TORONTO, ONTARIO - Travel writer Rick Steves is more willing than many of his peers to talk about the political implications of what he learns when he travels. While his most out-spoken political position may be on the legalization of marijuana, two stories he told on various radio shows and on a blog about his trip last spring to Iran say more about potential relations between the US and Iran than anything heard in the news.
While taking a van around the capitol not after his arrival in Tehran, Steves found himself in a traffic jam. Iran is not immune to western-style slow-downs; this back-up was so bad that cars in a portion of the highway would not move for minutes at a time. (Traffic engineers sometimes call this "level of service F"--I always wondered what they would call it at Stanford, where "F" grades are not allowed, but I digress.) Passengers in a car next to the van noticed that there was a foreigner inside. At one point, they rolled down their window and handed over a bouquet of flowers for the van's driver to give to Steves--they wanted to apologize for their traffic. Can you imagine that happening on the Gardiner Expressway, the 101, or even I-35W in Minneapolis?
Perhaps the most frightening vision of Iran in the American psyche is that of Iranians chanting "Death to America!" But what does that phrase really mean? Steves gained considerable insight in another traffic incident. When caught in yet another traffic jam, his "local guide" (they didn't like the term "government minder") suddenly blurted out "Death to traffic!" Seeing a confused look on Steves' face, he explained, "Because we can do nothing about this traffic, we can all say 'Death to Traffic'." In other words, he didn't literally mean he wanted to kill all the other drivers, but to succinctly express frustration with something that was beyond his control. It rather puts the frightening "Death to America!" saying in context--it's an expression of frustration with something beyond their control, the actions of the United States government.
Somehow, I suspect if I say "Death to Cold!" that people around here won't understand that I just mean to express frustration about something beyond my control. Yet such simple explanations could go a long way to changing impressions about people in a culture that Americans have had little reason to try to understand.
For more of Steves' impressions in Iran, read his Iranian travel blog.
Friday, February 6, 2009
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Heritage: Pre-Historic Swansea
During a Swansea Historical Society meeting on 4-February-2009, George Duncan held a fossil he found along the Humber River
TORONTO, ONTARIO - The Swansea Historical Society held its first regular meeting of 2009 on Wednesday, with the George Duncan as the featured speaker. Duncan took his audience back to a much older time than in most meetings--445 million years ago.
How is that? Those who have walked along the Humber River, in particular those areas with cliffs like Bâby Point north of Swansea, may have noted that very distinct layers may be seen in the soil. These formations are layers of sedimentary rock, the kind of formation where one can find fossils, and this presentation was about fossils.
George Duncan held up a shell at the Swansea Historical Society on 4-February-2009, demonstrating the kind of object that most easily fossilizes
Fossils will not form in just any conditions. The dead plant or animal must be isolated from oxygen and normal methods of degradation, usually through burial, and some sort of preservation process must occur, mostly commonly petrification, the slow replacement of cells with minerals. Sedimentary rock combined with some sort of disruption burying the lifeforms is one scenario that can fossil formation. Furthermore, it is the hard portions of the life form, such as a shell or tooth, that tends to last long enough to be fossilized, not the soft portions that decay much more easily.
Appropriate conditions to form fossils were in place in what is now Swansea and greater Toronto 445 million years ago during the Paleozoic era. At that time, the continents were in a completely different position, and this area was only about 20 degrees above the equator and was underwater. Thus, the lifeforms present were the sub-tropical undersea creatures (only a few plants had managed to grow on land in any event), such as trilobites and nautiloids. Small nautiloids are the most common fossils found along the Humber River and Mimico Creek.
George Duncan showed a larger piece of rock containing fossilized tracks of an ancient life form at a Swansea Historical Society Meeting on 4-February-2009
While other epochs are represented in fossils found in other areas of southern Ontario, everyone's favorite kind of fossil--dinosaurs--are not found here. They are found in Canada, though, as some of the most significant dinosaur remains ever found have come from Alberta.
Of course, considering the average age of a historical society member, the most common joke of the night was whether there were any fossils in the audience. After being educated in the formation of fossils by George Duncan, we could rest assured that there were no fossils observing his presentation.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Transport: Metrolinx Open House on Air Link
TORONTO, ONTARIO - Yesterday, I attended an open house in my neighborhood run by Metrolinx, the Greater Toronto Transportation Authority, about the plans for the so-called Georgetown South Rail Corridor, including the inclusion of an Air Rail Link between Pearson Airport and Union Station on the route. The open house included people from Metrolinx and GO Transit, the agency that will operate the commuter rail service on the route.
Many of the nuts and bolts of the proposal are better covered, as usual, on transit advocate Steve Munro's web site, so those interested in more extensive analysis and debate are encouraged to visit that site.
My impression from the room full of displays is that Metrolinx seems to be doing its assigned task of coordinating various levels of service across the region with their work on the Georgetown South corridor. As it was clear that infrastructure upgrades were going to be required to expand the existing GO commuter rail service in the corridor, they went through and tried to include all of the foreseen uses of the line as part of the upgrade. In this case, that meant adding capacity for GO service branching off to Bolton as well as accommodating local and express trains to Bramalea, doubling VIA Rail Canada intercity service to Kitchener/Waterloo and beyond, and allowing for every 15 minute express Air Rail Link service.
The amazing thing to me was how well the role of private company SNC Lavalin, which will operate the Air Rail Link service, was completely hidden in the open house. It wasn't being denied; anyone answering questions would mention "the private operator" (I never heard SNC Lavalin mentioned by name) and talk about how it was their role to build the infrastructure between the GO corridor and the airport. However, none of the Metrolinx materials mentioned that a private operator was involved. Someone passing through the open house and just reading the materials would never know about the private involvement. I found that to be incredibly dishonest and quite disappointing.
If GO Transit were operating that service, the fare between Union Station and the airport could be expected to be similar to its commuter rail fares and hence reasonable, perhaps $5-$7. SNC Lavalin intends to charge $20--and that's $20 that will go into the private company's hands, not to improving regional mobility. While SNC Lavalin may be paying for the track construction on the airport branch, the bulk of the infrastructure expense involved in their project will be for the capacity expansion on the rail corridor between Woodbine and Union Station, which will be paid for by the province as part of the Georgetown South project. That seems like a pretty good deal for the company to me. Nowhere in any of the Metrolinx open house displays was anything mentioned about this fare, which I think would change public perception of the project.
While I commend a Metrolinx representative at the Open House for pointing to the multiple layers of service on Japanese long-distance routes as a guide, an arguably more relevant model for airport service are the airport stations in Europe at places like Zurich, Paris, Frankfurt, and Geneva. In these locations, one can catch a train on regional services to many destinations, not just the local "main" station (though that is available as well). I would like to see a station established at Pearson that someday could be the terminus or at least an intermediate stop for VIA trains to Ottawa, London, and Windsor. If not that, it should at least be capable of handling standard GO commuter rail trains.
By instead accommodating only two-car trains run by SNC Lavalin, the proposed station precludes these possibilities, and the original "alignment 1" included grades and curves that would preclude running anything other than these short trains to the airport station, even if it were upgraded in the future. An "alignment 2" looked more promising at least in terms of gradients, though the representatives at the open house stated that it was intended only for the self-propelled trains as well.
In light of all that, it was hard not to view the Georgetown South Open House as a sales job designed to build public support for spending that will benefit a private company without even revealing that the private company existed. I included such opinions, highlighting the aspects of the plan that benefited the private company and did not keep better options open, in my submitted comments. We'll see if they make any difference.
For those interested in seeing the open house for themselves, a number of additional open house dates on the project remain; refer to the on-line schedule provided by Metrolinx for details. There is also a virtual open house on-line.
Many of the nuts and bolts of the proposal are better covered, as usual, on transit advocate Steve Munro's web site, so those interested in more extensive analysis and debate are encouraged to visit that site.
My impression from the room full of displays is that Metrolinx seems to be doing its assigned task of coordinating various levels of service across the region with their work on the Georgetown South corridor. As it was clear that infrastructure upgrades were going to be required to expand the existing GO commuter rail service in the corridor, they went through and tried to include all of the foreseen uses of the line as part of the upgrade. In this case, that meant adding capacity for GO service branching off to Bolton as well as accommodating local and express trains to Bramalea, doubling VIA Rail Canada intercity service to Kitchener/Waterloo and beyond, and allowing for every 15 minute express Air Rail Link service.
The amazing thing to me was how well the role of private company SNC Lavalin, which will operate the Air Rail Link service, was completely hidden in the open house. It wasn't being denied; anyone answering questions would mention "the private operator" (I never heard SNC Lavalin mentioned by name) and talk about how it was their role to build the infrastructure between the GO corridor and the airport. However, none of the Metrolinx materials mentioned that a private operator was involved. Someone passing through the open house and just reading the materials would never know about the private involvement. I found that to be incredibly dishonest and quite disappointing.
If GO Transit were operating that service, the fare between Union Station and the airport could be expected to be similar to its commuter rail fares and hence reasonable, perhaps $5-$7. SNC Lavalin intends to charge $20--and that's $20 that will go into the private company's hands, not to improving regional mobility. While SNC Lavalin may be paying for the track construction on the airport branch, the bulk of the infrastructure expense involved in their project will be for the capacity expansion on the rail corridor between Woodbine and Union Station, which will be paid for by the province as part of the Georgetown South project. That seems like a pretty good deal for the company to me. Nowhere in any of the Metrolinx open house displays was anything mentioned about this fare, which I think would change public perception of the project.
While I commend a Metrolinx representative at the Open House for pointing to the multiple layers of service on Japanese long-distance routes as a guide, an arguably more relevant model for airport service are the airport stations in Europe at places like Zurich, Paris, Frankfurt, and Geneva. In these locations, one can catch a train on regional services to many destinations, not just the local "main" station (though that is available as well). I would like to see a station established at Pearson that someday could be the terminus or at least an intermediate stop for VIA trains to Ottawa, London, and Windsor. If not that, it should at least be capable of handling standard GO commuter rail trains.
By instead accommodating only two-car trains run by SNC Lavalin, the proposed station precludes these possibilities, and the original "alignment 1" included grades and curves that would preclude running anything other than these short trains to the airport station, even if it were upgraded in the future. An "alignment 2" looked more promising at least in terms of gradients, though the representatives at the open house stated that it was intended only for the self-propelled trains as well.
In light of all that, it was hard not to view the Georgetown South Open House as a sales job designed to build public support for spending that will benefit a private company without even revealing that the private company existed. I included such opinions, highlighting the aspects of the plan that benefited the private company and did not keep better options open, in my submitted comments. We'll see if they make any difference.
For those interested in seeing the open house for themselves, a number of additional open house dates on the project remain; refer to the on-line schedule provided by Metrolinx for details. There is also a virtual open house on-line.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Heritage: War Finish Engine Lathe
The engine lathe in the machine shop of the John Street Roundhouse was powered up for the first time this century on 31-January-2009
TORONTO, ONTARIO - At Saturday's work session of the Toronto Railway Historical Association at the John Street Roundhouse in Toronto, there was a surprisingly high turnout for a cold winter day. Seven volunteers arrived to help along the process of creating a Heritage Centre next to the Rogers Centre sports stadium and the CN Tower, focusing on the 1929-era former Canadian Pacific John Street Roundhouse, as occurs most Saturday mornings.
While I worked in a group of five that were preparing a rail car for future rides around Roundhouse Park, Michael Guy and Bob Dickson were soon found in the rear of the old machine shop around the engine lathe. It soon became clear that they weren't just inspecting the equipment, but were actually preparing it for use! While I wouldn't be much of a judge of the mechanical condition of any piece of shop equipment, I had always just assumed that the old heritage tools in fixed position in the machine shop would require a substantial amount of work to be useful again.
Michael Guy and Bob Dickson cleaned the engine lathe early in the session on 31-January-2009
Just a couple hours later, they were making connections in the electrical cabinet, and the rest of the work in the session came to a halt as we all wanted to see if the lathe would indeed power up again. At about five minutes to noon, the moment of truth came. There was no dust cloud; Michael and Bob had cleaned too well for that. There was no loud noise; this machine was too well-built for that. It just sounded like any other large lathe I had had heard in my life. The cover on one end was not quite in the correct position, but other than that, it could have been in daily use for the past twenty years, instead of effectively being in storage. As it rotated properly, Michael started to adjust the controls and found that, indeed, it would change speed as directed. They truly don't build things like they used to do.
Michael Guy turned on the Engine Lathe for the first time in about a quarter-century as the photographer kept his distance at the John Street Roundhouse in Toronto on 31-January-2009
So when was this engine lathe built? A clue came from a panel on the cover of the instrument, reading "War Finish." As Michael explained to me, this meant that the equipment was built during World War II, when materials were not to be wasted on the appearance of objects, as would normally be done with such a major piece of equipment as this engine lathe. A label on a storage door stated that it had been built by the Canada Machinery Corporation, Limited in Galt, Ontario. While it wasn't as old as the roundhouse itself, the lathe had likely been in this position for more than sixty years.
The "War Finish" label on the engine lathe at the John Street Roundhouse was noted on 31-January-2009
Seeing the engine lathe come to life was exactly the kind of historical event that brings the volunteers out each week to work on the Heritage Centre.
For more coverage of this event including a description of engine lathes and a video of the lathe in motion, see the official TRHA blog entry.
Monday, February 2, 2009
Politics: Lack of Vision in North America
TORONTO, ONTARIO - There is a general consensus about what is needed right now in both the United States and the Canadian economies. A stimulus package by the government is recommended that immediately injects money into the economy, stabilizes it, and allows individual consumers to start spending money again. While there is debate on what constitutes the most effective kind of stimulus, there is little question that "shovel-ready" is everyone's favorite term. So why is there an incredible lack of vision in the responses to the crisis on both sides of the border?
In the United States, where the crisis is most acute, the Republicans in the House of Representatives uniformly voted against the latest $825 billion stimulus package. Why? Sure, they wanted to see more tax cuts, but I suspect that they would have looked the other way if the spending in the package had been on things that were clearly stimulative in nature. Instead, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that only about 30% of the money in the package will be spent by the end of 2009--which would be one reasonable definition of short-term stimulation. The remaining about two-thirds of the bill could be mistaken for pork-barrel projects. What were the authors thinking?
It would appear the House Democrats--much like Republicans following the 11-September-2001 attacks--are trying to use the current crisis as an excuse to do what they've been wanting to do anyway. In the process of (for example) including money for education--a good idea, but not particularly stimulatory in the way that infrastructure projects or unemployment extensions would be--they are undermining President Obama's attempts to create bi-partisanship. Yet, Obama's administration seems to be backing the bill as-is and they are not shirking ownership, so effectively the entire Democratic Party including Obama is to blame to producing a bill that likely won't cause much harm (contrary to what some Republicans claim), but just doesn't do what it is supposed to do--stimulate the economy--with much efficiency.
Furthermore, besides not directly addressing the problem at hand, it doesn't really do anything else coherently, either. There's no grand vision for the future embedded in the longer-term provisions of the bill. Instead, it reads like a hodge-podge of Democratic Party pet projects. That may be the biggest lost opportunity here. Not only may the bill prove less effective than it should have been, but its lack of coherence doesn't move the country in a clear direction. It looks like old politics, when Obama was supposed to be about new politics. The Democrats seem to be squandering the opportunity to prove they are now about pragmatic solutions, and instead are opening themselves to the old criticism that they are just about bigger government. Read a conservative blog and it will be clear that the 2010 campaign has already started on this theme.
Meanwhile, up here in Canada where the economy is in recession but not in nearly the crisis of that in the United States, the "new" parliament has come back after prorogation and Prime Minister Harper has presented his new budget. It bears a strange resemblance to the Obama budget--not in its goals or underlying ideology, of course, but in its lack of coherence. Rather than taking bold steps on unemployment insurance or even on taxes, the proposed Conservative budget instead has a hodge-podge of various spending and tax measures that seems to have been designed to have something in it for just about everyone, and add up to be just big enough to be an adequate stimulus that the Liberal Party can't argue with, at least in terms of size. Indeed, with a simple Liberal amendment passed today to have regular progress reports on the stimulus with a confidence vote, the budget is expected to be passed tomorrow with Conservative and Liberal votes.
The shocking thing here is that Conservative Party has proposed a budget that looks like something the Liberal Party would have proposed, perhaps maybe even a bit less coherent. Clearly, the Conservatives wanted to avoid an immediate election and stay in power, even if it meant they wouldn't be able to do what they had previously planned to do in the budget. Like the stimulus package in the United States, the budget is unlikely to do harm, but again the Conservatives have lost an opportunity to present a coherent vision of how they could manage a stimulus. Old politics--winning a confidence vote--has won out in Canada, too.
The lost opportunities won't be felt much by the Democrats or the Conservatives in the short term. At some point, though, the lack of vision will catch up with them in future campaigns. The Democrats, by seeming to meet their old stereotype, likely will see more repercussions if they don't follow up with alternative actions than the Conservatives, who have mostly alienated their base. Still, can you imagine how things would be different had there been a laser-beam focus on clear stimulus spending (and tax changes) articulated in terms of a future vision? Both parties would be looking a lot better right now had they managed to pull that off, and each could have done it.
In the United States, where the crisis is most acute, the Republicans in the House of Representatives uniformly voted against the latest $825 billion stimulus package. Why? Sure, they wanted to see more tax cuts, but I suspect that they would have looked the other way if the spending in the package had been on things that were clearly stimulative in nature. Instead, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that only about 30% of the money in the package will be spent by the end of 2009--which would be one reasonable definition of short-term stimulation. The remaining about two-thirds of the bill could be mistaken for pork-barrel projects. What were the authors thinking?
It would appear the House Democrats--much like Republicans following the 11-September-2001 attacks--are trying to use the current crisis as an excuse to do what they've been wanting to do anyway. In the process of (for example) including money for education--a good idea, but not particularly stimulatory in the way that infrastructure projects or unemployment extensions would be--they are undermining President Obama's attempts to create bi-partisanship. Yet, Obama's administration seems to be backing the bill as-is and they are not shirking ownership, so effectively the entire Democratic Party including Obama is to blame to producing a bill that likely won't cause much harm (contrary to what some Republicans claim), but just doesn't do what it is supposed to do--stimulate the economy--with much efficiency.
Furthermore, besides not directly addressing the problem at hand, it doesn't really do anything else coherently, either. There's no grand vision for the future embedded in the longer-term provisions of the bill. Instead, it reads like a hodge-podge of Democratic Party pet projects. That may be the biggest lost opportunity here. Not only may the bill prove less effective than it should have been, but its lack of coherence doesn't move the country in a clear direction. It looks like old politics, when Obama was supposed to be about new politics. The Democrats seem to be squandering the opportunity to prove they are now about pragmatic solutions, and instead are opening themselves to the old criticism that they are just about bigger government. Read a conservative blog and it will be clear that the 2010 campaign has already started on this theme.
Meanwhile, up here in Canada where the economy is in recession but not in nearly the crisis of that in the United States, the "new" parliament has come back after prorogation and Prime Minister Harper has presented his new budget. It bears a strange resemblance to the Obama budget--not in its goals or underlying ideology, of course, but in its lack of coherence. Rather than taking bold steps on unemployment insurance or even on taxes, the proposed Conservative budget instead has a hodge-podge of various spending and tax measures that seems to have been designed to have something in it for just about everyone, and add up to be just big enough to be an adequate stimulus that the Liberal Party can't argue with, at least in terms of size. Indeed, with a simple Liberal amendment passed today to have regular progress reports on the stimulus with a confidence vote, the budget is expected to be passed tomorrow with Conservative and Liberal votes.
The shocking thing here is that Conservative Party has proposed a budget that looks like something the Liberal Party would have proposed, perhaps maybe even a bit less coherent. Clearly, the Conservatives wanted to avoid an immediate election and stay in power, even if it meant they wouldn't be able to do what they had previously planned to do in the budget. Like the stimulus package in the United States, the budget is unlikely to do harm, but again the Conservatives have lost an opportunity to present a coherent vision of how they could manage a stimulus. Old politics--winning a confidence vote--has won out in Canada, too.
The lost opportunities won't be felt much by the Democrats or the Conservatives in the short term. At some point, though, the lack of vision will catch up with them in future campaigns. The Democrats, by seeming to meet their old stereotype, likely will see more repercussions if they don't follow up with alternative actions than the Conservatives, who have mostly alienated their base. Still, can you imagine how things would be different had there been a laser-beam focus on clear stimulus spending (and tax changes) articulated in terms of a future vision? Both parties would be looking a lot better right now had they managed to pull that off, and each could have done it.
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Photos: Art Deco Seattle
The Exchange Building in Seattle, Washington showed its 1930 Art Deco lines on 27-December-2008
TORONTO, ONTARIO - This week's update to my photo site focuses on architecture in downtown Seattle, Washington. On 27-December-2008, the Seattle Architecture Foundation held a tour focusing on Art Deco Seattle. Highlights included the Northern Life Tower, the Exchange Building, the Federal Office Building, and the 1411 Fourth Avenue Building, but notable non Art Deco structures along the way like the Rainier Tower and the Cobb Building were also included.
Margin Notes: Storms, Radio, Boxes, Art
A rising sun barely shone on the Humber River as seen from Dundas Street on 27-January-2009
TORONTO, ONTARIO - Have I mentioned that it's still winter here? Oftentimes during this season, I will listen to Buffalo, New York radio stations and hear near-cataclysmic forecasts for snowstorms while only modest precipitation is predicted here in Toronto. Such was the case on Monday, when a storm was predicted to shut down Buffalo on Wednesday but not lead to much accumulation here. By Tuesday, the local forecast had changed to something closer to the Buffalo one, and sure enough, it snowed for most of the day on Wednesday. Officially, we only received 13.4 cm, but it looked like nearly double that in my neighborhood. Yes, it's winter.
* * * * * *
Helping us through the winter are comforting voices on the radio. For the past month, the normal host of the afternoon program Here and Now, Matt Galloway, has been filling in on CBC Radio One's Metro Morning show. As much as we hope that the current absence of regular, veteran host Andy Barrie is temporary, the month with Galloway in the chair offered a glimpse of the future. Barrie will retire someday and Galloway is young enough to be his successor. I will miss Barrie--just like I've been missing him since November as he attends to family matters--but if Galloway takes his place, I'll still feel informed and perhaps will start the day with even greater enthusiasm for this great city.
* * * * * *
When I wake up to a voice other than Barrie's or Galloway's, there's a certain emptiness in my morning. This week there's also been a certain emptiness in my e-mail "in" box. For the first time in recent memory in the past week, I've actually managed to clear out my computerized "in" box. For as long as I can remember, there's been a networking e-mail in there that I was waiting for a certain time to follow up on, or a friend that I was waiting to get back to after something happened, or some other long-term message sitting in there as a reminder. I had reason to act on all those old e-mails, and thus found myself with an empty box, and in fact it's empty as I type this right now. Of course, the "in" box on my physical desk is not empty, and has zero chance of being so until after tax season.
* * * * * *
I didn't want to wait until after tax season when I was given the opportunity to check out the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) for free, and I managed to do that in the past week. I will have more to write about my visit in the future, but suffice to say that it was a worthwhile visit. While I do not think the new Frank Gehry-designed building is worth the price of admission as some have proposed, what is inside the structure is certainly worthwhile, from rooms full of Cornelius Krieghoff paintings to a fleet of model ships to a temporary exhibit with two famous Paul Rubens paintings together to some very interesting modern art.
* * * * * *
One of the things I learned at the AGO was the meaning of "exquisite corpse". I first heard the term in relation to the very odd NPR commentator Andrei Codrescu. After his often very dark commentaries, it is mentioned that he is an editor of an on-line journal with that name, which I assumed was just as weird as his essays. Actually, the term has been used since the 1920's to refer to a piece of art in which different artists make different portions of a work in a pre-defined way without knowing what the other artists were doing. In other words, one artist could draw a person's head, another the torso, another the legs, and another the feet, and the resulting drawing would be an exquisite corpse. I feel a little better about the term now that I am no longer ignorant of its origins.
* * * * * *
Another thing I learned at the AGO was that Vancouver group N.E. Thing Company in the 1970's came up with the idea of ART as an acronym for "Aesthetically Rejected Thing" and ACT for "Aesthetically Claimed Thing." Needless to say, they were more interested in an ACT over ART. In the spirit of the N.E. Thing Company, one wonders if I will ever turn this blog from a BIT ("Blog of Irrelevant Things") to a BET ("Blog of Exciting Things").
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)