RIP Toronto Industrial Jobs - Cascades Commissioners St. Plant

It has been a about a year since the Cascades cardboard plant on Commissioners Street was closed. Gone are 150 or so jobs, and a huge local user of recycled cardboard and paper. It does not appear that Cascades is getting out of this business, since they are expanding in Quebec. It is highly unlikely that those 150 workers are moving to Quebec any time soon. The Toronto Star articles talk about union resistance to cost cutting but the city's constant talk about repurposing the whole area for things more genteel than a noisy paper plant probably didn't help. Nor likely did dwindling support for the local railway, and the near impossibility of getting trucks up and down the DVP in 24/7 rush hour. Talk about shutting down the Gardiner will likely scare off anybody else wanting to do any form of manufacturing or production in that area.

Funny how the plans for massive redevelopment for an Expo did not work out. And the parking lots at the film studio seem pretty empty most days.

RIP 150 jobs.
With research from Toronto Star web archives and manufacturing news website archives.

Bike Racks on the TTC Bus - Your tax dollar not working that hard

It seems that many TTC busses are sporting a bunch of metal strapped to their prows. Cow catchers? Jay-walker catchers perhaps? On closer inspection, and some research, it appears that these things are bicycle racks. To hold 2 bikes. Most busses seem to hold 30 - 50 passengers. Where do the other 48 put their bikes? Or do they wait for the next bus? How long does it hold up the bus to mount your bike? What if yours is the first bike I? do you take down the other person's bike? and do what with it while fiddling with yours? What id you get off with the crowd and the bus drives off before you can get though to unhook your bike? What were they thinking?


The initial lot of 110 busses were outfitted for a cost of $202,000 in 2006 after an initial estimate of $155,000 . That is almost ONE QUARTER OF A MILLION DOLLARS. Now Metrolinx wants to spend another $ 1.183.000 on more racks on TTC buses, about $1,200 per rack. ONE POINT TWO MILLION DOLLARS

I have yet to see a bike on any bus in any part of the city, sun or shine or snow, at any time of the day. If I ever do see someone actually putting a bike on there, I will videotape them to see how long it takes ;-)

Figures from TTC and Toronto websites, Metrolinx press release. Correct me if wrong.

What's blue and empty in York Region?

The Sunday Toronto Star bemoaned the fact (their fact) that suburbs like York Region attracted more new residents than the City of Toronto, and in the same breath, that areas like York Region were un-sustainable (their words) because there was not enough transit. And quoted the local governments as saying they will start investing in transit. But why do people move to the suburbs in the first place? Surely to escape the high costs of things like transit. To escape the rat-warren like population density of Toronto's waterfront condos. Markham and Stouffville have sustained themselves for years without mass transit. Without high-rises. Without city-style rental housing. What person in their right mind would even think of living there without a car, or two? The folly of running empty busses across a 700 square mile area of farms and small towns is highlighted by two empty VIVA busses on Highway 7 in the morning.

Escape from Toronto (in a storm)

While watching CNN describe the hurricane hitting Jamaica, and the comparisons to hurricane Rita and Katrina, problems getting people out of the way of the storm was brought up several times. Now in Jamaica, and previously during Katrina, the people who could not get out of the way of the storm, the people hit hardest, were those who did not have their own means of transportation. Those who relied on public transit. Those too poor to afford a car. In Katrina and Rita, many of those people perished waiting in vain for someone, anyone to get them out. But nobody came for them.

As Toronto tries to push a vision of a car-less city, it becomes scarier and scarier to visualize what will happen if disaster is imminent here. The streetcars will of course be of little value in getting people out of the city. They will in fact block streets where they are abandoned. The entire fleet of 1,500 TTC busses carrying 50 people each will barely be able to evacuate TTC and city employees, never mind the other 2 million of us. And during Katrina, we saw busses heading out of the city, but heard that drivers, understandably, refused to return.

Wonder what our Plan B is?

The windmill re-turns.

Never let it be said that only bad news reaches this blog. I spend an enjoyable day sailing west of the Island on Friday, and witnessed a miraculous sight. The windmill was turning. And turning. One almost wants to break out in song. Instead, we have a movie.

TTC Streetcar Named King Running (on) Empty

An almost full page in the National Post today tries one more time to make sense of Toronto's budget woes. CFRB talk show voice John Moore, makes excuses for the 3,200 new jobs at the city, and their cost, by saying "Streetcars don't drive themselves". The Post's photo editor helped drive that point home better than he probably expected. The accompanying photo shows a lonely streetcar on King, one driver and only three passengers. Assuming the accompanying article's claim of an average TTC wage of $60,000 applies to drivers, and that the ride was 20 minutes, it cost $15.00 plus electricity plus infrastructure costs to take these three passengers for their leisurely ride down King.

The answer to Toronto's budget crisis is illustrated with photographic clarity.

The online Post article may be gone by the time you read this and does not show the photo.

What the H E Double Hockeysticks

It seems from recent reports that Al Gore's famous climate doom forecasting hockey stick interpretation of Michael Mann's graph was based on incorrect data, or was just plain wrong, when it predicts a future that was hotter than Hell. The mid 1900's seem now to be shown as the hottest period in NASA recorded time, and that the apparent higher temperatures after 1999 were simply due to satellite data misreading. This was first reported by blogger Stephen McIntyre whose climateaudit.org seems to have been incapacitated. A conspiracy perhaps?

Maybe the next time Mr Gore comes to Canada we can show him what a hockey stick is really used for.

CNE Windmill stops traffic

While driving across the bottom of the city this morning, I ran into more traffic than usual. No, not another truck rollover. The CNE windmill was actually turning, a sight so incredulous that people just had to slow down to look. Of course, with a temperature of only 23 degrees Celsius, its wind power was no longer useful to offset imports of power from the US to keep all of those enemies of the kilowatt, the air-conditioner, humming. Its highly subsidized output ( according to the Windshare website, they are getting $0.11 per kilowatt, while Toronto Hydro is selling it to consumers at about $0.05 ) will just keep a few more empty streetcars on the road, or the billboards along the Gardiner lit up. And generate some cash flow for the investors.

It will probably run until it gets cold enough for people to turn on their baseboard heaters and radiant floors. At which point it will again be a monument to the flakiness of relying on the wind in this part of the world. If it actually does turn tomorrow, I will get a few time lapse photos to document this event for posterity.

Michael Suddard's Homepage - Michael's Blog

Michael Suddard's Homepage - Michael's Blog

Can't agree more.

Lights Out - Anybody Home?

Went to lunch in the underground food court in The Yonge Eglinton Centre, and I thought that I had come across a disaster scene. The place was pitch dark, only one in 5 or so of the lights were working. Not sure whether to go in or not, but no smell of burning subway so it must be OK. But what a dingy, depressing place. Too dark to read. Hard to see which Chinese food item was which. I will have to remember to avoid this place from now on.

I assume that this is part of some misguided energy saving experiment by the building manager. The level of illumination was probably way less than Toronto building standards allow, and certainly less than required for a pleasant stay. But, I guess seeing your food is a frivolous waste of energy in Dwight Duncan's 2007. Little did they know in Calgary when they said "Freeze in the dark, Eastern bastards" in Trudeau's days.

Wonder what the tourists will say when they hear about this?

Another stack at PEC

In better energy news (compared to windless windmills) for Toronto, the fourth stack arose Thursday at the Portlands Energy Centre. IT appears that these things are light enough to be raised by one, albeit huge, crane. If anyone from the Ontario Power is reading this, it would be great to get onto the grounds and take a 360 degree panorama of the site over a period of time.

Wind Powered Honda

While the CNE windmill still refused to power any air conditioners in Wednesday's 30 degree heat, the privately owned, albeit much smaller, wind turbine at Maple Honda near Canada's Wonderland on Highway 400, was generating up a storm. At 50 Kilowatts, it is only 1/15 the potential power of the windmill at the CNE, but based on my limited sample of comparative uptimes, it appears to generate many times more useable power. The construction of the Maple Honda windmill is featured on YouTube.

Big stack attack in the Portlands

A third stack arose at the Portlands Energy Centre, bigger than the first two, and a base for the fourth has already been constructed. While the above ground structure is impressive, the amount of underground construction shown in photos on the Ontario Power Authority website is equally impressive.

Putting on my Made In Canada hat though, I wonder why the stacks had to be brought in from Thailand. Is our manufacturing technology that inefficient, or that incapable that we could not produce this in-house? Sad

Still not turning

Drove by the CNE windmill twice today. Still not turning out windpower. Oh, wait, it does look like one of the blades moved a bit.

How Many Lightbulbs Does It Take To Turn A Streetcar?

Every day, nearly empty (1 - 3 passenger in all) streetcars rumble down Queen Street East, obviously wasting huge amounts of energy. Lets assume that these light loads make up 8 hours each and every day, not unreasonable at all considering there are only the two rush hours periods where the cars are full. 8 hours, at an average of a car every 12 minutes, is 40 runs. Huge cars with nobody in them. Each articulated streetcar weighs about 40 tons. It takes a lot of power to move those behemoths along, with starting and stopping every few hundred metres. These Articulated Light Rail Vehicles have 4 65 kilowatt motors in them, 250 kilowatts in all. Running for an hour, that is 250 kilowatt hours. Since it takes about 15 minutes to travel from the Victoria Park Loop to Kingston Road where the cars start getting fuller, that part of their trip uses up 60 kilowatt hour of electricity. 40 runs consume a whopping 2400 kilowatt hours a day. Times 365 days in a year, a total of 880 megawatts hours.

We are constantly being told that "Every Kilowatt Counts". The Ontario Power Authority claims that it's much ballyhooed Compact Fluorescent Lights program saved 250 megawatt hours per year throughout the whole province. Meanwhile, the TTC manages to piddle away more than that running empty streetcars on Queen East. Add in the rest of Queen, St Clair, Duffer in and the rest, it takes a staggering amount of coal generated electricity to move a handful of people a few kilometres. Yet our million dollar salaried state run electricity monopoly keeps on raving about compact fluorescents. What part of that makes sense.?

Fine print: These calculations are based on information from the TTC, transit related and OPA websites. More accurate information might change a few decimal places in these calculations. Someone correct me if I am calculator or fact checking challenged.

Toronto Sun agrees on Power To The People

Rob Granatstein of the Sun seems to agree on the need for a power plant in our back yard, despite, as he quotes, Councillor Paula Fletcher "detesting" it. As he points out, the massive new condos bring massive air conditioning demads, and the few power lines into the city are already highly loaded.

Rob said it better, but I said Power To The People first.

Turn turn turn turn

It was a great song, but obviosuly not one appreciated by the CNE windmill. Wasn't turning yesterday, wasn't turning when I drove by twice today.

If a tree falls

Yesterday a huge-ish oak tree fell in ravine nearby, on top of a child's play house, narrowly missing a house and a car. Given the history of building in the area, it was probably about 60 years old. The remaining stump was rotten half way through. This tree's time was simply up. Soon another one will spring up from one of the acorns that the squirrels missed. The circle of life continues.

But in 2007 if a tree falls it is a BIG THING. The Toronto Tree Police are probably combing through their files. Who can be blamed for this tree's demise? Who authorized it to fall down? Can we prove it fell because of climate change? Can we fine someone to prop up the city's finances? Can we use this to justify hiring more Tree Police? How much carbon will be released when the tree decomposes? Where did Tarzan take the wood? If it gets recycled into firewood how much CO2 will be released? Who will pay for the carbon credits? Did Al Gore and David Suzuki feel the change in the Force and wince in pain?

Its just a tree. Probably should have been cut down years ago.

Climate on a clothesline

The Toronto papers have in recent weeks carried a number of letters and articles decrying the lack of clotheslines to reduce our collective carbon footprint. Writers want bylaws and covenants against clotheslines eliminated so that the "little woman" can hang her clothes up to dry rather than load the hydro grid, or turn gas into CO2. My mother hung her clothes on a line because we were too poor to afford the few alternatives that there were. We have come a long way baby. Most families, and singles for that matter spend, their days at "real" work, not with time to spend hanging clothes in the sunshine. And things don't dry that well in the dark of the night. Our 25 foot city lots don't have room for the double lines of old. And one wonders how the thousands moving into the condos that line the waterfront will hang their clothes? Many places don't have opening windows for Pete's sake. Maybe we can just ban high density urban living so that all will have room for clotheslines!

Clothes on a line weren't that unsightly, but then neither were a few rusty cars on the front lawn. Most of us would rather just not live this way any more.

Portlands Phoenix

The new 550 megawatt gas fired power plant in the Toronto Portlands is rising like a Phoenix from the ashes of the old coal fired Hearn Generating station. Generating approximately 750 times as much power as the flaky CNE windmill in a hurricane, it will power the rapidly rising wall of condos along the waterfront, the condoification of the lower Don area and then some. Despite opposition from the Breath Much? folk, which according to Now Magazine includes another Phoenix, former Mayor June Rowlands in the form of her daughter, Joyce Rowlands running as a Provincial Liberal candidate, the new power plant is getting taller by the day. The newer technology will still be dwarfed by the 215 metre high carcass of the Hearn station which pumped out 1200 megawatts in the 1960s.

The arguments against the plant seem spurious. Westerly winds will carry any exhaust out over the lake to dissipate. The growing city needs power. What better place to do that than this long time industrial site?