Tag Archive: driving

Technology and good planning

Categories:

Sat. August 27, 2011

Prior to heading to Niagara-on-the-Lake I checked the directions on Google Maps. It said the journey would take only 2 hours or so. Fine, right? I gave myself about half an hour of buffer time just in case. When I got to my car I plugged my destination into Google Navigation on my phone. Accounting for traffic it told me that it would take 2 and a half hours. Lucky thing that I gave myself that buffer time. Around the Burlington area traffic slowed down to a crawl. I noticed that the estimate on my phone started creeping up. Instead of an ETA of 2:51 p.m. it increased to 3:12. I did manage to catch up a little bit once things cleared up, but still. Goes to show that technology is great but you still need to have some good planning in place.

Will provide some thoughts on the wedding tomorrow.

Tags:

Leave comment

Liking the commute

Categories:

Fri. August 26, 2011

I kind of like my commute home. Yes, it’s kind of long, though 25 minutes one way is rather average for Toronto according to this study. It’s certainly not as long as the commute others make to get from the city to a far-flung suburb. I don’t know how people put up with 1-2 hour commutes. My mom used to make that journey to a mid-town hospital from our suburban home day after day. I’ve accompanied her on that trip a few times. They were long, but since she went ridiculously early it wasn’t too stressful. Still, that’s a lost hour multiplied by 2. Nasty.

Back when I worked downtown, I took a subway and a streetcar in. Door to door took me about 50 minutes. Again, that’s about average for a trip via transit according to the article. How did I manage? Well, I slept a lot. My time on the train allowed me to take naps leaving me somewhat refreshed. Still, there were a few times where some train incidents caused some major headaches. Hard to not feel angry when you’re at the mercy of the system, right? At least with driving I have a bit more control over what route I can take.

Ah, so that brings me to today. The route I usually take is straightforward but slow. It may be be slow, but it’s also predictable. Yesterday I was slowed down a bit with construction blocking one lane causing everyone to have to squeeze together. Bad. So, today before I got to the construction zone I thought I’d take the Don Valley Parkway down. The DVP is notorious for bad traffic, but I figured that most traffic would be heading out of the city whereas I’d be heading in. Against the flow of traffic, right? Well, as soon as I got on it became apparent that it wasn’t the case. No matter how you cut it, rush hour is nasty on that route. It was stop and go most of the way home. My 25 minute commute ballooned to 50 minutes. I was going to go crazy. So, yeah, 25 minutes is not bad at all. I’m thankful I don’t have to go much farther. My time is valuable, and if I’m going to waste it I’m going to do so on my terms.

Tags: ,

Leave comment

New city, old memories

Categories:

Mon. March 14, 2011

Visited Brampton yesterday to do some business. I haven’t been there in a few years, and I definitely haven’t been there in a way that exposed me to a lot of places that I was familiar with when I was growing up. I only really heard stories of how much the city has changed since I moved away from there. Every single story is true. New buildings have sprouted all over the place. There were moments where I had to drive deeper into neighbourhoods before I was struck to find the name of a familiar side street.

I left town in the evening. I was trying to navigate around based on landmarks that I had in my head. I got a sinking feeling when the house density started becoming sparser. To my surprise I was suddenly driving in farm land. Instead of driving east, I was heading due north. I wasn’t able to notice at all. Crazy. All of the images from my childhood are kind of shattered now. Probably for the best. I mean, that city has evolved, and so have I. There’s no need for attachment. I don’t know that place at all anymore.

Tags:

1 comment

Slushy half

Categories:

Sun. March 6, 2011

Early on in the week prior to this race I was looking at the forecast on a semi-daily basis just to get a feel for what conditions might be like on race day. I paid more attention to the temperature and not to the weather but it looks like that might have been a good idea. Then again, it’s not like I would have avoided the race due to bad conditions. I knew there would be snow, but I hoped it would be manageable. I figured that the roads would be cleared fairly quickly and that the one hour drive over to Burlington would be simple. Oops. As I drove down the Don Valley Parkway I saw multiple cars in ditches. There was one fresh collision that blocked the two left lanes. By the time I made it down to the Queen Elizabeth Way the roads were still bad, and they got worse once I cleared Toronto. At one point the car ahead of me had to slow down suddenly. The car spun out of control. Luckily I had enough distance to slow down enough, but man, the driver had no idea how to regain control and fishtailed like mad on the snowy roads. She’s lucky there wasn’t anyone in the right lanes; those lanes were covered in snow and no one wanted to use them at all. When I slowed down I don’t think the car behind me expected it and narrowly missed rear-ending me. Yeah, the drive in was a rough one. After all that though, I figured that the run wouldn’t be that bad at all.

How’d I do? Find the race report after the jump! Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: , , , , , ,

2 comments

Texting can be deadly

Categories:

Tue. August 25, 2009

I’m going to give the condo related posts a rest today. It’s perhaps a little bit too bad because something big and bad happened today. I’ll save that for another day though; I need to vary the topic here now and then.

Instead, for tonight you get this video. It’s a CNN analysis of a British PSA warning people not to text and drive. What’s so special about such a PSA? Eh, well, it’s remarkable for its incredibly graphic nature. I mean, seriously, this is something that may leave a mark on your mind. After watching it, I had to just take a break because it was a bit much. I wasn’t emotional, but I was jittery.

I guess all I can say is: judge for yourself. You have been warned.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o54ikTsaLsE

And if that doesn’t convince you to not text and drive…well, I’m not sure what will.

Tags: , , ,

Leave comment

Snowfall lamentations

Categories:

Sun. January 18, 2009

According to the talking heads, so far this season we’ve had above average amounts of snowfall. With last night’s snowfall we’ve now had more than a metre of accumulation: 115 cm. By comparison, around this time last year we only had around ¾ of a metre. Maybe I can be forgiven then for thinking that winter’s already on its way out, seeing as how we’ve had a good chunk of white stuff already. Ha! As if.

It’s because of last night’s dumping of 15 cm that I decided to not make the trek to the Running Room for today’s run club. Luckily today was a bit of a drop back from 16K to 12K, still, I missed being out there with the group. The roads, however, weren’t plowed and the way was just plain dangerous. I didn’t want to risk getting into a collision just out of bull-headedness. I have to admit though, it was rather nice to have a relaxing Sunday morning. I haven’t had one of those in ages. I got to eat a good breakfast with the family, and recline in bed listening to Sunday morning oldies on CHFI while reading a book.

Eventually I did have to drive out there with the family. I was having a tough time getting traction without snow tires. Making turns was difficult because the car tended to slide even if I was going really slow. I was in a parking lot where some of the pathways were banked. I could feel the car sliding sideways in those areas. Craziness.

Honestly, I know that this weather is a fact of life living here. I’ve said that I don’t mind, but seriously I’m starting to get a little fatigued from the constant snow. It’s tolerable within reason, but man…we’re not even one freaking month into the season and we’re more than halfway to last year’s snow levels–and last year had one of the snowiest winters Toronto has had in decades (194 cm). Fuck fuck fuck. I’m going crazy!

Tags: , , ,

Leave comment

Winter denial

Categories:

Tue. January 13, 2009

I really think I’ve been in a state of winter denial. No kidding. I mean, I’ve been driving around in relatively good weather. The last few times that there’s been heavy storm I’ve either taken transit in to the office or had the fortune to be able to work from home. Today’s been the first time this season I’ve had to make the commute on snow-covered roads. Even without snow tires I didn’t do any slipping around because I think I have the good sense to take it easy. Today shouldn’t have surprised me, but it kind of caught me off guard.

In terms of running, I’ve been good-natured about all of this winter-training. I didn’t train last winter, and now after the interesting runs I’ve had I kind of wish I did. What’s a little snow? Sure, it slows me down considerably but it’s still rewarding. All this time I figured the whole season would be this relaxed, but tonight, hoo boy. The wind chill was entirely brutal when I was starting out. The temperature was the coldest I’ve had to run in in a long while. I felt it most in my toes. Maybe I need to buy woollen running socks, I don’t know.

Going to work, I’ve been wearing my usual casual leather shoes. I’ve been meaning to buy boots, but the shoes had been enough over the past while. They give me good enough traction in slushy conditions. I just put up with it all. Today though, after a few too many puddles I had to take them off, and remove my socks for them to dry out. I had them drying on my computer tower under my desk so as not to offend my colleagues. After taking a good look at my shoes, I noticed that the accumulated salt stains were starting to have an effect.

So, anyway, I’m bringing up all of these small stories as examples of me not acting as if I’m aware what season I’m in. In many cases I’m still quite season-inappropriate. This morning, while sitting in crawling traffic I was thinking about how it was fortunate that I wouldn’t have to drive through many more snowy days being that the season is almost over. Oh, but then I actually did the calculations and came to the realization that we were even one lousy month into the season. That should not have shocked me at all, but yeah, it did. It’s kind of like I’ve been entirely oblivious to mother nature. With the big clump of snowy days in December, it almost feels like we’ve been dealing with this season for a very very long time. Of course, this isn’t true.

Well, I’m here to say that I acknowledge that we are into winter, and that there are still a few months to go before tamer weather conditions will prevail. I am in winter denial no more.

Tags: , , , ,

2 comments

Why I commute the way I do

Categories:

Tue. October 7, 2008

Well, I dropped off my car at the mechanic that specializes in electrical problems. Hopefully he can determine the exact issue. I’ve allowed him to have my car overnight, just so he can see for himself just how bad the issue is.

Hint: it’s pretty damn awful.

So, well, since I had to leave the car I had to take transit all the way into the downtown core. I usually cut out part of the trip by transit by driving to a subway station. Today I took the 39E Finch East bus to the station. This is one of the busiest bus routes in the system. No kidding. When I got on it was already packed. With a large steeped tea in hand I was struggling to find something to grab onto. The driver seemed to be fond of accelerating and slowing down unreasonably. Or maybe the close quarters were just amplifying every single bump in the road for me. The density of human bodies raised the temperature and triggered sweating for me. It was like that until we got to one of the high schools where a good chunk of riders got off.

All in all, I got to work about 20 minutes later than I would have if I drove part of the way in. I really don’t think it’s that bad. Or…perhaps I’ve just gotten used to having ridiculously long commutes despite being within the city boundaries. Seriously. Commuting in from the far reaches of Scarborough is a very time-consuming task. It takes the same amount of time for me to drive out west to where I used to go to university, and that was some ways out.

I think my bus experience this morning underlines for me why I drive in to the subway stations. I don’t mind subways or streetcars because they have a high(er) capacity. On a good day I can enjoy the ride in peace with a sense of my personal space still being respected. And the ride is usually fairly smooth because of the movement being guided by tracks. Makes sense, right? With buses, they’re usually packed and very much a stop/go/stop/go affair. There are more factors contributing to the speed of a bus trip, such as traffic and embarking/disembarking. All in all, even though I have to spend money on gas, I don’t mind doing so because it gives me an opportunity to bypass the bus. I guess I’m lucky in that I have the luxury of having that option.

Tags: , , , , ,

2 comments

Older posts «

Switch to our mobile site