Archive for July, 2013

Located off of Dundas St. West in Lambton Park this is the closest complete program of skating programs offered in the Junction area.

Dec 2013 is the city contract stayed completion for the Rehabilitation Works at Lambton Arena, 4100 Dundas Street West.

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…as the Junction has a pile of designer/makers the blog though a few would be interested in this piece.

This is an ode to an information designer who made life a little bit easier for millions and millions of people: Ladislav Sutnar, the man who put parentheses around area codes.

Click here to listen
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CONSTRUCTION OF SPEED HUMP LOCATIONS

Tender Call No. 225-2013 Contract No. 13TE-109TR

anticipated start date is August 5, 2013 subject to obtaining all required
approvals.
4.2 The Contractor agrees to complete the entire work comprising the contract within
a time period of forty (40) working days from the date of the written order to
commence work

12 Falstaff Avenue Amber Crescent Culford Road 4
12 Purdy Crescent Rosemount Avenue Queenslea Avenue 2
13 Quebec Avenue Dundas Street West Annette Street 4
16 Roselawn Avenue Latimer Avenue Caldow Road 3

All text from Eco.on.ca site

We could have carbon free electricity in Ontario in 2014! – Environmental Commissioner of Ontario

Recent extreme weather events in the west and in Toronto have highlighted the reality of the new and changing global climate. Sooner or later Ontario will have to be prepared to contribute further to the global reductions of greenhouse gas emissions. Once again and for the last time I will acknowledge that the closure of the coal plants (now almost complete) was a courageous political act that gives Ontario credibility in international climate change discussions. But that credibility will quickly fade if there is no continued effort to mitigate the problem.

But, there may be such an opportunity created by the ongoing efforts in electricity conservation and support for renewable generation. I have looked at the most recent 18-month outlook of the Independent Electricity System Operator and if I am reading their forecast correctly, the potential to generate electricity in Ontario will look something like the following by August 2014:

Predicted Electricity Generation Capacity August 2014
Nuclear 12800 MW
Hydro 5700 MW
Coal 300 MW
Wind 4300 MW
Biomass 338 MW
Solar 180MW
Total ~33000MW
In reality, we never need 33,000 MWs and neither could we actually produce it except at times when the wind is blowing constantly and the sun is shining. But those sunny, windy conditions do occur and, hence, there is an opportunity. Peak demand in these times is well below the generation potential. A typical summer day now peaks at around 22,000 MW. Could we manage it without carbon emissions?

Let’s examine the scenario of a windy, sunny, not-too-hot summer day across Ontario in August of 2014, exclude imports of power and consider just what we produce here in the province. We’ll also assume that transmission constraints don’t limit our ability to move power around the province as needed. Nuclear generation will be there to the level of about 12,800 MW. We could choose not to fire the remaining coal capacity. Wind could provide say 4000 MW during windy hours of a windy day and solar could yield say 160 MW at mid-day. Biomass will be providing a constant 330 MW. If we don’t call any natural gas generation we would be about 4,700 MW short but that is well below the 5700 MW of hydro capacity the IESO estimates is available from hydro generation in summer flow conditions. So we could in theory be carbon free in electricity generation in Ontario in 2014 at least for some hours under ideal conditions – a very cool concept.

Regrettably, however, current contracts make it impossible. Most newer gas-fired generation would be priced out of the market under the above conditions, and so would not be operating. However, about 1000 MW of gas-fired generation is under contract to non-utility generators in this province who burn gas continuously 24/7 if they want to and they typically do. So, it is nice to think about the possibility of carbon free electrical generation but until we build that option into the structure of our long-term electricity plan it will not happen.

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@RuthBourdain 

from Wikipedia – West Toronto Yard entry-

Link to entry
The turntable from the roundhouse and transfer table from the erecting shops were saved from destruction and relocated to a garden at the back of the Rona property; they have since disappeared from the site.

But I just ran out there… And photographed the turntable bridge – it really appears to be there Wikipedia.

Brooklyn’s parks have flourished under Bloomberg’s tenure. “Since Mr. Bloomberg took office in 2002, his administration has set aside some $6 billion for constructing new parks and improving existing ones, compared with roughly $1 billion spent in the previous decade” throughout the city reported The Wall Street Journal. But his innovation — a reliance on private sources of funding for those parks — is controversial. Prospect Park has a conservancy that raises money from the public, but it still receives city money. Brooklyn Bridge Park, on the other hand, became self sustaining this year, with $6 million to $7 million of revenue already coming from the private residential and hotel development One Brooklyn Bridge Park at Pier 1 and other fees. Future developments, such as planned residential towers, will cover the park’s yearly budget, which will be $16 million by the end of 2017, according to the story. The 85 acres of land covered by the park was a shipping terminal for Port Authority until the 1980s. A 2002 deal between then-Governor George Pataki and Bloomberg used $360 million in state and city funds to create the park. But the decision to set aside park grounds for income generating privately developed residential towers is controversial, with critics contending it’s an inappropriate use of public space. What do you think is the best way to fund

Link to Wall Street Journal Article.

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Beware of geo-urbanists/graphers masquerading as situationists.

Back of the house design and as-build rear portions of the housing stock are often not suited for current use and living choices and the issue plague many Junction houses.

Many are also suffering from damaged and wall building materials that are well past their safe and serviceable life span. Spalling bricks, lifting and crumbling sheet and roll asphalt bricking along with age diminished wood cladding all sight the need for repairs and it outright changes to the rear if many local houses.

Many of the problems can expensive to repair and troublesome to maintain. Brick repair to the rear face if a Junction house can cost on average $8000.00, and simply repairing the damage does not solve any of use and living problems such as the common issue of dark interior spaces resulting from the design choices made by the original builder of the house.

Yet with though and foresight changes can be made.

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Beware of geo-urbanists/graphers masquerading as situationists.

Location:McMurray Ave,Toronto,Canada

Walk along St Johns Rd to the west circa out 15 mins and you will be provided with a tour culture change in community.

Not unusually for Toronto these transition sections of the city from deep urban to quasi suburbanite community sections are accompanied by larger, longer and wider lane-way, and then the lane-ways generally cease to be as you enter the cities true suburbanite sections.

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Beware of geo-urbanists/graphers masquerading as situationists.

All text from the save our ash group

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