Sasha on the Street

Toronto has been said to have two seasons ‘Winter’ and ‘Construction.’ On this hot, humid, sticky day traveling through the Toronto area I noticed that there seems to be even more construction. It seems like most north-south routes through the core of the city are under construction (Bayview, Mount Pleasant, Yonge and Avenue). And a [...]

This week my good friend Dave sent me this amazing and hilarious video about a new road sign. In the video the trade-off between safety and efficiency (carbon footprint) is discussed. Although it seems a little far fetched, I’m sure we’ll see something like it in the future.

Last week I sat in on a webinar jointly hosted by AASHTO/FHWA/FTA on climate change and transportation; Climate Change 101: An Overview of Climate Change for State DOTS – An overview of climate change science, linkages to energy security, greenhouse gases (GHG) reduction strategies for Surface Transportation and risk-based adaptation to climate change. This presentation [...]

Not surprisingly there was another traffic accident on highway 401 this morning. It was almost in the centre of Toronto, in the Yonge Westbound Express lanes. As reported by CP24 a tractor trailer plowed into the guard rail dumping 200 litres of diesel fuel across the highway and seriously damaging the guardrail. The result for [...]

On Wednesday I had the opportunity to attend a seminar on perpetual pavements. With a panel of experts on pavements they made a convincing case for asphalt roads. What is a perpetual pavement? Defined by the Washington Asphalt Pavement Association, “a perpetual pavement is an asphalt pavement designed and built to last longer than 50 [...]

Asphalt Roads versus Concrete Roads … what is better long term? There is no easy way to answer this question; it depends on the climate the roads are subjected to, the traffic volumes, the maintenance contracts, etc. But yesterday I had the opportunity to attend a seminar that shifted my preference to concrete roads. What [...]

Yesterday I happened to be on the Gardiner when the Tamil Protesters took over. I narrowly escaped and managed to make it to my mother’s day dinner on-time. I do feel for the protesters but holding a city hostage is no way to have your cause heard. I think the social injustice in countries like [...]

Unfortunate but true it happens more often than it should. Ontario estimates that over the past decade over 2000 people have died due to impaired driving and over 50,000 people have been injured! But it’s not just those affected, both emotionally and physically, it is estimated that impaired driving costs the province $3billion annually. The [...]

Toronto doesn’t have a true ring road instead Toronto is surrounded by a ‘box’ road made up of Highway 427, Highway 401, The Gardiner Expressway (Gardiner) and The Don Valley Parkway (DVP). I was inspired yesterday by a tweet by ReNew Canada to think about this issue again. As quoted from the Future of the [...]

Friday I had the opportunity to attend a seminar put together by the OTC (Ontario Traffic Conference) on Transportation Planning. The day covered various southern Ontario initiatives from bicycle routes, to public transit, to planning for long-term projects. Here is a summary on the presentations I enjoyed: Transit City: Planning for Light Rail in Toronto [...]