Markus in Toronto (and Halifax, and Vancouver, and Las Vegas, ....): 2013/11/01: Reading Week

Having finished their mid-term exams, the students of York University enjoy the “co-curricular week” or “reading week”. In the second part of the semester, there’s this one week without classes, but with a lot of time to write assignments, read texts and books for your classes – and to celebrate Halloween, which you’re celebrating here for a whole week, comparable to carnival in Mainz. Many other exchange students are travelling in the States at the moment; as I’ve seen Chicago and New York this August, I preferred this time to explore the world cities Richmond Hill, Lincolnville and Barrie.

Richmond Hill, Lincolnville and Barrie are terminal stations of Toronto’s commuter trains, the so called “Go Trains”. The three lines running to these towns have an interesting schedule: about five trains are running from the outskirts to Toronto in the early morning and about five trains are running back in the afternoon. No European style synchronized timetable with departures all day every 30 minutes, serving different demands. No, these trains are only serving the demands of commuters that are living in the suburbs and working in the downtown core (and using their cars for all other purposes). Next weekend will be the clock change. The end of daylight-saving time means that you can’t reach the terminal stations Lincolnville and Barrie in daylight anymore. So I had to go there this week, as I wanted to go there by train (you can get back to Toronto by bus, if you don’t want to wait for the next train in the next morning).

Starting at Toronto’s Union Station in the afternoon means that you are not alone: Union Station is Canada’s most important transit hub, serving about 200,000 passengers a day.

The Go Train to Lincolnville passes the construction site of Downtown Markham.

North of Markham, you finally reach the end of built environment and the beginning of the so called agricultural land reserve.

The train is now quite empty and the villages are quite rural.

At the final stop Lincolnville, there’s absolutely nothing to see. But as the train was late and the bus didn’t wait, I had some time to visit this nothing… The highlight of my stopover was to take a picture of the parking spaces for electric vehicles…

Another highlight of the week was the Bicycle Project’s Humber Trail tour. I did this tour one month ago alone; this time I guided a group of eight people that were born in seven different countries (Austria, Canada, China, Germany, Japan, Netherlands, Pakistan) – roughly speaking, a “typical Canadian group”.

The last tour I didn’t show pictures of yet is the one to Barrie, which is located at Lake Simcoe about 100 kilometers north of Toronto. I was accompanied by Gunnar and Marijn – yes, the Marijn with whom I did the great Danube cycling tour four years ago. He’s travelling North America at the moment, it was great to see him again.