Meet Presto, Greater Toronto's long-awaited integrated fare card system. Ontario's initiative to improve the way GTA-ers pay fares will finally put us in line with other transit authorities in North America and around the world.

Presto will be rolled out next month on a trial basis on select routes in Mississuaga which make connections to GO Transit stations at Meadowvale and Cooksville, as well as at Union Station.

Presto is expected to be fully rolled out in Brampton, Burlington, Durham Region, Hamilton, Mississauga, Oakville, York Region and GO transit systems by 2010. One key transit system is oddly missing is the TTC. Because of TTC's large fleet of 1,500 buses and 250 some streetcars, there has not been a deal reached as to who will pay for the implemetentaion of card readers across the TTC system.

During full implementation, TTC will only accept the Presto card at the five key subway stations with interregional connections at Don Mills, Downsview, Finch, Islington, and Union stations.

What do you guys think of the name Presto? If you have a music background, you'd know that Presto means quick or fast in Italian. I suppose we use the term colloqually as well. I suppose the name is acceptable, but it's missing a bit of local flavour and pizzaz. Perhaps we can follow the footsteps of LuminaTO, and spell it PresTO. At least in that case, there's a reference to our region.

Presto Card official website - [prestocard.ca]
Smart card - [wikipedia.org]
Southern Ont. to see multi-system transit fare card
Fare enough: Single card aims to ease ticket trouble - [thestar.com]

I don't know if you guys have been following the transit news the past few weeks, but there has been tonnes of new transit annoucments. First, Premier McGuinty announced an ambitious $17.5 billion infrastructure plan that would blanket the Greater Golden Horseshoe to improve transit access within the region.

McGuinty announced that the Ontario government would invest $11.5 billion in transit projects, with an expectation that the federal government will chip in $6 billion. Many of you might be think that such a condition would hinder any kind of projects to move forward, and that's why McGuinty has promised that projects will continue regardless of support by the Feds.

There are a total of 52 projects presented, some of which I am very pleased to be hearing about. For instance, there are long-overdue plans to extend the Yonge subway to Highway 7, the full implementation of the TTC Transit City light rail plan, as well as the construction of dedicated transitways on the VIVA network. Aside from municipal projects, GO Transit will see the expansion of new rail lines into north Pickering, the extension of existing routes to Barrie in the north and Bowmanville in the east, as well as Bolton in the northwest. GO bus rapid transit projects are also planned in the 905 regions.

The ambitious plan has not been well-received in local papers as it has been criticized for being a blatant pre-election campaign promise. The Toronto Star was definitely cynical by publishing this announcement in Page 6 of the paper. While I can understand a bit of cynicism about these plans, especially as McGuinty has not been the greatest promise keeper (i.e. Ontario Health Premium), I think that he cannot afford to not keep his promise on this issue. I think that our transportation woes have become such a state of urgency that no party can ignore.

So yes, I support McGuinty and his great transit plan. I hope to see fast results if he gets elected, or otherwise I will hope a huge political grudge against him. I encourage all you readers to do the same and rise to the occasion to ensure that he keeps his promise.

Let us all not forget what he promised on June 15, 2007!

MoveOntario 2020 Backgrounder - [ontario.ca]
MoveOntario 2020 Projects - [ontario.ca]
MoveOntario 2020 Map - [ontario.ca]

Convocation was quite a fun day, except that I had to get up at 5:30, having only slept at 2, just so that I can shower, and get properly groomed for the event. It's sad that I have to get up earlier than I would if I were to go to work.

Of course, with every weekday, the highways are jammed solid. I was smart enough to choose not to take the shift to drive to Waterloo. So my couragous dad volunteered, while I peacefully slept with my iPod. Haha.

Anyways, Wednesday was perhaps the hottest day of the year so far, and of course, we were all sweating to death underneath our gowns and shirts. It's quite fun being in a sauna and to continue to smile pleasantly.

It's been a long tradition for us ES kids to be sharing the ceremony with the AHS kids, since we are the school's smallest faculties. Because of this, I was blessed to share the ceremony with hotties like Jo and Mike. (Good fellas Pat and Wallace also came to cheer us on.) Our very amazing valedictory address, which was very witty and meaningful, was also from an AHS student.

The ceremony itself was by far the most efficiently convocation I have witnessed to date-- and I have been to a handful of them ranging from U of T, Ryerson, and York. Instead of calling each person individually, Waterloo decided that students are sent up in three's. Wow, this almost conveyor belt process must've been invented by a Waterloo Engineer. It's so brilliant.

Because we're up there in three's, you tend to gage your time up there to how fast the other two are holding up. It puts pressure for people just move on, and I like that.

Sure it gives me less time to interact with the people sitting on stage, but it is a very small price to pay compared to having to sit there bored waiting for your own turn.

The name annoucement system is also quite state of the art. The presenter annouces the names from a computer screen, which shows a live video feed off stage which displays the name cards accordingly. I thought it was very neat. Our stats professor, Jean Andrey, presented our names, and I climbed up the stage with good ol' Loreen and Lincoln. For a session with over 600 graduates, it took exactly two hours.

There has been reports about this year's convocation events being in high demand, since this is the year the double cohort leaves the system. At Waterloo, I didn't really notice too much overcrowding, though I did hear that other sessions were much more busier than ours. There were a total of eight sessions this year-- two each day from Wednesday to Saturday. The number of sessions remained unchanged from last year, but up from five the year before. I guess this was because so many students fast tracked to avoid the double cohort.

The ceremonies are divided very interestingly, and it really shows the different enrolment levels across campus. While ES and AHS share ceremonies, Computer Science alone can occupy its own session.

On to the ring ceremony. It was quite neat. I was surprised to be greeted with actual lunch food, from delicious deli wraps, salads, dessert and coffee. Oh man, it was good. It was also great to get all the planners together in one room, since it's so hard to catch people down for pictures once we have all dispersed from the PAC. Though I found the need to restrain myself from my usual behaviour, since there were so many parents in the room. I was lucky enough to meet Paolo and Martina's parents. Paolo's dad was literally like Paolo-- he has the same goofiness that we've grown to love from P.

All the remaining pics are published on Facebook. They can be viewed without logging in, so take a look!

Pictures from Convocation and Ring Ceremony 2007 - [facebook.com]
All you need to know about convocation - [uwaterloo.ca]
Ring Ceremony - [uwaterloo.ca]

This article has been in my drafts folder for the longest time, so forgive me for this dated article.

A number of us headed downtown to do all that is Luminato last last Saturday-- and we focussed mainly on the visual arts and design events. We roamed a bit around the financial district to see some of the hanging art that surrounded most building lobbies.

Anyways, he highlight events were definitely those along Harbourfront. I was very surprised so much people down by the water. There was visual arts, music, cultural events, buskers, cultural food, and just lots of happy people enjoying the sunshine by the water.

We spent a helluva a long time at the Bellissima tent just adjacent to the Queen's Quay Terminal. They had very amazing curries, salads, and wonderful cultural live entertainment. If course, we checked out the great light spectcle, PULSE FRONT, surrounding the Harbourfront. Apparently, the light show was so popular that they extended the show to.. today. I really enjoyed the show, and it's so exciting to see Toronto doing something like this.

With events like Luminato and Nuit Blanche, it is clear that Toronto has a real thirst for arts and culture. What best place to do it than a diverse and vibrant place like Toronto? I think that we really can expect great things here in Toronto, and it is really attempting to bring in that 'creative class' that we talk so much about in planning school.

I think the one thing Toronto should work on is to accomodate more places for arts, culture, and entertainment to take place-- free from having to get a permit or to pay some private sector party. I guess this is why some of the public spaces people are so keen on pushing for these places.

It would really be great for arts and culture to just naturally take place. That would be neat.

Luminato - [luminato.com]
A businessperson's notion of a festival - [thestar.com
Pulse Front Photo - [flickr.com]

Today was a fun day at work as we unveiled TTC's plan to purchse a new fleet of light rail vehicles to replace our current streetcars.

The public consultation plan is named "Transfer to the Future-- Toronto is Transit City." I like the pun on the transfer thing, and I'm really impressed with the good start to the public consultation process. It's getting people excited about the future of light rail transit, and the website is surprisingly vibrant, exciting, youthful and psychadelic-- especially the fabulous video (click on 'Video' at the bottom of the flash page). I have been hearing the addictive tune of the video throughout the office. Haha.

Browse through the website, and let TTC know what you like or don't like from the world's stock of LRVs.

Transfer to the Future - [mynewstreetcar.ca]
What Do You Want in the New TTC Streetcars? - [blogto.com]
Transit City - [transitcity.ca]

We Will Rock You definitely rocked. Wowsers.

Similar to ABBA and Mamma Mia, the show features songs from the classic British rock band Queen, but so much better!

We Will Rock You was set in a time way in the future when the planet known only as Planet Mall is controlled by a mega corporation, GlobalSoft. Conformity is the norm in the society. Only computer generated pop music is allowed to be played, and others like rock music is prohibited.

During the show, I was surprised how much Queen songs that I actually knew. I recall the classic We Will Rock You, Bohemian Rhaposody, and Bicycle, but I totally had no idea that others like Another One Bites The Dust were also sung by Queen.

The singing in this production is phenomenal. In fact, I think the singing is better than Queen's. This is a must see for musical lovers.

We Will Rock You - [wewillrockyou.ca]
We Will Rock You (musical) - [wikipedia.org]

Did I offend anyone already? After years of being educated about the problems associated with cul-de-sacs, I suddenly have a change of heart.

Cul-de-sacs have been given a bad reputation mainly because of its hinderance to provide direct transit and pedestrian access from Point A to Point B. These road patterns have been built mainly as a way to deter vehicles from bypassing certain neighbourhoods. It forces drivers to use larger arterial roads, in which these cul-de-sacs are fed into. Because of this great luxury of having a peaceful, quiet, and kid-friendly streets, homebuyers in the past have preferred these 'courts' over others.

These road forms became so popular in the 1980s and 1990s that there are some urban areas that literally have nothing but cul-de-sacs. It's actually quite abysmally disgusting to see aerial photographs of suburban areas in Atlanta, Houston, Philadelphia, Calgary, and even Milton Keynes, In these places, the impermeability of the street network meant that it may require a 10-minute drive just to get to an adjacent property.

So while these 'courts' are intended to allow people to play safely in the streets, it also meant that residents would need a car to get to any destination outside the street proximity. Transit wouldn't be sustainable, just because it would have to weave through these squiggly routes that were essentially designed to discourage through-way access. This criticism is essentially the New Urbanism school of thought.

While we think that the GTA's sprawl is bad, it really isn't in relative terms. The GTA has never religiously adopted this pure cul-de-sac road network, but that doesn't mean we're not guilty of transit-unfriendly street patterns, as we too have adopted a strict hierarchial curvilinear road network structure in residential neighbourhoods from the 1970s to the 1990s.

As a way to reverse these old mistakes, and to encourage more permeability for car and pedestrian gtraffic around the neighbourhood, New Urbanist principles have since been adopted in almost all new low-rise residential subdivisions in Greater Toronto. It can easily be witnessed in new developments in Markham, Vaughan, and to a lesser extent Brampton.

Wow, my love for cul-de-sacs ended up being a long discussion about planning. I apologize as it really wasn't my intention. Yes, I love cul-de-sacs. But as a disclaimer, I'd like to say that I love cul-de-sacs, but only in close moderation.

Cut to the chase...
I'm going to segue into a small anecedote about numerous conversations I have had in the office today.

But first, some context: Our beloved Paolo tells me that he has frequent street parties and BBQ events with families on his cul-de-sac street in London. He tells me while we all talk about the issues of cul-de-sacs, he actually enjoys his close-knit street-oriented neighbourhood, and it actually is quite refreshing to see how much life there can be in a suburban neighhourhood. Because seriously, I doubt there are many closely-knitted surburban neighhourhoods like Wisteria Lane.

Anyways, on the the story-- while talking with one fellow co-worker on Monday, he told me that he, too, had a street BBQ, and quickly, I asked him whether he lives on a cul-de-sac.

He told me he did. Wowsers. I thought to myself if it was a tradition for cul-de-sac residents or something.

Surprise surprise? I truly do think that the way that homes in cul-de-sacs are oriented towards a centre loop encourages more social cohesion. Also, I figure that they know and can easily spot their neighhours because there really is no reason for outsiders to be entering the street.

I am very jealous of these neat street parties, and I seriously doubt that anything could be organized on my Markham pseudo-crescent street.

To all the residents of cul-de-sac streets, I salute you.

Cul-de-sac - [wikipedia.org]
New Urbanism - [wikipedia.org]