TO360 wayfinding consultation

Though I had noticed some of their signage (and, without knowing it, their printed Toronto cycling map has been a key planning tool for our urban hikes), I did not actually know about the city’s TO360 wayfinding project until I saw a post about it a few days ago.

They are currently working on the Long Branch area west of Humber Bay, and held a consultation yesterday at the local library.

The consultation was unlike anything I have done, and really cool. Some knowledgeable local residents turned up, and the TO360 people had printed maps the size of large dinner tables where people could correct errors, note things that ought to be included, and suggest places where they should include custom graphics for something like a building or monument rather than a generic labelled marker. It’s awesome to see a group with so much capability and official support working to map the city from a non-driving perspective.

As shown on p. 11 of the slides, the group is working through the whole GTA as they are funded by the city. It would be neat to explore new areas as they focus on them and contribute to forthcoming consultations. The results won’t just be used for map posts on the street and map posters in subway stations, but also future versions of the cycling map.

Bugs in GaiaGPS

They are too busy/understaffed to communicate with anyone or fix any bugs, but in case anyone at GaiaGPS ever has some free time, these are issues I have noticed.

Some may be on account of the large number of tracks which I have collected.

  1. On both my phone and computer, the map at gaiagps.com or on the app will not show all of my tracks when zoomed out. Far enough out (like looking at the whole city or a big part of it) they do not show at all, and then they pop into vision when I move in enough
  2. Track names often fail to sync from my iOS phone to the web/desktop app. They show up as generic track names and I need to figure out which is which and manually rename them
  3. Both the desktop and especially the iOS version insist on showing waypoints near tracks which are visible, even when the folder for those waypoints is explicitly set to not display
  4. When exporting a folder of tracks with waypoints near them, GaiaGPS includes some of the waypoints along with the tracks in the exported .GPX or .KML file
  5. Tracks and waypoints often fail to move into folders, on both desktop and iOS. I select a track or some waypoints and put it in a folder. It may disappear from where it was previously, but if I wait a minute it will often jump back to where it was before.

None of these break the functionality of the app, which is remarkably capable for a free version. Still, it would be nice to see a good product improved by sorting them out.

Mapping and cartography

When the University of Toronto gyms closed for the pandemic, I realized and decided that I would be getting most of my exercise through walking.

All through writing up my dissertation, I broke down my life into 20 minute chunks of either thesis work, sleeping, exercising (walking), or doing anything else.

I am now up to well over 7,000 km of walking since August 2020. This had begun to produce spin-off projects: the Toronto Urban Hike Collection to identify nice nature trails, maps made in QGIS and posted to Flickr, and animation and wall-sized map projects that I am still developing.