess though; lots of violence and rioting, and there were a lot of warnings not to go near it. I’m assuming this will be the same sort of deal, but, really, I don’t know for sure if there are any key differences that might make this better.

Well, Torontonians can always escape to Cottage Country, right? Well, no, because that’s where the G8 meeting is going to be! Probably not at the same time though, but… ugh. Let’s just hope that this comes and goes really quickly.

You just can’t get worse, ancient curse

When it comes to events that occur on a global scale, it seems to me that there are a lot of different general reactions that can ensue. There’s general apathy, for all the events that aren’t quite striking enough to really have a profound effect. Then there’s global sorrow, as there was with the Haitian earthquake earlier this year. There’s also amazement when something marvelous happens; a new discovery, a medical breakthrough, an amazing picture from the Hubble Space Telescope.

That’s not supposed to be an exhaustive list, but last week, I think the world was subjected to an event that, in being unusual, caused a response that no-one had ever really experienced before. It definitely wasn’t apathy; a lot of people were concerned because the nature of the issue meant that people from all over the world were directly affected.

I think what made this different was the fact that, when Eyjafjallajökull erupted, it was completely out of human control, similar to a tropical storm or an earthquake. What’s the difference, then? Those events cause global sorrow, due to the mass devastation they cause. This volcano wasn’t killing anyone or directly destroying anything. It just completely froze all air travel in most of Europe for about three or four days.

I should first start out by saying that, like most people, I really don’t know how to pronounce Eyjafjallajökull. In fact, every time it appears here it’s because I copied and pasted it. I watched this video here to get an idea, but it honestly just confused me more (is it just me or does the phonetic spelling not match his pronunciation at all?) I think the volcano’s crazy name gave the entire situation a humorous twist (or at least gave people in Iceland a thing to laugh at).

It was definitely the uncertainty, though, that made this a sort of scary situation for a lot of people. When would the volcano stop erupting? It wasn’t exactly clear, and the reports coming out of Iceland weren’t very promising. For example: the Toronto Star, on April 15th:

In a sobering comment, one scientist in Iceland said the ejection of volcanic ash — and therefore possible disruptions in air travel — could continue for days or even weeks.

It might not be scary for everyone, but I personally thought it was a little frightening. It was last year at this time that I was traveling around Europe, and I had issues near Easter with booking trains and lodging just because of the increased holiday crowds (apparently in France, they take their holidays very seriously). A situation like that might have been a total nightmare. Not only that, but on my way home, I patched two flights together with a few days in London between them. I really have no idea what I would have done if I wasn’t able to even get to London; it was the end of my trip and I was at the last bit of my money. How would I have gotten back? How long would I have had to wait?

Insight into the troubles travelers are facing are coming from Lonely Planet; their twitter feed is retweeting issues that people stranded all over the place are facing. One striking one, as an example, was “Cologne to London: 4 train, 2 taxis, 1 ferry, 16 hours, €500 and a hire car which has to be repatriated to France by tomorrow” by a user named bsmart. Lonely Planet even made their iPhone city guides free for a limited time to help people out; a gesture that was very kind, and apparently well received too since they claimed that they were downloaded 3 million times.

What do we have to learn from all this? I’m not totally sure. What I can say is that we probably depend on air transport more than we realize, and that we need to keep the alternatives well-maintained in case anything like this (or the same thing) happens again. At the same time, this event showed the world how important air transport is, and how simple it is for it to be disabled by nature. Kinda frightening, yes, but humans really can’t be in control of everything, can they?

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As I side note, I’m done school now for the summer so I’ll hopefully be able to update a lot more frequently. My last entry was right before I had three different essays due, so needless to say I didn’t really feel like writing for a little while. Then there was exams. Fortunately I have a fair amount of free time now and I’m planning on keeping this as a sort of hobby for the summer. Also, I’m working on Bloglog and I’m hoping to officially open it up soon, I just want to make sure I have enough entries in (I think I’ve written four so far, I forget). I’ll send word when it’s ready.

I promise you that on my own it will be known that I was trying hard to grin and bear it

Yesterday morning, a provincial Member of Parliament by the name of Bill Murdoch threw his idea to the public:

Let them form their own province.

He’s referring to the City of Toronto.

I have to admit that my thoughts are mixed on this one. As much as I’d like our city to have a higher amount of political control, at the same time it would be such… a mess, no? It would take a lot of political doohickying to get there. A lot of debate, a lot of amending. A lot of time.

I wanted to explain what I considered Ontario to be to Toronto in a metaphorical sense, but I found myself having trouble. Ontario is there and it helps us, but after the 1990s they let us do more of our own thing. Certain things, we couldn’t handle, such as a bloated downloading of welfare and TTC costs. Other things, we could, such as what was given by the City of Toronto act which allows for more financial flexibility.

It’s hard to say for sure if it’s a good idea or not, but at least it brings up an interesting concept to say the least. My only other concern: if Toronto became its own province, what would the capital of Ontario be?

How dear to us thy broad domain

One thing I’ve decided to stop doing is to write out how I failed somehow at blogging at the beginning of all my entries. It’s getting repetitive. I will say that I totally missed last week, but I did write an entry for Bloglog that will be be one of the first entries when I decided to bring it online. It probably won’t be for a while though (like May) since I can tell you right now I’m not going to able to give it the start it deserves. I want to be able to nourish it through the summer, so that it will be nice and beefy when life gets busy again.

Speaking of beef (the meat kind, not the drama kind), I haven’t had any in over two weeks! I decided to give up meat for lent because, well, I have to try being Catholic, don’t I? I mean, if I’m not doing that, then what am I doing? I don’t go to church and I’m anything but religious, so I guess I’m doing it just so I don’t completely lose the religion. It’s kinda like depositing $20 into a bank account every few months just so they don’t close it. Kinda like that.

The topic I’ve chosen for today’s entry is nice and hot. Sizzling. Just baked. As fresh as a pie on a windowsill. Has anyone ever seen a pie on a windowsill? I always wondered that. But anyway, the fresh pie I’m referring to is a proposal of the Harper Government that was revealed in their long-awaited Throne Speech this morning: to change the words of the National Anthem.

I think the thing about O Canada is that the wording is somewhat archaic and difficult to make a connection with. It’s almost like a prayer (Here I go back to religion again). You sing the words but you don’t really have any sort of visual idea what you’re singing about. “True patriot love in all thy sons’ command/With glowing hearts we see thee rise/The true North, strong and free”… what’s rising? Canada compared to the world? Rising in what sense? Physically? What’s meant by “true patriot love in all thy sons’ command”?

Compare this with the American national anthem, which almost spells it out for everyone. It’s slightly poetic, but really, how could you not get it? It’s about a flag and war and rockets and explosions! But even after all the bombs and fire and loud noises, the flag was still there!! Done and done. It’s amazing that I’ve been singing the Canadian national anthem for years and yet I understand more what the American one is going on about.

But does that mean that the Canadian anthem is crappy? No! Like a weird relative, it’s a part of our heritage, even if  we don’t understand its going on about all the time. We’ve gotten over the fact that it’s got really flowery wording and we love it for what it is. So what’s the issue? It’s that the wording either isn’t politically correct or it isn’t inclusive.

The proposed changes will turn “In all thy son’s command” into “Thy dost in us command”. Who’s going to be singing this, Gandalf? If we’re going to keep using the anthem, why would we make a new version that sounds older? It’s actually from the original version, according to the Star, but still, anything with dost is just… yeah.

But why are we changing the anthem anyway? Is it really that bad that one line has a slightly exclusive nature? In case it isn’t clear yet, I personally think it’s a waste of effort and it’s distracting from real issues. Let’s move on now. We’ve got a deficit to get rid of (apparently).

I should note that the timing is also funny, since on Sunday I was at Dundas Square after Canada won the Gold medal in hockey, and I must have heard people break into “O Canada” at least 5 times.

And I can assure you that none of them were concerned about the lyrics.

On the mountaintop, burning like a silver flame

So I should start out by saying that, yes, I missed two weeks. I know, I’m a bad person, but I still plan on being committed, and perhaps I’ll write two extra entries outside the usual Thursday ones. If you’re wondering, the excuse for the first week was that I had about nine million other school-related things to do, and for the second week it was because I was drunk. This week neither of those excuses apply, so here I am! Also I should point out it’s technically Friday as I write this… but who cares.

The issue, again, is what to write about. I juggled the idea of Giambronegate (or, as it’s been more commonly called, the Giamboner affair) but that’s so old now; he’s already awkwardly back to tweeting as if nothing ever happened. The other alternative I can think of, since it’s happening right now, is the Vancouver Olympics. The thing is, this blog is almost turning into an Olympics/Transit blog with some municipal politics thrown in… but who cares.

SO! Vancouver 2010 is apparently where it’s at right now… sort of. First off, I may have mentioned this before, but I always find the Winter Olympics to be less exciting than the Summer Olympics. Two showstopper events are figure skating and hockey, while a lot of the other events are technically specific. For example, I had no idea what the major difference between “short track” and “long track” speed skating is… and I still don’t. There seems to be an endless supply of speed skating variations, all complete with athletes I never knew existed until the media starts digging the dirt on medal hopefuls. Same with skiing, snowboarding (at least most of these are obvious, though I had no clue what “snowboard cross” meant), and the multitude of luge, skeleton, and bobsled events… all exciting to watch but at the same time hard to get into.

That’s not to say the Summer Olympics aren’t like that either, but there’s just so much more going on that it’s easier to get a taste of everything. You watch some swimming, some gymnastics, some running, a bit of diving for some good measure, and then cap it all of with a dose of fencing. There’s something for everyone. In the Winter Games, if you don’t really like watching hockey, it’s slim pickings. Or at least that’s what I think.

Anyways, now that I’ve gone on and on about why I like the Summer Olympics more, what should I say about Vancouver 2010? Are they a flop? A disaster? Excellent? So-so?

I think the cause of the problems that Vancouver is having (of which there appears to be many) can be broken down like this:

1/3 is having to go right after Beijing; with the amount of effort, money, and time they put into their event, going after them is like singing after Pavarotti in a vocal recital. It’s not our fault though; it’s safe to say that China works a lot differently than Canada does, and they had the manpower, regime, and work ethic to allow for something like that to be produced (it is a communist government after all). They also had a lot more money to go into it. Can you imagine a large nationwide tax hike to pay for a fancier Olympic Opening Ceremony? Not going to happen in Canada. I have yet to watch the opening, but from what I hear it was slightly corny, slightly good, and slightly bad. And slightly sad, which I’m getting to next.

1/3 is bad luck. Obviously the first thing to come to mind is the death of the Georgian luger (lugist?) Nodar Kumaritashvilli, which was a serious, unfortunate incident; it goes without saying. Also unfortunate was that it put a black cloud over the beginning of the events, almost like an omen of sorts. Was there any way to prevent his death? Possibly, but it’s hard to say; if the track was known to be fatally dangerous to certain riders I doubt they would have continued without altering it. Whatever the case may be, it was very unfortunate, and that was augmented by terrible weather. When have there ever been Winter Olympics where they had to import snow? And in Canada? If that’s not bad luck then I don’t know what is.

The 1/3 is actually on the organization of the games itself. First of all, make sure your torch-raising apparatus works before you broadcast live to the entire world, so that Katrina Lemay Doan has something to ignite. Secondly, don’t put the other nice torch so far behind an ugly fence… if you’re going to prevent people from touching it, build something and incorporate it into the design, don’t put up some stupid rent-a-fence! Thirdly, let’s not be so aggressive! Just because the games are in Canada, it doesn’t mean we need to win three million medals (well, OK, thirty, but still). We now look like complete idiots because we’ve been piping this “Own the Podium” bullshit; halfway through we’re 10 behind the USA and haven’t come even close to half our goal yet. Goodbye $117 million!

OK, so there’s still time for these games to pan out, but it’s interesting to see what’s happening. It makes me wonder what would have happened if Toronto had hosted the 2008 Olympics. I know, I’m on this subject again, but think about it: if super cool Vancouver is having a hard time, what the hell would have happened here? I almost shudder at the thought… almost, because now we might able to learn from their mistakes (if we do ever get to host the Olympics).

One final thing- another issue I had was the large amount of useless pressure the media was putting on Team Canada to win a gold medal, simply because we hadn’t won any in the two other games hosted in Canada. Call it a curse all you want, it was dumb. Is the same set of athletes who competed in Calgary in 1988 competing now? How about all those athletes from Montreal? It’s not like we hadn’t won any gold medals in, say, Turin, or Salt Lake City, so I don’t understand why there was this lingering fear that we were going to blank again. If anything, it would make the athletes more nervous, wouldn’t it? Thank goodness for Alexandre Bilodeau, who got that over with quickly and efficiently. And, he has a inspirational brother with Cerebral Palsy! How could anyone not love this?

Anyway, this entry got a lot longer than I intended it to, but it will certainly be interesting to see how these games pan out. Maybe the bad luck will end and we’ll make it to thirty medals. Maybe not. As with anything, time will tell. Now I’m going to watch some figure skating.

‘Cause everybody wants a dream

This entry will be short and sweet since I have midterms on the horizon for the next, oh, month. But it is Thursday and gosh darn it I’m committed! This is the third week straight! Holy wow!

I want to touch on a subject that really came to light shortly after my last entry. It’s died down slightly, but heck, I still want to express my ever-important opinion on it. And so I shall.

So! The sleeping TTC collector dude. If by any chance you live in Toronto yet haven’t seen the picture (somehow), here it is: http://twitpic.com/z2nrp

The picture has gotten 43,000 views since it was posted last week… not a lot by internet standards, but considering this is localized to one major city I suppose that’s a pretty big deal. Plus, all the major news outlets showed the picture in their reports (and that doesn’t get added to the view count), so really, it’s 43,000 Twitter users that looked at the photo. Slightly bigger deal.

Anyway, I’m kinda in the middle on this. Yes, it’s really bad that the man fell asleep on the job. Not cool. Especially since there was just a fare hike, which is indirectly going to pay his salary. That’s the obvious argument, and that’s pretty much the sentiment shared by just about everyone.

Now, there’s the more realistic, less angry argument. First of all, the picture was taken at McCowan SRT station at 10 PM. Have you ever been to McCowan? It’s not exactly Grand Central Station or anything. If he was falling asleep at, say Yonge-Bloor, or if he was falling asleep during rush hour, that would be a much bigger issue, at least with me. The guy had a medical condition, and the medication he was taking makes him drowsy (that fact was revealed later on, in an interview), and really, if you’re in a union, there’s no way you’re going to get fired for having a medical condition. So, I’m thinking the TTC made the best of it by putting him at a station with low traffic so, hey, if he dozes off, so be it. It’s not like the area around McCowan is pedestrian central, so how many people would go by while he was catching a few Zs?

Well, apparently at least one, who had a camera and a Twitter account. He posts it some time later, and it goes viral… on Toronto’s terms at least (it’s not the new Surprised Kitty, that’s for sure). And, as people tend to do, they blame everything and everyone possible. And that’s fine, because at first it really did look like the guy was just a lazy bum. But then the story unfolds a little and there’s more to chew on. Kinda like the Mike Bryant case (except far, far less serious.)

I certainly hope that’s what the TTC had in mind by having him work there, anyway. What I didn’t like was the union’s response to the incident, which was the equivalent of pouring nitroglycerine onto a car fire. Allow me to insert it here for your reading pleasure:

…it is very discouraging that the picture taker and, apparently, other customers, made no attempt to determine if there was anything wrong with this TTC employee. A simple knock on the glass might have determined if the Collector was, in fact, asleep, or whether he was unconscious as a result of some medical problem. The reports that passengers were laughing at him as they passed by the booth makes this even more disturbing.

One look at the picture… the PICTURE, and you can tell this man is not unconscious. No-one faints with their hands clasped on their lap. If he had fainted (or worse, was dead) he’d either be dangling off the chair haphazardly or he’d be in a crumpled heap on the ground. Also, I’m sure the photographer could see him breathing. I’m sorry, my dear union chief Mr. Kinnear, but the worst way to deflect blame from yourselves is to blame passengers, since they’re the ones who give your union members jobs. The tone was slightly condescending and the entire statement was ridiculous.

The TTC and the union are doing investigations. I don’t think anything will happen, although the TTC is (in a totally unrelated endeavor) trying to improve customer service. The man has said he’s sorry and I’m sure collectors will think twice before they start dozing off in their collector booths. Can we move on?

So I counted to ten, then I counted to ten again

It’s Thursday! And, true to my word, I’m writing my Thursday entry, even though I have a whole lot of other schoolwork to do. It’s literally staring at me since I have a digital post-it on my desktop with all the things I have to do this weekend. But first – blog!

About a month ago, the St. Clair streetcar came back. Mostly.  As I explained before, I wanted to write an entry about it but it didn’t work out. In the end I’m glad it didn’t, since now I’ve had the chance to ride it for a month, and can put everything in perspective of a rider who went through the whole thing, from way back in, what was it, 2005?

Where to start? Before construction started, the 512 St. Clair streetcar used to be like every other streetcar in Toronto (minus Spadina and Harbourfront) in that it shared the tracks with traffic. The streetcar tracks were in the middle of the road, and cars could use them just like any other lane of traffic. One important note was that at major intersections, they became left turn lanes. Left turns were usually illegal during rush hour, but I remember getting caught behind turning cars all the time. Also, St. Clair was different from most other lines since it had shelters stuck in the middle of the road, whereas in most cases getting off a streetcar means getting on the street where cars are (hopefully) stopped.

As far as I remember, things worked. Not extremely well, but they worked. Traffic wasn’t a huge deal on St. Clair, and the streetcar would have its delays but it would eventually get you there. There was some room for improvement, but it wasn’t completely horrendous.

My use of the streetcar is usually only 3 stops. I live the at the third stop away from St. Clair West station (Wychwood). It’s a distance that isn’t very far to walk, but if you catch the streetcar you’ll almost certainly get there faster, plus it’s harder to walk there in inclement weather. I can remember taking the streetcar when I was maybe 4 or 5, and eventually I would take it to get to school downtown.

When I was in grade 11, I remember going up to the streetcar platform at St. Clair station one day and seeing these pamphlets for passengers to take, sitting in these little plastic holder things glued to the wall (I think they’re still there, actually). At this point the streetcar tracks were at the end of their life, and you could tell. There would always be spot fixes and stretches where the streetcar could only go 10 km/h. The pamphlet was about fixing the streetcar line. I remember reading something along the lines of “The streetcar tracks on St. Clair Ave. are at the end of their lifespan and are in need of replacing. The TTC has decided to use this opportunity to explore other configurations for the route while the tracks are replaced.” Something like that. The next page had a whole bunch of different options; keep it as it is, make the tracks only for streetcars, take out the tracks and replace them with buses, and I think there was one that said to put it underground (that may be a figment of my imagination, but I could swear there was one option about digging into the ground).

That was either 2004, or possibly 2003. I remember thinking, sitting on the streetcar headed west, “It’s going to be a long time before this is done”. I had no idea.

So now it’s 2010, and what happened? First of all, they went with the streetcar only lanes, which would be dubbed the ROW (right of way). They start building. Then there was a court injunction which stopped construction. Then they start building and get all the way to *gasp* St. Clair West station. About a fifth is complete. The year is now 2007 and I’m in my first year of university.

I remember this well because, from when they started construction (I think in late 2005/early 2006 but I’m probably wrong) the line was divided into buses where construction was happening, and streetcars for the old part. At that point the line was a chimeric mix of shiny new track and shitty old track, and for a short period in 2007 (I think it was from February to June) the line ran completely with streetcars… and we’re still not back to that yet.

The rest of the story is complicated and annoying. They decided to do hydro work at the same time, but since hydro didn’t want to replace their stuff until they had the staffing to do it, to they took their time. During work at St. Clair West, the crews drilled right through a power line that wasn’t on the blueprints for the station. Then winter came, and work of course stopped.

This kind of thing continued, but it seemed to me, though, that the process got more and more efficient as time went on. The remaining track, though there was much more of it, took way less long. The only part they didn’t get finished before this past winter (and still haven’t finished) is the loop at the end of the line at Keele… meaning that the streetcars can only go to the nearest loop, Landsowne, and buses have to run the rest of the way.

This story is dragging a bit, but in any case, streetcar service returned to the majority of the street on Dec. 20th 2009. In my mind, I was sort of expecting it to be something like this:

It wasn’t. Judy Garland was nowhere to be found. The only thing that’s a little similar was that, the day before, the TTC celebrated by running a couple of vintage streetcars for free rides along the line. Apparently they took forever to come though.

So it’s been a month, and how much more amazing is the streetcar?

For what I can tell, it’s almost the same as before.

The biggest and most annoying thing is the bunching. I’ll wait at my stop for 10 minutes, and then four cars come. The first one is full and the last three are empty. It’s really annoying. Also, there are so many lights, and now they take so long to change, that I think it’s faster to walk sometimes. Apparently biking is faster. And the buses that run parallel to cover for the last, incomplete bit, go faster since, well, they can pass each other.

According to Steve Munro, a great transit activist, the reason is because the line is mismanaged. It runs on a fixed schedule instead of using headways (which basically means to screw the schedule, and make sure streetcars leave a certain time apart from each other). He’s doing analysis on the line and it will be interesting to read the results. And apparently they’re working on fixing the traffic signals so that transit gets more priority and less waiting.

I’m a little skeptical though. And I think a lot of people are. A recent address of the issue put the blame on how there were too many small contractors, and not one general manager to get everything organized. The problem is that this line was supposed to be the model for the entire Transit City network that’s going to be built here, and they completely botched it.  Now everyone wonders if the same thing will happen, and a mayoral candidate just came out and said he’s going to put the project on hold and restudy it if he gets elected. Not very good for progress. Will the TTC learn from its mistakes? Does it ever?

I can find comfort, though, in the fact that the line is pretty much done. Almost. Hopefully people living near future Transit City lines won’t have to go through the same issues that the people on St. Clair did.

It’s all for the best? Of course it is.

So it’s a new year again. I’d love to write how I’m going to write a music journal (which would eventually fail) or how I’m going to go on a swashbuckling two-and-a-half month tour of Europe (which would eventually happen). It’s interesting how some things are so possible, and others so aren’t, isn’t it?

Anywho, I didn’t really come up with any New Year’s resolutions this year. I’m trying to go to the gym more, because THAT’S such a novel idea, right? One goal I’ve set for my self, sort of, is to do better in school. Or maybe not to do better, but just start wrapping things up. The year 2009, I came to realize, was a horrible year academically for me. The strike made grading lenient, which helped me in some of my courses, but for the ones it didn’t help, I basically had to drop them as if I never took them. Then I schlepped around Europe, skipping out on a whole semester. I couldn’t really do summer school when I got back since the options were limited due to the strike. Last semester was supposed to be the “get back on track” semester, but one of my courses got cancelled, and I dropped another one because it was horrible and I did horrible on the midterm (It was quite literally the lowest mark I’ve ever gotten in my life, before and after the grade adjustments). That left me with barely no progress in terms of my degree. What I did manage to get credit for, I did OK at least, but I didn’t get anywhere.

Well, now it’s 2010 at least, and I’m working hard to get back on track. I still want to blog more, though. I decided on the streetcar that I want to blog every Thursday, and I should start today! Except when I got home I realized that today was Wednesday. It’s been one of those weeks where I’m always a day ahead. You know the ones. In any case, I decided to blog anyway while I still felt like it, and I will hopefully continue next Thursday. No, note hopefully, I will blog next Thursday! RIGHT! It’s going to happen, people!

Also, I was talking a few weeks back with a very, very good friend, about blogs. I explained to him a sort of half fantasy, half possible-reality-if-I-get-off-my-ass-and-do-it-thing, which is to write for a major blog such as Torontoist, BlogTO, etc (those are the only two that really come to mind). The only issue is, what would I write about? My friend asked me for something that I was interested in, and I said, well, blogs! So he suggested that I write a blog about blogs… I thought it was a weird idea at first, but the more I thought about it, the more I liked it.

He suggested I use the name blogblog, but a quick Google search shows that’s already taken.  I was a little saddened, but when I peeked around I saw that they don’t update all that frequently, plus it seems to have broadened its horizons and now seems to cover stuff from its host city, Seattle. Not that I’m going to use the name blogblog, but at least I know the niche isn’t totally filled. My idea is to do quick write-ups of blogs all over the net, from the big (Gawker, Perez Hilton) to the interesting (The White House Blog, Regret the Error) to the completely mundane (Hamburger!, Three Frames). I don’t think there is a point, but when is there ever a point to things like this? I think in the very least it would be a fun experiment. Or maybe it’s another resolution… no, I definitely shouldn’t think of it like that.

I’m hoping to start it soon, once I can think of a name and find some time. But I now will set out Thursday nights as bloggin’ time! If all goes well, I’ll sit here (or somewhere) and blog. Hopefully I can plan ahead and think of topics, or else I could end up just sitting at my laptop and stare at it blankly for a few minutes on a blank WordPress page, and then going to sleep. It’s happened before, believe me.

Next week: I’m planning to write about the 512 St. Clair streetcar, which is now much more complete than it has been for the past few years, but (somehow) still isn’t actually done yet. I had been meaning to write an entry when the larger part of it reopened. That lovely date happened to be right before I had two consecutive days of exams, so that didn’t happen and by the time I had some free time the magic was gone.

But I’ll save the explaining for next week. There will be a lot to say.