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.