Bike Walk Bus Toronto

Hey everyone! Politicians love flashy projects. If there's an opportunity for a photo op, they will be there. However, this obsession with capital projects instead of operations and maintenance leads to big facilities that are criminally underused (if you're interested in the topic of maintenance of urban systems, I recommend reading A City is not a Computer: Other Urban Intelligences by Shannon Mattern). Ontario is ground-zero for this projects: huge infrastructure that is seldom used. I argue that York Region is a particularly bad example of this relationship. As they say, every decision is made in York Region, and this political clout has led to a huge amount of money allocated for physical infrastructures and little for actually making them work. As construction on the Yonge North Subway Extension to Richmond Hill Centre is set to begin, I argue that York Region is not deserving of this. Using examples of the subway extension to Vaughan, as well as the new Cornell Terminal,...

Earlier today, I headed to Markville Mall, in Markham to run some errands. On my way back, I caught YRT's VIVA Purple bus from the stop at Bullock. While I was waiting, I saw a notice posted on the shelter from YRT related to service changes that took effect on October 31st. A picture of it is below. I could not help but notice the bottom part. It suggests that "Don't worry, if you can't get a ride, YRT will be there for you." Frankly, that is a blatant lie. The route changes listed above tend to be cuts. Oh, your 56 Gorham-Eagle bus used to be rush hours only, every 60 minutes? Don't fret, it will now operate every 64 minutes. As the title of this article suggests, advertisements like this everywhere are quite funny when you consider that the service provided by York Region Transit is, at best, minimal. Realistically, if mom can't pick you up, may of as well wait for her to be able to, you'll get home faster.      It reminded me of something YRT had d...