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http://toronto.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20070719/ttc_cuts_070720/20070720?hub=TorontoHome They are thinking about closing down a whole subway line in Toronto because of lack of funds?? As backward as it seems to be here sometimes, we can sure be thankful that we are not in Toronto! We are adding lines not removing them.

This is a proposed plan for Toronto for the next 15 years. (Courtesy Toronto Star)

(Courtesy of The Montreal Gazette) I'll post my comment soon, stuck doing some paper work right now

Not much info on this one - saw a sign posted today at 2204 Sainte-Catherine West, right opposite of the now completed Seville project. The sign said something along the lines of stay tuned - new project on the way. Will try and get more info tomorrow!

Zig-zag lines being painted on purpose April 20, 2009 - 12:36pm Zig-zag lines being painted in Loudoun. (VDOT) Adam Tuss, wtop.com LOUDOUN -- Behind the wheel, you want the least amount of distraction possible. So why is a local transportation agency painting crooked lines on the road on purpose? The Virginia Department of Transportation says it's part of a safety campaign to get drivers to slow down in a high pedestrian and bicycle area. The 500 feet of zig-zagging lines are painted on the ground on Belmont Ridge Road, where it intersects with the Washington and Old Dominion trail in Loudoun County. "It is a low cost strategy to get motorists to slow down as they approach the bike trail and pedestrian path," says VDOT's Mike Salmon. "While at first motorists may be a little disoriented, the main point is to get them to pay attention and slow down through that area." There are plans to also paint the crooked lines on Sterling Boulevard where it intersects with the W&OD trail. VDOT says similar programs have been successful in the United Kingdom and Australia. The transportation agency will study the zig-zagging lines for a year and see if they actually reduce speeds. If the lines prove effective, you can expect to see more of them on the ground. (Copyright 2009 by WTOP. All Rights Reserved.)

(Courtesy of The Globe and Mail)

Voici une version préliminaire de ma vision pour un réseau de tram à Montréal + Laval + Rive-sud. Station names coming soon. Solid lines = metro Dashed lines = tram Pourquoi 2030? D'abbord on sait que les choses prennent une éternité à Montréal, et deux, selon mon plan, il faudrait reconfigurer pas mal de km de boulevard, certains segments sont élevés, en pont, etc. Plus d'info à venir, pour l'instant il est tard et demain est un autre jour... J'ai passé bien des heures à regarder des cartes, des images satelites, des images vue-de-la-rue, etc, pour en arriver à ceci: Peu importe ci c'est réaliste/faisable ou pas, j'ai eu bien du fun

Delta Air Lines, qui a finalisé en octobre le rachat de Northwest Airlines, a accusé une lourde perte en 2008, reflet des dépréciations passées dans ses comptes dans la perspective de cette fusion. Pour en lire plus...

Voici ma vision pour un réseau light-rail/tramway sur la rive sud (principalement Longueuil, mais aussi Brossard, Boucherville et Saint-Lambert.) 85% of the lines will run through large boulevards that have existing space between the carriageways. (Ex: Boul Roland-Therrien, which was precisely designed with tramway-expandability in mind.) About 10% of the lines will run adjacent to major roads, along currently (as of 2008) vacant or more or less acquirable space. A final 5% will have to be dug or passed through some existing (infra)structures. Ligne 1 - 11km Roland-Therrien (et aussi boul. Cousineau) Ligne 2 - 17km Jacques-Cartier (et le bord de l'eau) Ligne 3 - 9km Taschereau (et boul. Lafayette) Note #1 - Il devrait y avoir des modifications aux infrastructures existentes a certains endroits... exemple, pour avoir suffisament d'espace pour installer un tram, Taschereau va devoir tasser ses voies sur les cotes (pas un enorme probleme, considerant qu'il y a presentement des acotements assez large de 2m+) Note #2 - Il y aurait possibilité d'expansion! Surtout sur la ligne 3 vers le sud. Note #3 - C'est une VISION seulement; pour le fun! I haven't considered all the details, i just had fun and put this map together. Please keep that in mind! Questions / commentaires / suggestions / compliments / insultes / tomates / n'hésitez pas!

Picture in question: From what I can determine, the church in the middle of the picture is the one at the corner of Saint-Jacques and Vinet in st henri, and the slope on the side is where the Ville-Marie highway is now. Based on the size of that church and its position, I say is between staint-jacques and notre-dame around Guy street. Things I hope you guys can help with, the church on the left, with the single steeple, where is/was it? The building on the right, in the background, with all the chimneys, what is it, it looks really familiar, I'm sure someone will recognize it. And finally, does anyone have a map of the rail lines in the general area around the turn of the century, there is a platform on the extreme right in the middle, and knowing where they were would help greatly. Thanks for the help in advance, I love trying to figure these old ones out.

ENcore une fois, tiré de la Gazette de ce matin! More cars for busiest train line DAVID JOHNSTON, The Gazette The Montreal area's busiest commuter-rail line will get double-decker cars thanks to $120 million in new provincial money for suburban-train infrastructure. The introduction of double-decker service on the Montreal/Deux Montagnes line tops the priority list for the new three-year capital-spending plan of the Metropolitan Transit Agency. The plan is to be made public in the next two weeks. It will boost the number of double-decker cars in the MTA's 200-car fleet well above the current 22 - which are used on commuter lines to Rigaud and Blainville-St. Jérôme. The combined ridership on these new lines is barely two-thirds of the 31,000 carried daily on the Deux Montagnes line. By comparison, all 415 GO trains in the metropolitan Toronto commuter-rail network have double-decker cars. Renewal of the train fleet will put double-decker trains where they are needed most - on the busiest lines, and during rush-hour periods, MTA official Mélanie Nadeau said yesterday. Rush-hour trains on the Deux Montagnes line run well above 100-per-cent capacity now. Crowding is a sore point with users. The line carries 31,000 people a day. It runs from Central Station through St. Laurent, the West Island and Laval and into the St. Eustache-Deux Montagnes area. [email protected] © The Gazette (Montreal) 2007

I heard a rumor today in the flight deck and I wanted to see if anyone else had heard it. Apparently FedEx is saturated in Memphis, and they're looking to make another North American Hub....and apparently Mirabel is the choice, or is being considered. I did a search online, with no luck.... Has anyone else heard anything along these lines? Would be the perfect re-birth for the airport.

Until Montreal scrapped its streetcars in 1959, the Craig Terminus was one of the hubs of the city's sprawling tramway network. Located near the corner of St. Urbain and Craig (now Viger St. Antoine), 14 different tram lines merged into this imposing stone building, built in 1925. It was demolished in 1970 when the Ville Marie Expressway tore through a huge swath of downtown Montreal.

Source: Radio-Canada Un déversement de carburant s'est produit lundi soir, vers 19 h 30, lorsqu'un vraquier de la Canada Steamship Lines s'est échoué près de l'écluse de Côte-Sainte-Catherine, au sud de Montréal. Le réservoir de carburant du navire a été perforé. Le vraquier de 204 mètres transporte du blé. Une marée noire s'étend sur une surface de 500 mètres sur 500 mètres à proximité de l'écluse. Les responsables ont fermé la voie maritime du Saint-Laurent mardi matin. La fuite a été colmatée vers 23 h, selon la Sécurité civile. Les équipes de secours ont installé des estacades pour tenter de contenir le déversement et récupérer le carburant par la suite. Les autorités ont alerté les municipalités de Candiac, de Sainte-Catherine et de La Prairie. Elles surveillent leurs usines de filtration d'eau. L'opération de nettoyage pourrait prendre quelques jours. La Canada Steamship Lines est la plus grande compagnie de transport maritime au Canada. Paul Martin, l'ancien premier ministre du Canada, l'a acquise en 1981 et en a cédé la gestion à ses fils en 2003.

Je voulais vous montrer cet exemple de tram hybride, qui peut rouler autant sur les rails conventionnels que sur de rail type tramway dans la rue. Le genre d'hybride qui serait intéressant pour la connexion Brossard-Centre-ville, voire pour la navette avec Dorval. RandstadRail is the lightrail system that connects The Hague with Rotterdam and Zoetermeer. It's a hybrid system - partly an extension of the HTM The Hague street car lines and the Rotterdam subway (Erasmus Line). The hybrid character also explains the two different types of vehicles used on this system. Alstom built Regio Citadis cars that run on "normal" street car routes through the city of The Hague and Rotterdam Bombardier built subway cars that connect to the Rotterdam subway system. Outside Rotterdam and The Hague all vehicles use former standard railroad lines: the Hofpleinlijn (oldest electric railroad in The Netherlands - 1909) and the Zoetermeer Line (1975). Both routes have been rebuilt to lightrail standards. The system is quite succesful, at least for Dutch standards. About 80.000 passengers use it on a daily basis.

New technology that can detect when graffiti vandals are tagging train cars is being heralded in Australia as a major breakthrough in crime prevention. The electronic sensor, called a "mousetrap," has been tested across the network and has so far led to the arrest of 30 people. It works by detecting the vapours of spray cans and markers while they are in use and alerting transport authorities and police. Australian Transport Minister Andrew Constance said it was a useful tool. "What this means is that those who commit graffiti can now be caught immediately, with can in hand, marker in hand, doing the damage," he said. "[Mousetrap] provides real-time information, triggering closed-circuit TV back to Sydney Trains staff and also real-time information provided directly to the Police Transport command." Sydney Trains declined to say how many of the devices would be rolled out across the network but indicated they would be randomly moved from different train lines. Removing graffiti cost taxpayers $34 million last financial year, up from $30 million the year before. Sydney Trains chief executive Howard Collins said it was a big problem. "Our customers hate it – it's one of the top customer complaints and cleaners work hard to remove about 11,000 tags from trains each month," he said. "We know customers feel unsafe when they are using a train which is covered in graffiti and offenders often place themselves and others in danger by trespassing on the railway or being somewhere they shouldn't. "When I came to Sydney 10 years ago most of the trains had graffiti inside and out. We now work on keeping our trains clean." http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/mousetrap-can-detect-when-graffiti-vandals-are-tagging-trains-1.3066838?cmp=rss

Just follow the light: Traffic lines stay brighter going in one direction A recent study by North Carolina State University has shown that the stripes dividing our nation's roadways are brighter when they are applied in the same direction that traffic is flowing. In many cases, the twin center lines dividing opposing lanes are painted at the same time, making them more visible in one direction than the other. The issue seems to center around the glass beads that are mixed in with the paint. These reflective beads are most effective when properly oriented. Using a device called – we're not making this up – a retroreflect-o-meter, the team discovered that the difference in the reflective values of painted lines put down in the proper direction was great enough that they could sometimes last an entire year longer than if they were painted in the opposite direction. These findings indicate that the transportation authorities could save quite a bit of money if they go the extra step of ensuring the lines are applied in the correct direction. Additionally, safety would be improved since the lines would be more clearly visible at night. Other more costly alternatives include adhesive tapes with glass beads already embedded in the proper direction. Who knew? http://blog.wired.com/cars/2009/03/traffic-marking.html

(Courtesy of Huffington Post)