2013/10/05: New Toronto

New Toronto is an industrial suburb, established in 1890. You can still find some of the old residential houses, but most of the old industrial buildings – and the factories themselves – disappeared in the last decades (most of them in the neoliberal late 1980s). Heritage Toronto offered a guided tour through this area last weekend. The area is not really interesting, and the weather wasn’t really perfect, but the tour was informative. And some of the buildings are really nice:

2013/10/01: McMaster University

They didn’t show a movie in the “Italian Cinema, Literature and Society” lecture this Tuesday, so I decided to attend instead the lecture “Transport Geography” by Dr. Antonio Páez. Only little problem: Dr. Páez is teaching at the McMaster University in Hamilton, some 90 kilometres to the west. So I bought a Presto Card, entered the green Go Bus (in every direction you have to use another bus operator with another fare system…) and wanted to go to Hamilton. It was a trip on oversized highways through oversized industrial parks, business parks and residential areas. But there was still too much traffic for the 8 lanes: the bus got stuck in traffic jam soon after the departure. Instead of the scheduled one and half hours it took me two and a half hours to get to the McMaster campus. Too late for the lecture, all doors closed. No chance to get to know Antonio Páez, but a nice possibility to walk across the beautiful campus, to shop in the bookstore and to admire the cycling-friendly infrastructure. This here is great and can be an example also for universities in Germany!



The way back to York was much faster, but still boring (it's great to have so much time to read because you don’t have to look out of the window…). The only beautiful buildings between Hamilton and North York are these two towers near Square One in Mississauga:

2013/10/01: One month in Toronto

Having travelled through Canada and the United States the whole August, I spent the whole September in the Greater Toronto Area. One of four months in Toronto is already over. But I’ve seen a lot, I learned a lot, and I met a lot of people. I've seen many different neighborhoods of Toronto, parks and river valleys, cycle trails and streetcar loops. I learned the rules of Squash (which I play about once a week here on campus), the meaning of Urban Environmental Justice, the connections between Charlie Chaplin’s movie “modern times” and the Chicago School of Sociology; that it can be a big advantage to live on campus compared to commuting from downtown. I met Laura, Max, Katharina, Gunnar, Sandra, Ulrika, Salome, Franziska, Christian, Markus and all the other exchange students; faculty members and City Institute employees; undergraduate and graduate students of Environmental Studies and Geography. I’ve been to a great Italian restaurant with Chantal and Marcel, the Swiss I’ve first seen at Lake Maligne and enjoyed the sunset on a Toronto Island Ferry with them. I experienced funny (but still expensive) supermarkets, enjoyed Tim Hortons’ 1$-offers and bought books at York University bookstore, McMaster University bookstore, “the biggest bookstore in the world” and on the literature festival “Word on the street”. I have already been twice to the 2nd city theater. I liked most of the lectures and seminars and most of the texts I had to read. I love the big windows in the 7th floor of Kaneff Tower (where the City Institute is located). I enjoy my spinning course, the squash plays and our bicycle. I love Toronto, the weather, the people and York University. It was a great first month.

Some of the trips through Toronto I did last month:



Sunset seen from the Toronto Island Ferry:



Inside a liquor store:



Funny buildings along Bloor Street and Queen Street:



The Word on the Street festival:



The great hipster supermarket on College Street:



In the “gay district”:

2013/09/30: Toronto streetcar system

Toronto’s streetcar system is 82 kilometers long; 11 lines are serving almost 300,000 people daily; the minimum radius of curvature is only 10,97 m; the tracks are built to the unique track gauge of 4 ft 10 7⁄8 in (1,495 mm); the 248 vehicles are in service since 1977 (single cars) respective 1987 (articulated cars), but they will be phased out as Flexity Outlook start entering service in 2014; line 501 (24,4 km) is the longest streetcar route in North America.

That’s what Wikipedia says. What I say is: Toronto’s streetcar system is great for railway enthusiasts like me, but it is ridiculous and terrible for daily commuters –in the latter it is comparable to Toronto’s bus system, Toronto’s subway system and Toronto’s highways. Transit in Toronto is a tragedy, as newspaper articles, radio podcasts and fellow students tell almost every day. Whenever I see the hundreds of people waiting for a bus in front the university buildings, I’m happy to live on campus…

Instead of finally building modern light rail transit lines, which are part of a plan called “Transit City”, Major Rob Ford (“these damn streetcars”) announced the cancellation of Transit City on the day that he took office in 2010. The enlightened rest of the world has successfully arrived in the 21st century, but Rob Ford is still of the opinion that streets should only belong to cars and trucks…

According to Antonio Gómez-Palacio, who gave a speech at the Suburban Revolution conference (see a part of his speech here, this guy is awesome), a six-lane road has a capacity of 5,000 people per hour. A two-track light rail has a capacity of 20,000 people per hour. So you just have to dedicate one of three lanes per direction to a modern streetcar, and a lot of people will reach their office, home, university, whatever much faster.

So far most of Toronto’s inner city streetcars are stuck in traffic, with no dedicated rights-of-way. That makes going by tram a very time-intensive pleasure in this great city. It is horrible to use a tram if you are in a hurry, but it is a great way to explore the different neighbourhoods of the city without having to walk all day. So did Laura and me last Sunday, the next to last day my much too expensive monthly TTC pass was valid. The trams run through Italian, Indian, Polish, Chinese and Ukrainian neighbourhoods; through the heart of the financial district; along the waterfront and to the beaches; through so called “streetcar suburbs” and to High Park. Three lines are currently under construction, but we’ve seen a lot of interesting things along and near some of the other routes:

High Park…



…with its Zoo, …



…colourful trees…



…and colourful buildings, …



…the globe on Kensington Market…



…and the church at Jarvis Street, …



…East Chinatown Gate…



…and working class storages, …



...a beach on Lake Ontario, …



…and nice cafés next to Spadina Avenue, …



…where we finally finished our streetcar day.

2013/09/29: Finch Trail and Humber Trail

The global suburbanism conference (I’ll write later more about this) and the sunny weekend weather kept me from posting texts and pictures. But here you are.

There were not only the conference and a lot of university readings last week, there was also this nice evening tour of the „bicycle project“ (if you have a facebook account and you want to see pictures click here) and the funny evening at the 2nd City Theatre with Gunnar, Max, Laura and Katharina.

After the end of the congress on Saturday afternoon, I took my bike and started a great, sunny tour along Finch Trail, Humber Trail and Waterfront Trail, probably three of the best cycle trails in Toronto. After 45 km of cycling I met some friends (and their friends) downtown with whom I went to a Japanese restaurant (this has to be another post, it was so awesome) and another beer in the gay district and another beer on Queen Street. Actually, one month after my parents left, this has been my first real “going out in downtown”-evening. It was a lot of fun, but also a lot of money…

Here are now some pictures of my cycle tour along Finch Corridor, Humber Trail and Waterfront (yes, you're right, the first two pictures are a week older, you can see at the tree's colors...):