I should mention right here and now that the original title of this post was “TTC hikes up the wrong tree,” which was kind of a bad title anyway, but upon further research, was actually kind of factually incorrect.. so I went with the title you see above. More about that later.

So, with the TTC here in Toronto about to hike our fees again, to the point that today, @bradTTC, the Director of corporate communications for the Toronto Transit Commission announced that they are pulling token sales until January, 2010, I felt this post was required. I wanted to take a look worldwide at how much people are paying for their daily commutes using their Public transport systems. I wanted to compare this to my own commute, so I used my peak hours of use and my distance traveled to do the comparison.

** My friend Laurent calls this a ‘Mise au point’ because I started out trying to prove that the TTC was charging us an unfairly high fare and were now going to jack up the price, but it turns out.. sigh, the TTC is just slightly on the high end of average. **

I live in Toronto, and I travel by TTC to and from work. I travel a total of 6.25km in each direction, taking the bus to St.Clair West station, and then the subway down to St. Andrew station.

You can read more about how I came up with these costs based on the distance traveled etc below the table.

Public Transit System	Trip fare	Monthly pass
	$2.75 CAN	$111 CAN
	£6.70  ($11.83 CAN)	£99.10 ($174.82CAN)
	€1.60 ($2.54 CAN)	€56.60 ($89.99 CAN)
	22 rubles ($ 0.81 CAN!)	1700 rubles ($62 CAN)
	2,00 € ($3.18 CAN)	52,10 € ($82.86 CAN).
	¥190 ($2.28 CAN)	Cannot find monthly pass.
	1000 won ($0.92 CAN)
	$2.25US ($2.49 CAN)	$89.00US  ($94.94 CAN)
	$2.75 CAN	$68.50 CAN

The London Tube

Prices are determined by ZONES, and whether you are traveling in Peak hours.
So if we do a direct comparison, 6.75km from downtown London – let’s say the Bond Street Tube station to Willesden Green Tube station (about 6.8km’s apart) the cost would be £6.70 in peak hours (or $11.83 CAN in each direction). If you by a monthly Adult Travelcard, the cost would be £99.10 or $174.82CAN.

The Paris Metro fare price is also determined by Zones, but their zones are much larger that the Tube it would seem, or at least you can travel farther on one “ticket+” than you can on the Tube.  The cost to travel in one direction with transfers seems to be €1.60 ($2.54 CAN) and the monthly pass for unlimited travel is €56.60 ($89.99 CAN).

I’ve actually traveled the Paris Metro myself this summer, and I can attest to its cheapness and just how fantastic it is to use, you really can get to anywhere in Paris on this subway system. And the rail system out of Paris is equally amazing, if slightly pricier.

Cost of one trip is 22 rubles ($ 0.81 CAN!) and the unlimited monthly pass is 1700 rubles ($62 CAN).

The Madrid Metro is the second largest underground system in Europe and the sixth largest system in the world.

The Madrid Metro network is split into the six “functional” zones mentioned above. Each one has a “single” ticket (Billete Sencillo), valid for one trip within the zone, and a 10-trip ticket for a comparatively lower price. When crossing zone boundaries, one has to buy a new ticket for the zone being entered. There is also a “combined” ticket, which provides for a single trip between any two points of the network except the Airport stations, which have an additional supplement of 1€. All in all, it is possible to go from the airport to any other point of the network for 3.00 €.

So one fare that will get you pretty much anywhere in Madrid (except the airport) but definetley the 6.25km for comparison is 2,00 € ($3.18 CAN) and a monthly pass is 52,10 € ($82.86 CAN).

I could not find a monthly pass equivalent on the English site, perhaps on their original site?

A one-way fare is $2.25US ($2.49 CAN) and an unlimited monthly pass is $89.00US  ($94.94 CAN).

We launched the new Radio 2 campaign this week called the Great Canadian Song Quest and I have to say, I am pretty excited about the social media tool kit we provide on the site.

I [hope] I will never call myself a Social Media Expert or Social Networking Expert (I use the tools, but I drive a car too, and I’m not going to start pretending to be an auto mechanic either), but I think we are providing some pretty neat tools for CBC Radio 2 listeners to start their own campaigns for locations in Canada they would like to have a song written about… now I just really hope they use them!

The pieces I like best about the ‘Share your quest with the Rest‘ page are the templates we have provided for people to create their own Blogger OR WordPress blogs and the new UGC photogallery that CBC.ca is now using.

The twitter hashtags are a bit of an experiment.. I don’t use them that much myself, so we will see if that gets a lot of pickup and uploading a video about your favourite place in Canada also might be too much to hope for.. but you never know right?

Could be cool, could not take-off, no way of knowing. What I do know is that I like how far we’ve taken these tools we are providing, and I like where we stopped. I don’t think we went over the top, or tried to take on too much, this is just going to be an interesting experience to see what Radio 2 listeners WANT to do on the site.

So I just got into this online show when julien tweeted about their new music video on Youtube called ‘Do you want to date my Avatar?”

Couldn’t stop laughing, therefore had to blog about it. I’m on episode 3 of The Guild, and if you’ve ever played an MMO or any online game with friends, I recommend trying it.

This is the itinerary for France at Yahoo Trips

Google Map: http://maps.google.ca/maps/ms?hl=en&gl=ca&ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&msa=0&msid=108951359976613231692.00046f87a07726995af7e

PARIS:

RSS Feed for weather in Paris: http://weather.yahooapis.com/forecastrss?p=FRXX0076&u=c
Map of Paris with hotel, Louvre, Eiffel Tower and Notre Dam
Dad stayed at Chateau les Halles

RSS Feed for weather in Reims: http://weather.yahooapis.com/forecastrss?p=FRXX0080&u=c

RSS Feed for weather in Dijon: http://weather.yahooapis.com/forecastrss?p=FRXX0036&u=c

RSS Feed for weather in Lyon: http://weather.yahooapis.com/forecastrss?p=FRXX0055&u=c

We FINALLY made our way to the new Indian Restaurant in our hood last night.

The restaurant is called Savera and is located here:


View Larger Map

It was some of the best Indian food I have eaten in this city, really well spiced, tasty, and in perfect quantities. The service was quick, and the ambiance  lovely. I would highly recommend this restaurant, and will be going again soon.

We (two adults + 1 seven-year-old) ordered:

• Lamb Roganjosh
• Channa Masala
• Butter Chicken
• Naan+ Rice + Raita
• House Wine (Jackson Triggs Merlot)
• TOTAL COST= $70

IT IS DONE!!!!
Ok, it needs to be waterproofed, but really IT IS DONE!!!

Joists, taken from my back door

We spent last week finalizing the joists (which are the REAL backbreakers on this project). They all needed ‘Hurricane clips’ and various other Ninja-star-looking metal bits screwed into them, and we had to keep checking levels and stuff, plus adding joist-hangers… it was the hard work I tell ya.

They need to have deck kits that include joists… because its a completely unsatisfying part of the project. They are ugly, you spend the entire time stepping THRU them, and tripping OVER them, and did I mention all the metal hangers you have to screw in to place to HOLD them there?!?!?

Crappy crappy crap. Joists suck. I get that they are the skeleton of my lovely new deck, but they suck anyway. So there.

Laying the cedar deck boards over the evil joists

After three weeks of working with the pressure-treated-chemical-filled 2×4s that became the evil joists, we made the decision to go with the cedar boards for our actual deck.

A very good-but-expensive choice (cedar was double the cost of pressure-treated deck boards) – but at least we got them on a weekend with a special no GST/PST!

So we started screwing them into place on Saturday afternoon.

And despite the rain on Sunday, we mustered on through, screw after screw.

Our deck, as taken from the west side

Finally resulting in this beautiful finished cedar deck!

We only have about half the screw in place, but that is probably going to change <groan> tonight.. and then we Thompsons-waterseal the sucker and HELLLOOOOO Summer!!

I’m totally thrilled, it makes the backyard look so much bigger, and the cedar is gorgeous.

Two of the three 15' beams we laid.

We set in the beams as you can see, and squared the ’skeleton’ of the deck this weekend and a little into this week.

Next we will be doing joists which have these evil metal hangers called joist hangers attached to them. I say evil ’cause they cut you really easily and could be substituted for Ninja Stars in a pinch.

Off to PAB2009 this weekend, so don’t expect an update until next week this time (unless the hubby actually manages to both watch the little monkey AND get some work done, but I am not holding my breath).

Mixing and pouring cement

As predicted, we were knee deep in cement this weekend.

Got three of the holes filled with the sticky goupy stuff (which it turns out, when mixed to the right consistency, sounds vaguely like cow patties leaving the cow and hitting the ground.. lovely).

Both of our backs are really sore, but once again The Claw totally came thru for us (I feel a little like a Canadian Tire ad or something)… we poured about a third of the cement into the white bucket pictured to

The post hole with a brace on top

So, three of the nine posts are poured.

Next week, more concrete, and we’re widening the center post to accomodate a 12″ sono-tube instead of a 6″… so more digging and more shop vaccing! YAY!

And the digging continues. Another weekend goes by and we are three more post-holes closer to… well… more work. [sigh]
Supposedly, the dirt we have scraped off the backyard will be picked up tomorrow, at which time the area where the last three postholes have to be dug will be exposed.. and THEN… well THEN.. we will dig the three more post-holes. [sigh]
This is the most time-consuming project EVER!!!!
Ok, no, pregnancy and THEN THIS.
Anyways, that is the update.
Next Week stay tuned for when the hubby says “Honey, its time to pour concrete!”

So, we are working on a deck my friends, OH YES.

Posting pics as we go, we are currently at the phase I like to call “hole digging hell!”
We have an innovative way to dig holes in which to put these Sono tubes that you then fill with concrete (don’t ask me, I am the grunt-work on this project). The holes have to be two feet deep to go past the frostline (so the deck’s foundations don’t wiggle during the winter).

We are loosening up the dirt with my cool new twisty tool (no idea what it is called.. The Claw maybe?) and then sucking up the loose dirt using our Shop Vac. It doesn’t seem like it would work but it really does!