A Rain of Frogs

Despite Michael Jackson in The Wiz (terrible!), I think the Wizard of Oz has spent far too much time being a cherished, beloved, and above all else inviolate memory of the world’s first love affair with Technicolor. It’s nice to see people revisiting Hollywood canon.

Courtesy of Skottie Young, from deviantArt.

40 years ago, man stepped onto the moon and forever changed human history.

Widely considered the greatest technological achievement in history, the lunar landing on July 20, 1969 captured the imagination and fired the passions of millions across the globe. It ushered in a new era of exploration and hope, a time of limitless achievement and the promise of expanding mankind’s reach into the stars.

And then, more suddenly than its beginning, it ended in a round of budget cuts. One small step, and then nothing. Sad.

Sure, now we hear talk about NASA returning to the moon, but I’d surmise only because other nations are taking an interest. If Americans won’t, they reason, what’s to stop us.

The west has become complacent, and lost its drive. Other nations are filling the vacuum left by American intrepidity. While I’m sad that it’s not ‘us’ driving forward any more, I am at least happy that someone is.

Never in my lifetime has a man stood on the moon. Sort of like how the Leafs have never won a Stanley Cup in my lifetime. I’ll tell you something though. My money is on an astronaut hoisting a flag on the moon again long before a Leaf captain hoists the silver chalice at the Air Canada Centre.

This is the second time I’ve had to write something like this on Rain, and I’d prefer it to be the last.

Anyone who follows my Facebook status knows by now that my cousin Vera died on Saturday. I don’t have a lot of information about what happened, though I am sure we will learn more as time progresses. All I know is that she was involved in what appears to be a single-vehicle motorcycle accident.

I wasn’t particularly close to Vera. My cousins on my father’s side all fall into three distinct groups. There are the first ones, the second ones and the third ones. I am in the second group, and Vera was in the first.

But I did know her. A few years ago, my father and I went out west to Comox to ski with Vera and her partner Mark at Mount Washington. It was an amazing trip, and we had a great time visiting with them. It was on that trip I learned the most about Vera that I’ve ever known.

I know she had a passion for skiing, and was very good at it. Her and Mark would whoosh down the steep slopes of Mount Washington so fast my father and I could barely keep up. They were keen to maximize the cost-per-run of their seasons passes. It was a lot of fun.

I learned on that trip that Vera loved her dogs with a ferocity that is usually reserved for children. It was amazing to see how much she loved those dogs. And somewhat sad, because that love should have been for a child. I think Vera would have been an amazing mother, but that wasn’t in her cards. For some people, it just doesn’t work out that way.

Interestingly, it was the lack of children that might have ultimately contributed to her death. In May, Vera bought a motorcycle. Apparently it also came with a tattoo, but I don’t know anything more than that. My father says she loved her motorcycle, and that she had come to the realization that since she wasn’t going to have kids, there was no reason to stockpile all her money for them, and so she bought the motorcycle.

Vera, you were a postal worker, skier, dog lover, woman, cousin, daughter, sister, aunt and friend, and we’ll all miss you. You’ve left a hole in our lives that will never be filled.

Anyone who knows me knows I have a thing for streetcars, and while this idea has a lot to do with streetcars, it’s really about how people get around in Toronto. My apologies for the essay, but then again, it’s been a while since I wrote about something that seemed like such common sense to me.

I work on King street in Toronto. King street is pretty typical of a downtown Toronto street. In the west, it runs to Roncesvalles, where it merges with Queen street and continues on as The Queensway. In the east it terminates just west of the Don Valley Parkway, again merging with Queen street and continuing on as Queen for quite a long way. King and Queen both feature non-dedicated streetcar tracks, that run on the inside lanes along with automobile traffic. Then there’s another lane of traffic outside that, and on-street parking. Sometimes the on-street parking makes the non-streetcar lanes pretty tight, but mostly they count as legitimate traffic lanes. Both streets, like virtually all streets in Toronto, also have pedestrian sidewalks on both sides.

That means that at any given time, on any cross-section of either street, one can find streetcars, cars, bicycles and pedestrians. That’s a lot going on in eight lanes of road, and a lot of potential for accidents and danger to cyclists and pedestrians.

I don’t remember when I first had the idea, but it’s been rolling around in my head a lot lately, and I wanted to get it out of my head and into the heads of others. What if King and Queen were made one-way?

Instead of being the two two-way streets they are now, what if traffic coming eastbound from the Queensway were to veer southward onto King street, and continue through the downtown core all the way to the merge at the Don Valley, where that eastbound traffic would then merge back onto Queen street and continue on eastward? Westbound traffic, on the other hand, would stay on Queen street from west of the Don Valley all the way into the west end at Roncesvalles, where the merge with King street turns Queen into the Queensway.

With the traffic rearranged like this, we would now only need a single streetcar track on each street. On Queen, this could be a dedicated streetcar track on the north side of the road, up close to the sidewalk. This would work well with Toronto’s existing streetcars. Newer ones, with doors on either side, could be on either edge of the street. No longer would people getting on and off the streetcar have to cross a lane of automotive traffic to get to the sidewalk.

Beside the dedicated streetcar track a dedicated cycling lane could be created, physically separated from the automobile traffic and safely away from parked cars and the infamous door-prize. This would encourange people to cycle more in the downtown core because they wouldn’t have to contend with automotive traffic in such an immediate way.

Then two lanes of automobile traffic south of the dedicated bicycle lane. These lanes of traffic would no longer have to contend with bicycles or the stop-and-go nature of the streetcar. These would be dedicated car-traffic lanes. If the city wanted, one lane could be a High Occupancy Vehicle lane. It is even possible that the streets might be wide enough for three lanes of traffic. This would require further attention to determine.

Last, the southmost lane on Queen street could be reserved for the ubiquitous pay-and-display parking we find everywhere else in the city. The city continues to collect its parking revenue, and the business owners still have parking near their shops and restaurants. Sidewalks would remain on both sides of the street.

King street would be identical, except a mirror image with the dedicated streetcar track on the south edge, and the parking on the north.

What would the city gain? Improved transit from dedicated streetcar lanes with the potential for priority signalling that are no longer as impacted by automotive traffic. Smoother flowing automotive traffic that is no longer subject to bicycle and streetcar slowdowns. Less accidents, less mix of traffic types. Easier and safer ingress and egress from streetcars to the sidewalk for pedestrians and transit users. A more enjoyable and encouraging experience for bicycles.

These last two might lower the barrier to entry for transit and bicycle use, both of which are orders of magnitude more economical and ecological than driving cars. Green and forward thinking ideas like this are the sort of things that make cities into leaders instead of followers.

Maybe the real question is: What does the city lose?

As a brief reminder, this was the kitchen in our house as of the day we took possession. It looks great, right up until you really start paying attention. There’s all sorts of terror hiding behind that wallpaper. Plaster falling off lathe, linoleum tile back splashes with plaster-feathered edges to minimize print-through, and gaping holes covered by plywood around windows.

Then we went through the rather dusty process of deconstruction. You gotta break some eggs if you want to make omelette. Or something.

All that is a thing of the past. This is the kitchen as of this weekend:

Stay tuned for more!