James Bow's Blog, page 9

At the Mouth of the Grand

For various reasons, we find ourselves in Port Maitland this week, holding a writing retreat on the shore of Lake Erie, beside the mouth of the Grand River. And, let me tell you, when you get to the mouth of the Grand River, you know why they call it 'Grand'.

We had hoped to be in Utah, spending some time with Erin's father' but for various reasons this fell through. We hope to try again on a journey this June. In the meantime, we're appreciating the week of downtime amongst the waves on the shore, and we may make some progress on our writing.

We're not too far from the town of Dunnville, which is a fascinating place. A small town in the middle of a lot of rural land, which we suspect hops during the high season. Just after March Break, however, when there's still a good chance that Lake Erie might try to turn you into a block of ice, the streets are relatively quiet, but not dead. Almost every shop is open. The kids and I ate at a diner on a Wednesday, alongside other patrons -- probably regulars.

There is always something I like about a prosperous small town, even though they tend to depend on a lot of luck, these days, not to mention tourism. They're also the ideal that has tended to build a lot of sprawling suburbs: a small community that doesn't overwhelm, while things like shops and activities are still close around you. Your typical sprawling suburb often spectacularly fails to achieve these goals, but the drive behind them is still there.

Erin and I have a retirement goal we call the Bone Witch project. She wants a tiny cabin in the woods where she can be closer to nature (and be a bone witch). I want something with good transportation, where my neighbourhood can be my living room. So, why don't we have both? A small cabin in the woods that she can spend three out of four weeks at, and a small apartment somewhere with good public transit where I can spend three weeks out of four at? We have time overlapping at both places and time alone in our preferred places. If we can swing it, I think it would be good.

The cabins around Dunnville could fulfill the bone witch side of things, and Dunnville itself could fulfille the urban side of things, if it had any public transportation connections. It doesn't though, so that search continues. Still, I can't say I'm not tempted.

Moynihan

As I mentioned in my previous post, when visiting New York, I paid a visit to Grand Central Terminal, which is seen by many as the gold standard of landmark train stations. In the past, I've more often used Penn Station, New York's other major train station. This is because most of Amtrak's trains go here, as do trains to and from New Jersey where one finds affordable hotels when visiting New York City.

Penn Station is the gold standard of bad train stations, according to its reputation at least. It was once an architectural marvel like Grand Central, but the original station was demolished and replaced by Madison Square Garden, with the platforms and concourses shoved into Madison Square Garden's basement. It's cramped, dark, labyrinthian, and woefully inadequate to handle the crowds it sees.

And yet, somehow, it managed to work. You have to respect it for that.

Recently, just like Grand Central, Penn Station has seen significant investment. Amtrak and investors took over the architecturally pleasant former post office complex across the street and gutted it and repurposed it. The result is something of a modern equivalent to Grand Central: a place where all the trains gather, and people are made to stand in awe at the Great Hall and its glass ceiling. This building, attached to Penn, has been named the Moynihan Train Hall.

Maybe it was the newness of the place, or the prevalence of extremely bright digital advertising screens, maybe it was too early in the morning and I hadn't had my coffee yet, but Moynihan felt anti-septic to me. It's not just that it doesn't have the history that Grand Central commands (I'm sure it will build that up, pronto). Rather, I got the feeling that any speck of dirt that landed in Moynihan wouldn't just be cleaned up, it would be eradicated.

Throughout this trip to America (and, just like some previous trips I've made to American cities to check out their transit systems), I've encountered a number of homeless people. Unsurprisingly, they've located at the places of last resort that will tolerate them and, in cities where transit is often taken as the last resort for public mobility, that often means you'll find the homeless there too. It's the same in Toronto. Visiting Newark's Penn Station and Grand Central, despite attempts to make the place uncomfortable to loiter in (no chairs or benches anywhere to be seen), despite admonitions on Grand Central's PA system to not sit on the stairs or the floor, I saw people sitting on the stairs and the floor. I even saw somebody sleeping on the stairs at Grand Central.

It's significant that I didn't feel unsafe during these encounters. There are security officers in plain sight in both Newark Penn and Grand Central, but the attitude appears to be, you leave the homeless alone, they'll leave you alone. It's all very calm and peaceful, if somewhat sad. I was approached by a woman at Newark Penn who asked me to buy her a soda from one of the concession stands I was buying my dinner at. I saw no reason not to. At Grand Central, a black gentleman asked me to buy him an egg sandwich. Again, why not, since I was eating too.

But at Moynihan, I was approached by someone who said in a gruff voice, "You look like an American. Could you spare me a couple of dollars to get a bagel?" When I said, "Sorry," he started into a rant about he was sorry that he ever served this goddamn country and took a bullet in the name of liberty." I caused him to stumble when I said, "Actually, I'm Canadian", and he huffed and said, "Same thing", before stomping off.

Maybe it's just a coincidence, or maybe I'm just projecting off this one incident, but Moynihan, while impressive, felt a little less welcoming. Get in and get out. Don't linger. Definitely don't sit.

Grand Central

Everybody knows how dense New York is, and how it towers, but I suspect people don't fully realize how big it also is.

Case in point, I spent Sunday exploring the city, travelling on the PATH, the New York Subway, and the Long Island Railroad until I came to Coney Island just before dinner time and had a Coney Island chilli dog from Nathan's. How New York is that? The sun was setting, so I figured I should return to my hotel room opposite Newark's Penn Station. It should be easy enough; you can get there taking two subway trains.

And that's true. And I did. I left Coney Island/Stillwell station at around 5:04 p.m. and made it to my hotel room at 7:20, and I only needed to transfer once. There were no serious delays. Even though the two subway trains I took were on two separate systems (imagine if Mississauga had its own subway), but the length of the trip was such that it was kind of like going from Pickering to Mississauga. Via Finch. Entirely by subway.

Add on the fact that two of the three commuter rail systems that enter New York operate electrically by third rail, just like the New York subway, and you start to get the sense of how impressive the city really is. Most anything is reachable by subway, but it might take you a while to get there because it's so far away.

The highlight of Sunday was visiting Grand Central Terminal, the other main train station in Manhattan that is so much nicer than Penn Station (though Penn's new addition, the Moynihan Hall, fixes a lot of Penn's problems). The Great Hall is something and no mistake. There are also a lot of places to eat and spend time there, even if there's a big shortage of places to sit. (I saw that at Moynihan Hall as well. Do New Yorkers have an aversion to sitting down?) So many people were taking pictures, and I can see why. It truly is a destination in its own right, not just a place you go when you have places to go.

I did check out the new underground terminal beneath Grand Central that fixes the old problem where the station offered no access to train services on Long Island. After billions spent, the new facility promises to shorten millions of commutes. Between this and Moynihan Hall, I'm jealous. The city is also much cleaner than its lingering reputation. The subways were well-used, even on a Sunday evening. It's got grit, but it seems to work. I would like them to spend some money to increase frequencies on certain lines, however.

The Saturday before Sunday was a travel day as I took the Crescent from Atlanta to Newark and spent some time writing, before retiring to the hotel in Newark to recover. Today was an early day to catch the Maple Leaf to take me home. The on-time performance of Amtrak has been exemplary, thus far (don't want to jinx it!), and the border crossing at Niagara Falls was smooth.

All in all, a successful trip and writing retreat.

Atlanta

Turns out that, flying out from Pearson on Thursday evening, I left behind rapidly dropping temperatures and freezing rain that, frankly, should have caused a snow day in Kitchener-Waterloo. Fortunately, Erin called one on her own. I arrived in Atlanta to temperatures in the upper teens, not needing a coat.

I did, however, appear to pull that wash of cold air down after me. Through most of Friday, the temperature in Atlanta dropped like a stone, and the winds picked up tremendously. By evening, it was close to freezing, and the wind chill was putting it below zero. Not something I suspect Atlantans are comfortable with. So I guess I should apologize. Good thing I packed that coat.

After a breakfast of chicken and waffles, I spent the day exploring Atlanta's Metro system, who locals refer to as "Marta". The system as a whole goes by the acronym MARTA, but when I asked for directions to the subway or the metro at the Airport, the person in the uniform asked me, "do you mean the Marta?" So, yes.

The system clearly has its roots in the eighties. Construction started in 1975, with the first segment opening in 1979. It reached the Airport in 1988. There are four lines, meeting downtown at an interchange that Toronto could only dream of called Five Points. They spread out of downtown in a cross, before branching off to go west, northwest, north, northeast, east and south. They cover most of the quadrants of the city within its Beltway.

I also have the impression that it was built primarily with an eye for tourists, and with an eye to nabbing the Olympics (which it hosted in 1996). Apparently, there was a neat bit of staging municipal officials accomplished where guests from the IOC were shepherded out of a conference room in a government office tower, taken down the elevator, and out into a station where a train just happened to pull up to meet them (it had been parked in a siding, waiting for the municipal officials' call). Supposedly, this presentation was a particular highlight for the IOC officials, and a big reason the Olympics went to Atlanta in 1996.

And once the Olympics were achieved, that was it. Well, almost. A small two-station extension followed in 2001, but no extensions have been added to the Metro since, and I'm sorry to say that the system feels a bit underfunded. The stations are clean, but haven't been updated for years, and the same seems to go for the equipment.

Riders could do with some love in the form of more frequent service. The four lines combine into two-line combos through the downtown which offer better-than five minute frequencies, but in the branches where each line operates individually, the trains come every ten minutes, at best. Outside of rush hours people have to wait up to twenty minutes for trains at some stations.

You can tell that people depend on this system. The train from the airport as I arrived late at night was packed, as was a bus I used at the beginning of the afternoon rush hour, but in both cases, some passengers had to wait twenty minutes for the service to arrive. They deserve better, but many in Atlanta acknowledge that the city has been revamped to address the needs of the car. Other than the investment in the Metro around the Atlanta Olympics and continued tourism trade, public transit is left as an afterthought for citizens who have no alternatives.

Still, I was pleased to have a chance to ride, as there are some impressive things to take in about the system. Five Points station is exactly what Toronto's Bloor-Yonge should be (I know; hindsight is 20-20), with side and island platforms used so trains an open doors on all sides on all lines, speeding up boarding and detraining. Asthetically, Peachtree Centre is a marvel, blasted so deep underground, it takes three minutes to get from the street to the platform by escalator (Atlanta is surprisingly hilly -- the next station, Five Points, is practically at the surface).

And then there's the Green Line which, unlike the other three lines, operates with two-car trains as opposed to the standard six. It's trains are dwarfed by the lengthy platforms it shares with the Blue Line, before the line breaks off on a single station extension before reaching Bankhead, the cutest little station in a beautiful natural area that's only long enough to handle those two-car trains. I do wonder what the plan is, here: are they intending to extend the Green Line northwest, keeping the stations small to save money? Bankhead opened in 1992, however, and nothing has been added to the Green Line since.

There's a lot to like about Atlanta's Metro system, but it could use a little love. Sadly, given the political climate of Georgia, I doubt it's going to get it from the state.

I boarded Amtrak's Crescent, which arrived roughly on time at Atlanta's Peachtree station. Today is a travel day, taking in the sights of North Carolina and Virginia before ploughing up the Northeast Corridor to Newark. Hopefully, it will give me the chance and some inspiration to do some writing.

The Last Gate

I'm writing this at gate F99 at Pearson's Terminal 1. When you consider that Pearson's Terminal 1 has six general gates, running A to F, and that each gate is further subdivided into about a hundred individual boarding/deplaning points (also, and more properly, called gates, in my opinion), I guess you could say that gate F99 is the last gate at Pearson's Terminal 1. After the amount of walking I had to do from entering the building, it certainly feels that way.

This will be the first time I enter the United States since Family Day, 2020. At that time, I had planned to cross over by train. However, CN's overreaction to a First Nations blockade shut down all freight and VIA Rail passenger rail service across Canada (GO Trains, intriguingly, were unaffected), so I ended up taking the bus to Niagara Falls and hiring a cab to drive me across the Rainbow Bridge to the Amtrak station in Niagara Falls, New York, where I continued my weekend trek to Boston and back.

At the time, COVID was already starting to make the news -- to the point that I wondered that, blockades aside, whether it was wise to travel across International boundaries in case I suddenly found myself unable to come back. It would be a month before that became an issue, and then the shutdown began. I stayed off public transit for over a year, really upped my work-from-home game, and I was left looking back to my trip to Boston, to check out its subways and LRTs, as something of a last hurrah.

I would be back travelling, of course. I trekked to White River in northern Ontario via GO Transit, Ontario Northland, and VIA Rail. I paid a visit to Vancouver, to meet the family as they spent a month in a cabin in the woods of Pender Island. I came back to my transit rambles across GO Transit and the TTC, and I have the Timelapse footage to show for it. But until now, I haven't been south of the border to explore some transit operations, until now.

The plan is to fly to Atlanta, check out the city's Metro and streetcar, then take Amtrak to Newark (like New York, only cheaper), spend another day checking out New York, then take the Maple Leaf Amtrak train back across the border to home. I'd planned to have this trip back in May 2020 but, of course, the pandemic hit, leaving me with nothing but vouchers.

Still, I'm here now, and it's good to be back.

Thus far, the trip has been smooth. I caught the 25C express GO Bus from University of Waterloo to Square One, then MiWay's 107 AirPort Express bus to the people mover station to access Terminal 1. The check in process was a little confused, but security was smooth, and the passing through of US customs was a breeze thanks to their pre-clearance app. Indeed, I reached my gate at 4:15 p.m. Boarding is expected at 6:45 p.m. The airport is pretty quiet. Whatever the mayhem that affected the place last summer, it seems to have eased, now.

But it's not all hitch-less. I've just been told that my flight has been reassigned, to gate F66.

Another long walk back across the airport, then...

Twenty-One

The above photo is of Erin looking over the South Dakota badlands, taken near I-90, on July 2, 2002, not too long after this blog started. Indeed, here's a blog post of the trip.

What a difference twenty-one years makes.

Hard as it is to conceive, the heyday of blogging, which was once seen as the great new driving force of the Internet, is closer in history to Netscape, Pine, and rec.arts newsgroups. In fact, I suspect the day I signed onto Blogger for the first time is closer in time to those dial-up online bulletin board systems that were before my day on the Internet.

But while the Internet has become almost a necessity in this day and age, to stay in touch, to project yourself, to sell yourself as an artist, or whatnot, the Internet is not as fun as it used to be. I spent far too much time doomscrolling on Facebook and Twitter before I walked away from the dumpster fire that Twitter has become. I sign onto these systems not because I particularly want to, but because it's a habit, and the corporate interests that control these social media networks have done their darndest to make it a habit.

It's not healthy. I can see that it's not healthy. But it doesn't have to be this way.

I think this is why, though I post here irregularly, these days, and don't get nearly the engagement I used to, I've still kept this blog going. Because here I can speak and not be drowned out by the chatter. Sure, fewer people may be around to hear me, but who out in social media is actually listening? Ironically, in the early days of Blogging, I likened personal blogs to writing in one's own diary, except that it now has an audience. With the audience diminished, what do I have? A diary.

So, I resolve to stick around here, to keep up this personal journal. Erin has her own writing journal that she writes in diligently to exercise her mind; this could be my equivalent, if I stick to my resolution. We'll see. I've made this resolution before, and been away for weeks. But I still come back.

I should note that one place, right now, where I do feel more of the fun of the old Internet is on Mastodon -- a decentralized social community that is very Twitter-like, and has almost choked on the incoming traffic of ex-Twitter users looking for an alternative to escape and raise the middle finger to Elon Musk. It doesn't have the algorithms that try to feed you the posts the computer thinks you'll get addicted to; instead, it has what Twitter had when it started: the people you follow, in the order that they post in. As a result, I've managed to toss my Twitter app off my phone. And when I scroll on Mastodon, I'm not doomscrolling. I'm connecting again to the people I wanted to follow in the first place.

It amazes me how much better that feels than Twitter. And it amazes me how much Twitter made me forget this was possible. That's by design, and that's evil, even before Musk turned the site into a dumpster fire. We need to do better and I think we can. I like to think that we did, twenty-one years ago.

If you are thinking of leaving Twitter, I say, please do. Consider joining Mastodon, instead and, if you come, please follow me here...

Snow Falling

You just know the snow is serious when you get a knock on the door and you see three kids outside, bearing shovels. Still, you had to appreciate the industriousness of these kids, especially as they waited patiently as, behind the closed door, me and my family raced around to try and find cash to pay these kids to save us from having to shovel our driveway and sidewalk. The perils of a cashless society.

Though, when I opened the door, one of these young'uns said, "Would you like us to shovel your driveway for ten bucks? Five?" I let out a chuff, like I'd been kicked.

I wanted to say, "Dude! This is the heaviest snowstorm of the season, so far! And our driveway is HUGE! You're selling yourself way too short if you charge anything less than twenty dollars, since a twenty-dollar bill is just so easy to hand over."

But I didn't. I said, "sure", and they finished it with remarkable speed. And I paid them $25. In loonies and toonies because, as I said, the perils of a cashless society.

I asked: they couldn't take cheques.

Waiting for the Train

Kitchener Station, taken by me early on the morning of Wednesday, January 4, 2023.

We Are Our Brothers' (and Sisters') Keepers.

I'm probably flailing at straw men, here, but bear with me a moment.

I've heard it said that some people say "Am I my brother's keeper?" when they argue against social programs, spending money to help people less fortunate than themselves, the whole concept of having a government to take care of people who may not be them or their loved ones. "Am I my brother's keeper?" What responsibility do I have, they argue, to help others who may or may not have gotten what's coming to them. I didn't cause their suffering, so why am I responsible for their care?

It surprises me that some of these people who take this tack, by how they act, even if they don't make this quote directly, don't realize where this quote comes from. You see, it's from the Bible. And before they suggest that this gives God's backing to ignoring the needs of others, note that it's from the Book of Genesis, chapter 4, verses 1-9. It's what Cain says to his parents, Adam and Eve, when they come to him and ask, "Where's Abel?"

Because, of course, Cain has killed Abel. And hidden the body. And made it quite clear within the story that his actions and sentiments are not something that we as decent human beings should be modeling.

So, if anybody does ask, "Am I my brother's keeper?" the answer is, emphatically, "Yes!"

On Train Service to Timmins and Weekend GO Service to Stratford

Though I am loath to give the Doug Ford government the benefit of the doubt, I will give them credit when it's due, and the recent news of their purchase of new passenger equipment for the restoration of the Ontario Northland train from Toronto to Timmins is undeniable good news.

I still haven't forgiven Dalton McGuinty for cancelling this special train service. Yes, it lost money, but all modes of transportation do. We have to spend money to ensure mobility, whether it's on roads, bus services, public transit, and trains into the northern part of the province. And given the boost to tourism, the local economy, northerners' health and wellbeing (connecting them to hospital services in southern Ontario), and generally keeping an eye on our links to the Arctic in this age of climate change, this investment is worth our while.

The new equipment purchased by the Ford government builds on the sleek new trains VIA Rail is getting for the Quebec-Windsor corridor. All in all, thanks to Ottawa and Queens Park, come 2026 I'm going to have more places to ride, and nice accommodations when I ride. I'm happy about that. I would even recommend that the premier purchase a few more sets of equipment and operate the new GO Train to London using them. They're probably a damn sight more comfortable for longer distance. Integrate the service with VIA Rail and possibly brand it VIA Ontario.

All that said, while there is much to look forward to on the public transit front in the next three years, there is a lot of room for improvement. Yes, we may be on the verge of the biggest addition to Toronto's rapid transit network since 1966, but the ongoing delays and the corporate cloudiness at Metrolinx demands an investigation and some accountability. Rush hour express trains between Toronto and Kitchener are running for the first time since the pandemic started, reducing the commute time to downtown to 95 minutes (try driving that in that length of time during the same period), but weekend service between Kitchener and Toronto has degraded. All that GO has for Kitchener is their bus service to Square One in Mississauga. With Greyhound vanished, there is no direct downtown weekend connection from Kitchener to speak of, save for the lonely VIA train, which inexplicably worsened their service when they moved their morning inbound train to early in the afternoon.

Metrolinx has promised two-way, hourly, seven-day-a-week train service between Kitchener and Union for 2024, but that's not looking likely. I would gladly take what limited service Barrie now receives to downtown Toronto, with trains between these two centres every three hours, or so. Sure, it would cost money, and certainly the competing freight traffic makes it difficult, since unlike Barrie, Metrolinx doesn't own all the tracks between Toronto and Kitchener, but the service would be instantly popular, and the costs of providing it less than people think if Metrolinx would just look at the opportunity staring them in the face.

Metrolinx already serves Stratford, with a single train that operates in from London on morning weekdays and returns the following evening. The train is stored in London overnight, except for the weekend, I believe, when it deadheads back to Toronto for maintenance. Here's the opportunity: don't deadhead the train.

And here's the second opportunity: work with the schedule of the Stratford Festival.

You can look up GO's schedules for trains to Kitchener and London (the route number is 31) and extrapolate the times a few weekend runs can do. A train departing London at 5:14 Saturday morning gets to Stratford at 6:15 and Kitchener at 7:38. Serving all stops to Bramalea and running express to Union east from there gets passengers to downtown Toronto at 9:13 -- a perfect time to start a day trip in Toronto. Trains can turn around pretty quickly at Union, so it can likely depart at the already scheduled weekday time of 9:34. Making all stops, it arrives in Kitchener at 11:21. Given travel times to Stratford, it can continue to that city and arrive at 12:14. Plenty of time for people to grab a lunch and catch a 2 p.m. matinee at the Stratford Festival.

After a matinee, and time for a dinner, people can head back to Stratford station to catch the train back to Toronto at 7 p.m. Serving all stops, it can reach Toronto at 9:58, turn around for a 10:30 departure, returning to Kitchener just after midnight and in London around 2 a.m. In one fell swoop, you've provided a useful service for Torontonians to a tremendous attraction that requires bus parking to handle all the tour groups, and you've given residents of Waterloo Region access to Toronto for a weekend day trip. We could even tighten the schedules so that the return time isn't so late, and there's plenty of room in the middle of the day for a Stratford-Toronto-Stratford run providing more choices for Waterloo Region and Stratford residents as well as Torontonians, keeping a lot of people and cars off of Highway 401.

It seems a no brainer. I realize that the presence of Canadian National freight trains along the route complicate this service, but really the thing holding it back is a lack of political will and an unwillingness to spend the money to make it happen. The thing is, though: with the correct schedule and a decent marketing plan, Metrolinx will not have to spend nearly as much money as one would think, and it would be a boon to the tourism industry in southwestern Ontario.

Like him or dislike him, Ford seems like he's getting it done on the Northlander. I appreciate that. He needs to get this done for Stratford and Waterloo Region.

And add some direct bus service between Kitchener, Guelph and Hamilton while you're at it!