Subways and suburbs

When I read comments posted by defenders of the suburban dream, I usually find some variant on space mentioned. A large back yard, a big house, a quiet street, room to breathe: these define the allure of the suburban experience. And real estate developers have used these talking points to sell suburban tracts since before the explosion of suburbia and the attendant highway building that followed the Second World War.

Subway construction requires dense development and predictable travel patterns. Subways require tens of thousands of workers leaving small houses or apartments, or parking their cars at suburban parking centers, and taking the trains to work in dense commercial or industrial centers. If subways require density, and suburbs require open space, then the suburbs, by their very nature, should not have a subway, right?

Well, at least according to Rob Ford, wrong. I do not know whether or not Mayor Ford wants to build a subway just to keep transit out of the way of private cars, or whether he agrees with Joe Warmington, the Sun columnist who seem to think that building subways to Scarboro shows we consder the people who live there important. Mr. Ford's stated position holds that we can build a subway with private money, and that if the city builds the line, the dense development will magically appear. I have one question for the people who believe this: why do you want dense development appear in a place so many people found attractive precisely because of its open space?

Some signs I would like to see...

Someone took away our fall weather and poured thick, damp and disgusting smog over Toronto today. The humidex reached 38 Celsius, a level I very much hope it will not reach again this year. I stayed home most of the day, which gave me an opportunity to work on my traffic wish list. Here I present some signs I would like to see on the roads and in mass transit stations.

Cars stop/bicycles yield

This sign means: cars stop and yield to bicycles and pedestrians; bicycles yield to pedestrians. I would like to see signs such as this replace the four-way stop signs used for traffic calming. Traffic control measures designed to slow down motorized traffic or channel it onto arterial roads should not do the same to cyclists. Requiring motorists to stop and cyclists to yield to pedestrians achieves the safety and quality of life goals of traffic calming, while encouraging cycling. In fact, since bicycles produce much less pollution and congestion than cars, providing for the needs of cyclists actually serves the goals of traffic calming measures better than simply four-way stops.
Idaho law allows cyclists to treat four-way stops as yield signs. I prefer to have specific signs for traffic calming stops, because in some cases, it may really enhance safety to have everyone stop. Also, it helps to have measures to accommodate cyclists seen. Such measures offer a healthy response to the refrain we hear too often from drivers and even community leaders, that roads really exist for motorized traffic.

Winter bicycle routes

Toronto City Council seems to think they have a responsibility to keep the salt mine in Goderich in operation. The way the city slathers salt on the streets every winter eats away at bicycles. This gives cycle shops and manufacturers plenty of business, and leaves cyclists who do not want to replace their bicycles every couple of years grinding our teeth. Assuming the advantages of slightly speedier winter traffic justify the environmental and other costs of salting the roads, I would like to see the city devise some winter bicycle routes, where they will not salt the roads, and where they will take other measures to keep cyclists safe from other winter cycling hazards, such as narrower lanes, congested traffic, and reduced visibility.

Bicycle waiting area

A bicycle waiting are at the commuter rail or subway implies that at least one of the cars on each train will have seats which tilt up to allow more room for cyclists or bicycle racks. I would also like to see bicycles allowed onto the subway and commuter rail system at rush hour, with a surcharge for the privilege. A bicycle takes up room and offers its rider significant convenience. I see no reason cyclists should not pay for this convenience, during peak hours. I would rather pay than not have my bicycle allowed on the system at all.

Urban Oddness

Yesterday I was on the westbound platform at Toronto’s Runnymede subway station when I saw an odd sight. A man, walking along the platform, turned his head to look at a round rust stain on the floor, a stain that suggested the former presence of a garbage can. The man then tossed a crumpled piece of paper in the general vicinity of the round stain. This action suggested three possibilities:

1. The man saw the stain but registered it in his mind as a garbage can, and therefore tossed his garbage in the proper direction.
2. The main disagreed with the transit commission’s decision to remove the garbage can, and therefore tossed his trash in the hope the garbage can would rematerialize some day.
3. The man didn’t know where he would find a garbage can, and so just tossed his garbage in the nearest available place.

Of these possibilities I find the first one the most intriguing, because it suggests that, for the man, a representation (the stain) took on the same value as the thing itself (the garbage can). This calls to mind French philosopher Jean Baudrillard’s idea of the simulacrum. Professor Dino Felluga offers the following helpful précis: “Baudrillard is not merely suggesting that postmodern culture is artificial, because the concept of artificiality still requires some sense of reality against which to recognize the artifice. His point, rather, is that we have lost all ability to make sense of the distinction between nature and artifice.” I would suggest that a parallel to the man’s actions in the subway might be if someone whose pet had died adopted a plush toy animal, treating it just like the real animal.

I see though that I have been sloppy: the rusty circle is a trace of the garbage can, not a representation. It is a leftover, a relic, a remnant. So a better parallel to the man’s actions in the subway might be a widower who has taken to addressing his wife’s discarded shoes as though they were her.

Returning to our subway litterbug, the person’s actions show a stubborn ability to ignore an obvious loss (of the garbage can), in order to accomplish a task (trash disposal). This seems to me, in an odd way, to blend wishful thinking with well-developed survival skills.