Category: The outdoors

Hiking, camping, canoeing – if it’s an outdoor adventure, it should be under this heading

Roundabouts: faster and safer

Anyone who has lived in the UK is probably familiar with roundabouts: a type of intersection that does away with traffic signals, in favour of rotation around a central area.

They may be a bit confusing to the unfamiliar, but they apparently have large advantages in both safety and speed:

One of their main attractions, says Mayor Brainard, is safety. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, an independent research group, estimates that converting intersections with traffic lights to roundabouts reduces all crashes by 37% and crashes that involve an injury by 75%. At traffic lights the most common accidents are faster, right-angled collisions. These crashes are eliminated with roundabouts because vehicles travel more slowly and in the same direction. The most common accident is a sideswipe, generally no more than a cosmetic annoyance.

What locals like, though, is that it is on average far quicker to traverse a series of roundabouts than a similar number of stop lights. Indeed, one national study of ten intersections that could have been turned into roundabouts found that vehicle delays would have been reduced by 62-74% (nationally saving 325,000 hours of motorists’ time annually). Moreover, because fewer vehicles had to wait for traffic lights, 235,000 gallons of fuel could have been saved.

Perhaps we ought to see more in North America.

Does anyone have experience in cycling in roundabouts?

Night of Dread

Yesterday, I participated in the novel, engaging, and pleasantly pagan festivities at Toronto’s Night of Dread. Put on by the Clay and Paper Theatre Company (whose work I have photographed before), the evening involved both small and gigantic representations of fears including ‘corruption’, ‘nuclear war’, ‘selfish leadership’, and ‘lack of stability’.

Accompanied by drummers and brass instruments, a parade marched out from Dufferin Grove Park and out around the neighbourhood before people assembled to see some of the fears burned atop a massive bonfire, followed by more music and special bread. I can’t explain exactly why, but seeing families and children at the event was comforting and encouraging. It may have something to do with the act of physically coming together within a community, making art, and participating in a non-commercial spectacle together.

The sense of history that accompanies gathering around a fire is also a comforting reminder that humanity has always had troubles. It is easy to look at woes from nuclear meltdowns and tsunamis to wars and currency crises and think that we are living in the worst of times, or even the end of times. Gathering in a manner that would have been recognizable to people from thousands of years ago drives one to think about all the fears, misfortunes, and tragedies that have afflicted the world across that span, and it kindles a hope that we might overcome (or at least continue to contain) the dangers and sorrows that exist now.

The symbolism may not be sophisticated, but it is rather satisfying to see enormous representations of fears marched around and eventually burned. The pyrotechnic element reminded me of Luminox.

Civilian unmanned aerial vehicles

For about US$2,000, you can get a pretty ridiculous camera-equipped UAV, which can be controlled by radio at a range of up to 15km. People fly them using live video streaming to goggles.

One group of people using these drones has made some impressive videos of places like New York City and the Matterhorn. Their work is pretty audacious, both in terms of how they flirt with the destruction of their drones by flying close to obstacles and because of how they flirt with trouble with the authorities by flying low in major urban centres.

These drones may have been part of the inspiration for the drone-related plot points in William Gibson’s latest novel, Zero History.

Related:

“The Pedaler’s Wager” – Toronto

Starting tomorrow, the Clay and Paper Theatre Company are performing their original show “The Pedaler’s Wager” in Dufferin Grove Park, Toronto. It sounds like quite a lively experience:

This original comedy features puppetry, live music, and our very own CYCLOPS: Cycling Oriented Puppet Squad. Each weekend audience members are invited to cycle from act to act alongside performers, literally following the troupe to the show’s conclusion.

The show runs from July 20th until August 14th, and all performances start in Dufferin Grove Park.

Stationary performances are happening Wednesday through Sunday at 7:00pm and Friday at 2:00pm.

Traveling performances start on Saturdays and Sundays at 2:00pm and require that you bring your own bicycle to follow the performers from Dufferin Grove Park to Fred Hamilton Park and Trinity Bellwoods Park.

The show is $10, or pay what you can.

Back on two wheels

More than a year after I broke my collarbone, I re-inflated my tires, strapped on a new helmet, and went for a ride along the canal, past the locks beside Parliament, along the river, up Booth Street, along Dow’s Lake, and back home along the canal.

Cycling may carry the distinct risk of breaking your neck, but it beats paying $60 per month to exercise under constant social surveillance at a gym.

Driver’s licenses

I have never had a driver’s license – just a new driver’s permit that I got in high school and which expired in 2003.

There is one practical reason why I have never acquired the legal authority to drive a vehicle on my own. While I can understand the justification for it, the new graduated licensing systems used in British Columbia and Ontario make getting a full license a big pain. There is a written test, multiple road tests, and progressively diminishing restrictions on what you can do with each kind of license. To begin with, you can only drive at certain hours and with a limited number of passengers of a pre-selected type. In high school, I had access to a vehicle and parents who were willing to practice driving with me. While away at university doing my undergraduate degree, I was a long bus ride away from those things and quite busy to boot. That has remained true as I went to Oxford for my M.Phil and came to Ottawa to work.

There is also a non-practical reason for my situation: I hate cars. They may actually be the one thing in life that makes me the most angry. Twice in Ottawa, I have been hit by moving cars while riding my bike. Taxi drivers are especially reckless and dangerous. Countless times, I have nearly been hit as a pedestrian. I have frequently been splashed with puddle water, slush, or mud by passing motorists. I have been kept awake countless nights by the growl of cars passing near my bedroom. I have frequently been annoyed by what an enormous percentage of the total space in city centres is devoted to the requirements of these dirty, dangerous vehicles. I have breathed toxic fumes from countless automobiles, and will suffer along with everybody else from the climate change they are causing.

To me, choosing to drive a car seems callous and selfish. It suggests that you put your own comfort and convenience ahead of the health and safety of the people around you, who you endanger with toxic emissions, greenhouse gases, and the ever-present possibility that your multi-tonne hulk of steel and glass will smash them to death. If I had my way, nobody would be allowed to drive in city centres. Rather, they could park at the edge and rely on some combination of non-motorized and public transport within the urban core.

One day, it may be necessary to get a license. There are a frustrating number of places that see a driver’s license as the preferred form of identification, and who will only accept a passport or health card after much effort and cajoling. A license would be useful for moving, for exploring the outdoors, for camping, and for travel. If the opportunity arises – and I have easy access to a vehicle and willing teacher – I will probably put in the hours and effort to get certified. But I will not aspire to drive often.

Reduced screen time

Blogging

We are in the middle of Ottawa’s bright and pleasant season, which precedes the stultifying heat season. As such, I am trying to reduce the amount of time I spent in front of computers. Keeping it at nine hours a day or so seems like an OK goal, though it may involve substantially diminished blogging activities.

Still, the ideas I come up with might be more refined with the benefit of time, and I might make some headway against my insane backlog of reading. Oh, and I might finally find a new job.

Photography

Regardless of whether I find time to write or not, I will keep providing photos of the day. Regarding photography, I was wondering if anyone in Ottawa would be interested in buying a framed print of mine. The prints would be 10″ by 15″ and would cost $75 framed. I could probably mail prints to people outside Ottawa, at an additional cost.

I could make very high quality prints at that size of pretty much any photo in my Flickr portfolio. I could also seek out unpublished prints of particular subjects, upon request.

I am also increasingly well-equipped to take studio-type portraits, so if anybody needs some and is willing to play the role of lighting guinea pig, they should let me know.

Careful on your bikes everyone!

The weather is starting to get nice, but I am wary of breaking out my bicycle.

9 months and 22 days ago, I hit a pothole on my bicycle, flew forward over the handlebars, crashed into the pavement, and broke my collarbone. If I had landed differently, I might have broken my neck. As it was, the recovery was long and difficult and I am still not quite at 100%. This is my third serious bicycle accident in Ottawa. Back in November 2007, a turning car forced me to brake urgently on Rideau Street and made me fly over my handlebars. Another time, a turning black pickup truck actually hit me, as I was headed up Somerset Street.

Cyclists like to pretend otherwise, but cycling in the city is dangerous. Even without the menace of cars, you can kill yourself by hitting a pothole, going over a railing, or getting your wheel caught and being thrown into traffic.

Friends and family members who cycle, please be careful! Wear lights and reflective clothes at night. Avoid the temptation to talk on the phone or listen to music while cycling. Even with a headset on, holding a conversation is as poor an influence on your reaction time as being drunk.

Ontario and offshore wind

Yesterday was an insane day – guest lecture, work, then a commercial photo project – so I have fallen behind on blog updates. Apologies.

That said, how crazy is it that the government of Ontario has called for a moratorium on offshore wind farms? This is a province with a government that is relatively serious about climate change. It is also a province that has not yet phased out coal, despite the many serious risks associated with it, and which is pondering new nuclear plants, despite all the special risks they involve. Writing in The Globe and Mail, Jatin Nathwani implausibly suggested that offshore wind farms raise ‘red flags’. A savvier letter to the editor declared that: “If offshore wind farms are enough to raise red flags about the environment, then fossil fuels should be raising flags that are redder than red.”

Wind farms would seem like the least of their worries, and actually a contribution to solving their troubles. Of course, NIMBY forces are strong, and politicians are thinking about elections.

P.S. Also in the news, yet more reason to worry about methane and permafrost: Melting permafrost to emit carbon equal to half all industrial emissions: study.