Sasha on the Street

Greenroads. GreenLITES. CEEQUAL. These are all sustainable highway tools already in place and there are even more in development. What this hopefully means is that in the future our roads, highways and bridges will have a context sensitive design that meets the three pillars of sustainability; social, economic and environmental factors. Different government agencies are [...]

With the recent earthquakes and tsunamis and subsequent nuclear disaster in Japan, nuclear reactors across the world have been called into question. Are they built to today’s codes? Could they with stand a hurricane? An earthquake? A tsunami? Can they with stand the effects of climate change and extreme weather events? Much has been written [...]

The Globe and Mail published an article on making gridlock /congestion /traffic a federal election issue through the use of social media, using #CutMyCommute. Burdened by long drives from home-to-work, home-to-shop, home-to-wherever, commuters believe they should be heard, and they have the support of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. Gridlock isn’t the issue. The issue [...]

On October 25th all of Ontario goes to vote their municipal leaders. Here in Toronto the race for mayor seems to be cooling down. While candidates continue to campaign, Rob Ford seems to be storming ahead with the lead. What? Rob Ford? The man who has insulted at least half of the city’s population; he [...]

I happened to be driving down the Allen Expressway when Toronto mayoral candidate Rocco Rossi announced that if he’s elected he will propose the extension of the Allen Expressway from it’s terminus at Eglinton down to the Gardiner Expressway. His vision is to tunnel from the existing terminus down to the Gardiner. (Uhhh… the Gardiner [...]

As with many of my friends, I went to summer camp up in Ontario. We were on a private lake, we walked everywhere, had wide open fields, no pollution, sunny days, blue skies, great friends … it is some of the best days of my life. Camp would end on the third Thursday in August [...]

Yesterday Dalton McGuinty shuffled cabinet in a hope to improve operations of Ontario Governments. Although, that’s also what he said in January when he had again shuffled cabinet. Instead of efficient, reliable government Ontarian’s were sidled with an eco-fee debacle, a raid on ministries and a strengthened sense that our government is no longer serving [...]

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 [...]

To continue from the other day, our warming climate will drastically change how we design highway infrastructure. Cindy Burbank then took over the presentation. Her presentation highlighted 5 main topics Climate change science, sources and trends The importance of climate change to the state DOTs Strategies to reduce GHG emissions from transportation Climate adaptation for [...]

Build them smaller? Build them greener? Build them with the future in mind. I had the opportunity to attend the Ontario Centre for Engineering and Public Policy’s (OCEPP) lecture on Engineers and the Future of Ontario’s Healthcsare System. The presentation was delivered by Dr. Kimberly Woodhouse, a chemical engineer, Dean of the Queen’s University Engineering [...]