Curiosities
-
Literal street names
Here’s a Sunday afternoon pastime — I was walking up Broadview Ave. on that suddenly mild New Year’s Day and was reminded again how that...
By Dylan Reid -
Loving parking lots in Portland
Portland, Oregon gets a lot of credit as cities go. “The city that works” really does work, as I found out when I visited last weekend. An early North...
By Jake Schabas -
Google misplaces CN Tower
It seems that search engine superpower and go-to map company Google has had some problems arranging Toronto lately, with the city’s most iconic building...
By Travis Myers -
Toronto artist turns condo ads into tents
One of the artists behind last year’s poster pocket plants, Sean Martindale, got in touch with us about his latest streetscape intervention: turning...
By Jenn O. Yim -
Dept. of Cute Signs: “Walk your Bike” sidewalk stencil
I was in Stratford, Ontario last weekend and noticed this stencil on the sidewalks at intersections, indicating that people should walk their bikes when...
By Dylan Reid -
New TTC station maps: Third time not the charm
Back in September of 2009, I reported on the new station vicinity maps that were appearing throughout the TTC subway system. These new maps were intended...
By Sean Marshall -
Dept. of Funny Signs: G20 overkill?
I can understand why closed-down liquor stores around the G20 summit area might get boarded up this weekend, but for a clothing store (on Queen west of...
By Dylan Reid -
A Kensington Lefty in King Rob Ford’s Court
Rob Ford’s climactic parade into the hall. As soon as I entered the Toronto Congress Centre, my friends pulled me into the lineup they were standing...
By Jonathan Goldsbie -
Disco Road: The land that metric forgot
An old street sign in the foreground, with a newer metric speed limit sign and the Disco Road waste transfer station in the background. Disco Road, a...
By Sean Marshall -
Public and private infrastructure in action (imagined and real)
The Twitterverse recently led me to an interesting blog post that pointed out how, in the Bourne movies, the Jason Bourne character “uses public...
By Dylan Reid -
The land that Timeline forgot
Until December 31, 1999, the TTC had a convenient mobile schedule system called Timeline. An early post on Spacing Toronto gives a history of the system...
By Sean Marshall -
TTC replaces vicinity maps, but still some work to do
Updated September 21 at 3:25 pm: According to Spacing’s contributing editor Steve Munro, the TTC has announced that it will be reviewing, correcting...
By Sean Marshall