No cars? Ok well it would make transporting food, goods and people impossible so Zermatt allows small electric shuttles – they look like mini buses. All the vehicles are made in the town. The goal is to minimize the air pollution and preserve the view of the Matterhorn by eliminating the combustion engine.

The first thing I noticed on my trip was the amount of electric vehicle congestion. The roads are very narrow in Zermatt and everyone walks, with their skis in tow, to and from the lifts. Our walk each day was almost a km and we frequently were halted as we had to wait for the vehicles to pass us and others coming from the opposite direction.

Zermatt is also in a construction boom, in every direction you look you can see a crane. This means even more vehicles are passing through the streets delivering construction materials. Plus they have now permitted large, diesel trucks to deliver concrete and other large machines (i.e. bobcats) to site. Some of the sites were so inaccessible that goods were delivered by helicopter. Overall is what congestion mania, in the sky with the cranes and helicopters, and in the streets with all the vehicles.

Overall Zermatt is pristine, preserving the air and it’s cultural heritage. Hopefully this construction will come to an end soon. I’v never been to Zermatt in the winter, when the slopes are fully covered, but even in my preseason visit I can see the majesty of the Swiss Alps.

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 years without requiring major structural rehabilitation or reconstruction, and needing only periodic surface renewal in response to distresses confined to the top of the pavement.”

Toronto’s Don Valley Parkway is an example of a perpetual pavement; although we have repair to the surface every year the pavements below haven’t had major reconstruction since it was built 54 years ago.

The real difference between a regular pavement road and a perpetual pavement road is the amount of extra asphalt in a perpetual pavement. The sub-grade is virtually unchanged and there is usually an additional 30% more asphalt in the intermediate layers. You can download a tool, PerRoad 3.3, from the Asphalt Pavement Alliance that allows you to enter in the values for climate, truck percentages, average use and number of asphalt layers that will calculate an approximate value for how much extra asphalt is needed in the design. And as a quick design check you can use AASHTO93 to see if these values seem to reliable; data to date demonstrates that the PerRoad software is reliable.

Some Advantages of Perpetual Pavement Roads:

• Lower lifecycle costs
• Minimal disruption to traffic: you can mill and overlay the surface during lower traffic demands (i.e. at night)\
• Provide a consistently smooth and safe driving surface
• Can be environmentally friendly by incorporating recycling technique
• Typically more flexible than concrete roads, which allow them to ‘move’ with climate and load changes

Concrete vs. Asphalt

I am currently working in the concrete department of a transportation agency and have read quite a bit about concrete roads. I think I’ll leave this one for now and later right another post comparing the two. But  in the end I believe that there is a place for both types of roads depending on the roadway situation – loads, climate, truck vs cars on the roads, flash flooding.. – all of these play a role in deciding what type of road to design.

Multimodal Highways are the Future

I recently finished and wrote a book review of Alphabet City’s book Fuel, which had a great section on the post-carbon highway specifically evaluating Highway 401. The existing highway at it’s widest is 18-lanes with a core-collector system and goes down to 4-lanes in the more rural sections. The future highway will have rail, cycle, transfer stations – it will be the ultimate people mover. With Ontario’s Places to Grow plan and the ever increasing population there is no denying that there needs to be a shift in the way people use the 401.

The 401 is already congested now imagine how gridlocked it would be with a 30% increase in population

A few facts about the 401

• Total length = 820 km (509.6 miles)
• $1.2 Trillion worth of goods travel the highway each year or $3.3 Billion per day
• Annual Average Daily Traffic = 420,000 vehicles
• Peak Average Daily Traffic = 500,000 vehicles
• 71,000 tonnes of salt (NaCl) used annually to combat ice and snow

There is no denying that highways will always play a huge role in moving people to places and things to people in North America. The goal of reducing the carbon footprint on the highways is to incorporate ‘green’ initiatives; wind turbines, pervious pavements, electric vehicles, carpooling, trees along right-of-ways …

I recently took a trip with part of my family on a ski vacation on in Quebec (4 of us in a car has to be better from an environmental perspective than 4 of us flying). What amazed me was the difference in the highways between Quebec and Ontario. I’m not sure I could conclude which one I thought was better but here are some of things I noticed: 

• Ontario has many more rest stops with more amenities. What’s more Ontario seems to be revitalizing some of them (and they do warn you along the highway that the following service centre will be closed at the one you are approaching
• Quebec has a much larger median, even allowing a mini-forest to divide them. Unlike Ontario with it’s concrete median’s and traffic running relatively close to each other Quebec mitigates ‘light noise’ at night by providing a greater separation between traffic
• Quebec puts their rest stops in the median. This was probably done from a cost-savings perspective. This allows users on both the east and west side of the highway to access the rest-stop.
• Quebec has no shoulders on their highways through cities. Okay the same said for the Gardner Expressway through Toronto, but aside from that the highways running through the cities have refuge areas both in the core and collector. But in Quebec they minimize the amount of freeway through cities by eliminating shoulders.
• Rideability – which one was better? In the sections in Ontario that had undergone a rehabilitation the rideability through these sections was better than anything in Quebec. But in areas where rehabilitation had not been completed than the highways were about the same.
• Speed – In Quebec the rural highways, not freeways, the speed limit was 90 km/h. In Ontario the maximum is only 80km/h
• In Quebec if they highway spurs development than the highways speed is not reduced; if the development existed prior to highway construction it seemed that they highway speed decreased to 70km/h. In Ontario prior construction or new construction the highway speed always decreases to 50 km/h in a residential zone.
• In Quebec it seemed like people shared the highway. I saw people walking along the shoulder. Drivers would slow down for the people walking or move into the left hand lane; there seemed to be overall cooperation on the roads.

Ontario snowplowing – Does it Work?

Back in December I wrote an article comparing the snow maintenance methods of Quebec and Ontario. I stated then that I thought Quebec was far superior to Ontario for their snow clearing methods and stand by what I wrote. This weekend reminded me why Ontario does not ‘get it.’

Sunday was a beautiful ski day; warm weather (the temperature hovered around 0 deg), blue bird skies and not a drop of precipitation to be seen. This did mean that some of those snow banks were melting, which in turn created some very thick and treacherous ice on the roads. As my friend, Laurissa, and I ventured home we watched a snow-plow go by on the opposite side of the road and actually make the driving conditions worse.

The plow went by and exposed all the ice below the snow surface.

Quebec mandates that all cars are equipped with snow tires, in Ontario we have not even considered such legislation. But when the plow went by it exposed thick ice on the road and placed no sand or salt where it had just cleared. Instead of leaving a snow covered road it left and ice covered road. Laurissa commented that in Manitoba they leave the snow and add sand, which seems like a much more logical, safe, and environmentally safe thing to do.

The drivers made things worse.

As our drive continued we encountered areas that had just been snow plowed, which meant there was thick, shiny, slippery ice in front of us. Leaving a safe distance I watched the reaction of the cars around us. And I’m glad I did. The driver in front of us slammed on the brakes as they approached the ice. Slamming on your brakes is about the worst thing you can do in slippery conditions; the tires lock up, you lose control of the vehicle and typically spins and slides result. The car in front of us almost did a full spin into on coming traffic. I elected to drive on the snowy shoulder and use my transmission to slow me down.

We made it home safely; it just took a lot longer. But it was again a reminder that not only do our snow-plows make the road worse but some of the drivers out there make for very dangerous driving conditions.

Sidewalks in the City

I’m talking about the ones in the downtown cores, you know the ones. The ones near the main public transportation stops. The ones in the financial district. The ones that always seem full of people. A couple of tips that might make these easier to navigate:

• respect the sidewalk like a road: For the majority of us that means walk to the right hand side. And if you are playing on your mobile, listening to music or even reading a book, stick to the right side. Leave room for those who want to travel faster in the ‘left hand lane’ or middle of the sidewalk (but be weary not to cross the centre line, it can be vicous!!)
• Wait for the bus on the bus stop pad: yesterday I watched a guy block the entire sidewalk as he waited for his bus. Granted the sidewalk wasn’t that busy but he had his back turned to some of the on-coming pedestrian traffic, who had to manoever awkwardly in the snow to avoid him
• don’t hog the middle: if you happen to be out when it isn’t that busy make sure you leave room for others. Too often are people walking with their heads down oblivious to others

The Suburban Story

Typically the sidewalks here are not as busy and usually they are narrower than the big city blocks of the downtowns.  And usually they are not as crowded. Lumped in with the traditional suburban sidewalks I am also going to include the residential ones of cities, again they are not usually as busy and are narrow. A few tips to remember:

• avoid walking in the middle: maybe the rules of the road shouldn’t necessarily apply, some drivers go really fast down those residential roads. Instead walk to the inside (the area closest to the homes). This gives people who are running, speed walking, inline skating, etc the chance to get by
• dog issues: please pick up any poo and please hold your dog to give ways to runners

Rural Sidewalks

Typically they do not exist. This is more as a driver. Please be aware of people who are recreationally using the side of the road (the shoulder area) since there is no sidewalk.

If we could all be more polite on the sidewalk (myself included) they would probably be more efficient.

It is Christmas day today and I just wanted to send out a reminder to respect the roads. Environment Canada predicts that the entire country will be blanketed in snow for the first time since 1971, which means we need to respect the roads.

Here are some simple driving tips to make sure you arrive safely to your destination…

• Drive according to the conditions – slow down if you have to. Arriving for dinner 10 minutes late is better than not arriving at all (there are always too many accidents on Christmas Eve and Day).
• Make sure you have enough windshield washer fluid – Visibility is essential to safe driving, make sure you clean your windshield as necessary. Keep an extra bottle of fluid in your car.
• Carry a good ice scraper – make sure you completely clear your front and rear windshield as well as your lights. By clearing the lights you can see where you are going and people behind you have a better chance of seeing your brake lights
• Keep blankets in the car – with our extreme weather these days you never know when you will hit a storm and get stuck. Make sure you have blankets, gloves, extra clothes in case you are stuck on the highway somewhere
• Be polite – it’s the holiday season be cheerful and joyous and wave to people as you pass them

I hope everyone has a very happy holidays, however they chose to celebrate.

Things you should see on the way:

• The Big Apple – Colborne, Ontario
• Thousand Islands – Gananoque, Ontario
• Morency Falls Quebec City, Quebec
• Mount Royal – Montreal, Quebec
• Sanctuare/Basillique – Sainte-Anne de Beaupre

Where is the future of Aviation?

The bulk of the documentary seemed to discuss the green and not-so-green side of aviation. There was some discussion regarding the ever expanding disparities in income and how fewer and fewer people in the world can actually afford to fly.

1) Virgin Airlines
Owned and operated by Sir Richard Branson, his goal is to ‘green’ his fleet of aircrafts. In this BBC articleit highlights that Branson plans to spend $3bn over the next 10 years on renewable energy initiatives, that he has ordered 15 of Boeing’s fuel-efficient Dreamliner Aircrafts, and that Branson intends to fly the first bio-fuel powered commercial aircraft. In his interview last night on The Sky’s the Limithe committed all of the profits from Virgin’s flights to finding ‘green’ fuel. His money has gone into researching algae oil as a source of fuel. Apparently you can drink the fuel of the future, although Branson claimed it tasted terrible!

2) Plane Stupid
Plane Stupid is a group of protesters that rallies to promote the effects of the aviation industry on our environment. In The Sky’s the Limitthey focused on the recent protest at Heathrow’s New Terminal, Terminal 5. They also showed a demonstration at British Airways headquarters in London, where Plane Stupid Members hung banners from their roof. With Heathrow’s plans to build a 6th terminal and a third ruway and wipe out the towns of Sipson, Harmondsworth and Harlington. Expect Plane Stupid to be there protecting with the citizens.

What also caught my attention was the Airbus Beluga. Both my boyfriend and couldn’t believe what we were seeing, it literaly looks like a flying whale. Designed to transport over-sized objects it looks like its ‘mouth’ opens up and swallows the object whole!

Having the opportunity to see the world and experience different culture gives everyone a much greater appreciation for humanity. I am not against travel, it offers a wealth of opportunities to learn, but I would like to see aviation travel get greener.

The TTC decided to abolish tickets because of fraudulant copies being produced and used across the city. It was estimated to cost the TTC somewhere between $3 and $4 million per year.

In 2007 a similar scheme was implemented for the old, plain tokens. The new two tone tocken was implemented in 2006 and customers had until the end of February 2007 to use their old tokens. When all the old tokens were rounded together it was estimated that approximately 30% were counterfeit.

How long until the current token can be copied easily and costs the TTC millions of dollars a year?

When the decision was made to abolish tickets my worry was that individuals would only be able to purchase tokens at Subway locations. I just spoke with a representative from the TTC and that is not the case. I was assured that the 1200 locations that previously sold tickets would continue to sell tokens.

With approximately 1.5million people using the TTC every day it is the third in terms of system demand each day. Hopefully these news schemes can minimize counterfeit losses and the TTC can continue to operate at current prices or even lower fare costs.