Here is what you can expect to see:

1. Pedestrian Deaths: Recently in Toronto there has been a spike in pedestrian-auto collisions, many resulting in fatalities. I’d like to explore some causes, some of the rational behind them and offer some suggestions as to how we can mitigate future fatalities.

2. Micro-loans: It should pave the way for brighter futures for those in Developing Nations, especially women. Micro-loans are designed to give people that first start they need to get a business rolling. In many of these countries women face many social injustices, micro-loans allow these women to try and overcome these barriers.

3. McGuinty’s Green Energy Plan: A lot of controversy has risen over the source of product for the renewable energy source. With much of it from Samsung and built off-shore Ontarian’s are criticizing McGuinty’s actions.

4. Environmental Assessment: In my last semester of my masters of engineering I am taking a class on environmental assessment. I will try and post weekly commentary on what is new and interesting

5. Book Review: I’ve read quite a bit over the last few weeks and on my new Kindle (thanks to @phryl).  While you may not be so intersted in my opinion of the twilight series I have read some more enlightening and engaging material. The next one I am hoping to read is Jeffrey Sachs’ The End of Poverty.

These will be out shortly, check back for updates.

I couldn’t help but notice all the things we could have done to reduce our footprint on the earth.

1. Ask for water and juice in pitchers – Instead of all those little plastic bottles ask for glasses and pitchers of juice and water. You almost always get real coffee cups, why can’t they give you real glasses too?
2. Real plates – Instead of paper, or worse plastic, ask for real plates. Even offer to have a service come in, drop them off and pick up the dirty ones. If that is not an option there are bamboo and other compostable plates.
3. Re-use name tags: How many name tags do you have that are white, have your name, where you work and are in a regular, white plastic envelope? And ok if you use an old name tag it makes it look a little less professional but we could all use a little less plastic.
4. Instead of handing out folders with handouts email all participants PDF versions of the handouts. Some people may choose to print them but at least you’ll be reducing the overall number of pages printed.

What else can you do to reduce the impact?

I’m hoping next year to be on the executive committee again next year and try to implement some of these tactics.

Thanks to my bf I was directed to the ‘ultimate’ TTC Map on torontoist.com. Dreamed up by Dieter Janssen, an architecture professor at the University of Toronto this map adds new lines, extends existing ones and tries to capture the GTA audience.

Below vs. Above Ground

Streetcar or Subway? Economically it just doesn’t make sense to build more subways. From what I’ve heard every subway kilometre costs $200million and every streetcar kilometre $70million. But with the harsh climate and rolling ravines in Toronto I don’t know that complete surface transit is the answer.

Fare Hikes to Fund New Transit

Either solution where are the funds going to come from to build on this infrastructure? With budgets stretched thin already and existing infrastructure already failing one suggestion has been to increase fares. Before the fare hikes come in, we need to have a zone system in place and a ‘pay-as-go’ card.

Paul Kashimoto made an interesting remark – why not follow the Hong Kong example and earn revenues from managing properties in the vicinity of the transit stations? From Design-Build to Design-Build-Operate.

Although Jansenn’s dream might seem far-fetched it is necessary to have a healthy, sustainable city. For too long Toronto has let its infrastructure be stagnant and we’re paying the price today.

What is diamond grinding?

The seminar I attended yesterday was on diamond grinding; a process where a machine chews up the concrete, creating longitudinal lines in the road leaving the surface smoother and more level. Basically a cylindrical cutting head, with many little diamonds as teeth, is attached to a machine that runs over the driving surface and creates the longitudinal lines in the road. This process is really only meant for concrete roads; the asphalt is too soft and would tear away with a diamond grinding machine.

But diamond grinding doesn’t just improve the drivability of the road, it also enhances the safety. Those longitudinal lines increase the surface friction of the road, which helps with the drainage of water at the tire-pavement surface. It also helps to decrease the noise of a highway; as a concrete highway surface wears it becomes ‘polished’ and quite loud. By restoring some friction with diamond grinding the noise is decreased.

The biggest advantage to diamond grinding is the cost savings. It is significantly cheaper to diamond grind a highway that to put on an asphalt overlay. The asphalt overlay would require bridge clearances to be changed and moving most guide-rail, curb and gutter – all of which adds up to significant costs.

Why aren’t concrete roads used more in Toronto? (and this gets a little technical)

SALT. NaCl. Cl-Chloride is an element that has deleterious effects on concrete. When the chloride penetrates the concrete it attacks the reinforcing steel of the road, significantly decreasing the strength of the concrete. The break down of the concrete is also contributed to the alkali reactions that break down the cement paste and aggregates.

To make it simple think of most freeway/highway bridges. Often you see reinforcing steel that is sticking out from the concrete face. The chlorides have attacked the steel causing to rust other reactions take place and the concrete breaks down and your left with exposed, rusted steel. But on a road this is so much worse, because the heavy trucks and cars breakdown the weakened concrete even further.

That’s why we have asphalt coverings on our concrete roads, to protect the concrete from the salt.

Concrete takes top prize

In the end I think concrete is a better solution to roads. This diamond grinding process can be done three or four times significantly increasing the life of the road. Plus when they do the diamond grinding to improve the roads there are minimal traffic closures and disruptions. Concrete roads have a much higher upfront cost but over the lifespan of the road, concrete is significantly less than an asphalt road.

Transit City: Planning for Light Rail in Toronto
By now many of us have seen the Transit City proposed map and typical street cross-section (I’ve included links here to both). None of the proposed routes are expected to be subway routes, they should all be LRT (light rail transit); there is a huge cost savings by using LRT’s over subways. From the presentation it seemed as though many of the routes were currently being put through the EA process.
What can commuters expect? Vehicles that will be up to 90m long, 3 to 6 minutes between vehicles during peak hours, likely no rate hike in the central zone (potentially a zone system like many European cities), and a loss of parallel local public transportation on these routes (i.e. no TTC buses making frequent stops).
What’s still missing? The key to the future is multi-modal transit, being able to park your car somewhere so it is convenient to use these routes. From what was said it seems as this will be the TTC’s biggest weakness. It is an absolute must to have parking lots at major stations.

Best Practices for the Delivery of Long-Term Projects in Small to Medium Sized Communities
This presentation was aimed at the suburbs of Toronto. The presenter challenged the city engineers present to think outside the box, to use accepted innovative techniques and to plan from the best perspective of the community; was the community stable and slow-growing or was it a high growth area subject to peaks. She commented on how necessary it was to use good data and to verify data often.
There are limitations with planning right now, namely: staff resources, data sharing and cooperation, appropriate tools and data, funding, political and community support and an overall transportation planning strategy with regular data collection. From Toronto to Mississauga to Pickering to Vaughn, ask anyone of those city planners and I’m sure the plans between them all vary greatly.

Twin City Cycling: Burlington’s Lessons Learned from Apeldoorn, NL
Creating a cycling network in the community should be a part of all city and regional transportation plans; to date it is usually an after thought. It is well known that cycling in Europe, more importantly in the Netherlands, is a part of the culture. Cyclists in the Netherlands don’t have to contend with road traffic and have designated one-way cycle tracks (better than a bike lane it has a buffer from the vehicular traffic).
When engineers plan a bike lane they think about planning, designing and construction. While the users think about directness, safety, comfort and attractiveness. To design bike lanes in Ontario we need to use engineering but to design for the user.
Canada vs. The Netherlands: Did you know that in the Netherlands if a motorist hits a cyclist or a pedestrian than the motorist is at fault? Instead of thinking injury prevention like we do in Canada, the Netherlands is thinking collision prevention. By making the motorist responsible there has been an overall increase in the level of duty of care.

Driving the Debate: The Challenges and Opportunities Facing Canada’s Transportation Network
Canada has over 900,000km of road network! And up to 38% of that might be substandard, a total of 22% of our bridges are likely substandard (according to a 1998 report by the council of Ministers – 1998!?! How much of that is substandard now!) More importantly the people driving those roads think they are unsafe, crowded and that there are too many trucks on the road.
How do we solve this? According to CAA Governments need to view roads as investments not as expenses, we need to work within the available funding commitments, commit to “shovel ready” projects, invest in all forms of transportation an forge strong working relationships amongst the provinces

The last few weeks have been fairly busy for me and it seems like the trend will continue. Last week was the final week of classes at U.of.T for my Master’s courses. The week was quite stressful with an exam, a presentation and a final paper. The last evening were the presentation for my Engineering and Public Policy Course and the theme of an unsustainable city rang through.

Toronto and Ontario need to change their course of action.

In total there were 9 presentations (although I can only remember 8 of them right now). The target audience was typically the Ontario government but sometimes more locally with only the Toronto Government. Some of them have less to do with sustainability, the environment or transportation but I still included them.

Lowering Emissions: the group focused in on vehicle emissions, since it represents a serious amount of the carbon emissions in Ontario. In ways to minimize auto use they compared an even-odd system (where vehicles that end in an odd number drive one day, evens the other day), using emerging technologies to lower vehicle emissions, and a carbon cap system.

Making Ontario’s Health Record System Electronic: Yes, hospitals and clinics are still completely paper based. It’s inefficient and wasteful. Instead there should be something like a portal system to access records.

Dealing with Toronto’s Garbage: Although the group talked about diversion and techniques used in Sweden there was no mention about creating new diversion techniques in Toronto. The options they discussed with either land filling or incineration.

Supplying Energy to Toronto: With the current growth in Toronto we will be unable to supply the needed energy during peak demand times. Already underway is the construction on another massive power line to help alleviate this issue, but it’s not enough. This short-term solution needs a long-term solution. The presenters did mention the potential off-shore wind project on Lake Ontario but the bulk of their solution was the construction of more power lines.

HIV/AIDS in Canada: There is still no cure for HIV/AIDS. There drug regimens that allow individuals to lead almost normal lives. Awareness and education has somewhat dropped off the radar screen, the presenters emphasized the need for increased awareness and education programs.

Congested Road Network: The highways of the Golden Horseshoe are almost always congested. With a weak transit network it is difficult to be multi-modal. Instead the solution was for tolled lanes, HOV lanes, more Advanced Traffic Management Systems, and creating more capacity.

Waste-Water: With the population ever increasing in Toronto there is constant demand for the waste-water treatment plants. Currently the system is operating almost at capacity and with an ailing system it will soon not be able to meet demand. The authors discussed various treatment options and new sites that would be possible to deal with waste water.

The Aging Bridge Network: The province has downloaded 12,000 bridges to the municipalities and gave them a one-time payout for the inspection of these bridges. With the fatal collapses in Quebec and Minnesota the presenters believed that in Ontario we were not doing enough. The recommendation was for a province operated inspection program.

What none of these projects really touched upon was how we, as a society, can be more preventative. There was nothing about package minimization (yesterday the Toronto Star had an interesting article on this), creating new diversion programs, and nothing on changing the social attitudes of the population.

The evening of presentations definitely got me thinking about sustainability in Toronto and small things I could do to make a difference. What are things you do that help minimize your impact on the environment?

This all ties into what my Technology, Society and the Enviorment professor, Dr. Vanderburg, teaches each week …

… we are all specialists in one area but we cannot solve the problems to the consequence of our solutions. However, if you take a team of experts one can find the solution to the problem that employs the least harm on our environment.

In essence Vanderburg is talking about the triple bottom line; people, planet profit (do what is right for society, protect the environment and still make some revenue). VE seeks to do the same thing, to see the big picture, to find the optimal solution but takes into consideration the impact on society and the environment. And instead of seeking to maximize profit VE seeks to maximize the total opportunity cost of our society, its environment and revenue.

I’m on board for VE. Used at the right time in the design process, at the preliminary phase, the great ideas that result from the VE process can be championed throughout the design process.

My first class, titled above, is taught by Professor W.H. Vanderburg. His passion’s lie in the study of technology, society, biosphere interactions and its application to the development of preventive approaches for the engineering, management and regulation of modern technology.

The theme that echoed through the introduction of this course was

Although we may all be experts in one area only collectively can we solve the problem of sustainability

Professor Vanderburg highlighted that there are always consequences to our actions (i.e. planing a new subdivision creates congestion, drainage issues, etc) and that if we employ experts in those fields (i.e individuals who specialize in public transportation, waste-water management, renewable fuels, etc) than we can find a sustainable long-term solution to building new subdvisions.