August 29, 2006 - According to a recent survey, tourists have voted London, UK to have the best transit system in the World! Others in the top 5 include New York City, Hong Kong, Paris, and Washington D.C.
Comment: well not a huge surprise there - Having been on four of the five listed (never been on D.C.'s transit system), London's tube system is efficient and gets you where you need to go without delay and incident (except for the random weekend shutdown). Sure it could improve, but compare to a lot of other systems out there (think Toronto) it's still magnificent. What's kinda neat is that these cities, particularly NYC and London, are defined by their transit system. As in their subways are kinda an attraction in itself. I mean, who wouldn't want to at least ride the Tube at least once in London, or take the subway across Manhattan? It's part of their city's icon.
Read the full article here.
August 28, 2006 - As most of my friends already know, I'm really into infrastructure and engineering projects. So while surfing the Discovery Channel website today, I came across this really really cool proposal to construct a tunnel across the Atlantic Ocean, from New York City all the way to London!! Named the "Transatlantic Tunnel Project", the tunnel will be raised above the ocean floor (so technically it's more like a tube in the Atlantic than a tunnel, since tunnels are dug out from beneath the ocean floor) and will stretch over 5000 km long. The tube will be a vacuum tube, so that mag-lev (magnetic levitation) trains could travel through the tube without air resistance and friction at up to 5000 mph (8000 km/h) faster than a bullet fired from a gun. Travelling time between NYC and London would be reduced to just an hour!! (by comparison, it takes more than an hour to go from downtown Toronto to suburban Markham!) So you could technically have dinner in New York, take the train and eat dessert in London!
The idea sounds awesome though I doubt I will actually get to see it in my lifetime (costs estimates are at around 12 trillion dollars!). However, the idea of vaccum tube trains is not exactly new. As far back as the 1910s, there have been proposals to build transcontinental vacuum tubes across the US to help reduce travelling time (i.e. Boston-NYC in 10 minutes, NYC-Los Angeles in less than an hour). Today, many cities already have mag-lev trains (the first line opened in Shanghai) - so vacuum tube trains may not be that far off, provided that the huge construction costs are covered somehow...
August 11, 2006 - And so it's off to Queen's Park I go! Today, I was officially offered the position of Policy Specialist/Senior Policy Advisor at the Ministry of Public Infrastructure Renewal. I'm definitely excited about this new opportunity: not only would it be a promotion (more money!!!) but it would also give me a chance to work on more planning-related projects. Though of course, it would be sad to leave my current branch. The people I currently work with are simply amazing (well most of them anyway), and where else can I work flex hours, watch tv during lunch, and be steps away from a supermarket and the world's best dollar store?!
But all good things must come and to an end and I guess it is time to go (I can kinda feel it I guess). I am so grateful for all the opportunities that I had over the past year and 3 months. Hopefully the people at my new branch will be just as great (though I doubt it will surpass the people I currently work with) and I'll be able to learn lots...
Looks like this Fall would be really busy and a lot of "firsts"!
August 29, 2006 - According to a recent survey, tourists have voted London, UK to have the best transit system in the World! Others in the top 5 include New York City, Hong Kong, Paris, and Washington D.C.
