All Posts Tagged With: "transportation"
Study shows cycling is safer in northern Europe
Injuries could be reduced with barriers, regulated speeds
Musti Mohsin/Flickr
Some simple changes to the infrastructure of Canadian cities could go a long way towards keeping the country’s biking enthusiasts safe from harm, a team of researchers suggested Wednesday.
Erecting physical barriers between traffic and bicycle lanes, ensuring relatively flat commuting surfaces and regulating vehicle speeds all have the potential to curtail cycling injuries on city streets, they said.
The findings came from a cross-country team of researchers and was published in the Journal Injury Prevention.
The team’s objective was to explore the factors that contribute to Canada’s strikingly high rate of cycling-related injuries, according to the study’s lead author.
Continue reading Study shows cycling is safer in northern Europe
What students are talking about today (October 11th edition)
A fraternity shut, a prayer dropped and a mullet banned
A Mulleted Man in Ontario (Danielle Scott/Flickr)
1. The University of British Columbia chapter of Kappa Sigma has been suspended for “code of conduct violations.” What the fraternity is accused of doing hasn’t yet been made public.
2. An Australian man is speaking out after a Perth bar told him to leave because of his mullet. I reckon that’s discrimination.
3. The president of the University of Windsor has approved removing a Christian prayer from convocation ceremonies. The request came from a student club, the Windsor-Essex County Atheist Society. The prayer had referenced an “eternal God” as “the source of all goodness, discipline and knowledge.” Read more here.
4. A Montreal police officer who was already accused of excessive force for pepper-spraying protesters during a student march earlier this year is under investigation again. Stéphanie Trudeau, who wears badge 728, faces scrutiny for an incident that started with a man holding a beer on a sidewalk and ended with four charges of obstruction of justice, assault and intimidation. An accidental audio recording on someone’s phone captured the officer calling the four arrested “a bunch of red square types,” a reference to the symbol of the student protests. More here.
Continue reading What students are talking about today (October 11th edition)
What students are talking about today (Oct. 4 edition)
Big Bird, full buses in B.C., hackers & Lena Dunham
B.C. Transit bus (scazon/Flickr)
1. In a poll, two-thirds of CNN viewers concurred that Romney came out on top. Romney didn’t win with the under-12 demographic, however, as he said he’d cut funding to PBS, home of Big Bird, because public television is not worth borrowing money from China to fund. Luckily for him, children can’t vote.
2. Transit users in Victoria, B.C. are being passed up by full buses more than twice often as predicted by B.C. Transit before they implemented “real-time tracking.” The agency suggests post-secondary schools should stagger class start times to reduce the problem. I have a feeling this isn’t just a frustration for B.C. students. Am I right?
3. Hackers called Team GhostShell have claimed responsibility for breaking into more than 120,000 computer accounts at dozens of universities to protest what they see as high-cost and low-quality higher education. Sites at the University of British Columbia and McMaster University were on the list of what’s called “ProjectWestWind.” Identity Finder, a data-protection company, found that more than 35,000 e-mail addresses and thousands of usernames were compromised. Most of the sites were the type made by professors themselves, reports The Chronicle of Higher Education.
Continue reading What students are talking about today (Oct. 4 edition)
What students are talking about today (Aug. 14 edition)
A celebrity wedding, a man-eating snake and news for teachers
Kristen Grace/Florida Museum of Natural History
1. Researchers at the University of Florida have dissected a 17-foot-7-inch Burmese python, the largest ever found in Florida. It had 87 eggs inside. The invasive species, first found in 1979 in Florida, are known to prey on birds, deer, bobcats, alligators and other large animals. “A 17.5-foot snake could eat anything it wants,” herpetologis Kenneth Krysko told the UF News.
2. Actor and comedian Zach Galifianakis, 42, married his 29-year-old partner Quinn Lundberg at the University of British Columbia farm on Saturday, according to UsMagazine.com.
3. A researcher at Western University says the cholesterol egg yolks is almost as dangerous as smoking. In his recent study of 1,200 people, egg consumption greatly accelerated plaque build up on arteries, which is known to lead to heart disease. Egg Farmers of Canada, an industry group, says there is no link between eggs and heart disease.
Continue reading What students are talking about today (Aug. 14 edition)
10 stories students are talking about today
Murderous felines, sexy engineers, burning buses…
Sukanto Debnath/Flickr
Here we give you the 10 stories that Canadian students are talking about today. Like us on Facebook for your daily fix.
1. Nearly one in three U.S. cats is a stone-cold killer, according to the University of Georgia, which spied on more than 60 felines with video cameras. Their favorite victims are lizards, snakes and frogs, followed by small mammals (poor chipmunks!), insects and worms (uh, gross), and finally, birds. Considering the gravity of this news, is it too soon to ask if claw control is the answer?
Continue reading 10 stories students are talking about today
Licence to text
Many teens aren’t interested in driving
Photo by Kourosh Keshiri
This summer, Sarah Mohammed is going on a road trip. She and three of her friends plan to drive from Montreal, where they live, to the Okanagan Valley. “We’re going to work on some orchards and vineyards in the Interior of B.C.,” says Mohammed, 23. The trip is to mark her recent graduation from the University of King’s College, in Halifax. “I just finished school and I want to do something different,” she says. But on the long drive west, Mohammed won’t be taking any shifts behind the wheel—she doesn’t have a driver’s licence. “Oh, I won’t actually be driving. I’m just being a leech,” she jokes.
Car sharing company rolls into campus
Say goodbye to grocery bags on the bus
Zipcar, the world’s biggest car sharing company, is placing a fleet of Ford Focus vehicles at 11 Canadian campuses in Toronto and Vancouver.
Students who buy annual memberships (starting at $25) will be able to reserve the cars online or with their smart-phones and then unlock them with special cards. With rates starting at around $10 per hour (including gas and insurance), car sharing makes more sense than ownership for many students, especially those who mostly use their vehicles for trips to Ikea or grocery stores.
Zipcar says car sharing may also help alleviate university parking shortages. Parking is so scarce on urban campuses that it now costs more than $600 for eight month passes at many schools. Click here to see a list of the 10 schools with the most (and least) expensive campus parking passes.
The University of Toronto, York and UBC are among the 11 schools getting Zipcars.
Student quits over Halifax transit strike
39,000 students can’t use their bus passes
A Saint Mary’s University student said he quit his classes on Monday because the transit strike in Halifax has made it too difficult to get to school. ”I was already missing assignments and quizzes and stuff due to the strike,” second-year criminology student Chase Sabourin told CBC News. “The strike could be over this week, it could be another month down the road. I’m not going to wait around hoping it’s going to end tomorrow,” he added. Sabourin said he plans to return in September. Seven hundred Amalgamated Transit Union workers went on strike on Feb. 2. rendering Halifax’s 39,000 student transit passes useless, at least for now.
Gondola to Simon Fraser won’t fly
Would cost $12-million more
Vancouver’s transit authority has released a report on the viability of a gondola to ferry students and professors up Burnaby Mountain to Simon Fraser University. The report by CH2M Hill found that it would cost $12-million more than using buses over a 25-year period. That means it won’t be built anytime soon. The option may be considered in a “future strategic transportation plan,” says TransLink. Many people supported the aerial alternative because winter weather often keeps buses from navigating the icy roads and because the gondola may be more environmentally friendly than buses. However, the gondola was opposed by some homeowners who would have lived underneath it.
Students declare “death of affordable transit”
Zombies protest 17 per cent U-Pass increase
Photo by Jane Gerster of The Charlatan
Zombies welcomed public transit users at Carleton University’s main bus stop on Halloween morning. The students in costume were protesting what they called “the death of affordable and accessible transit,” and were collecting signatures from supporters to send to city council.
The protest was a response to the local transit authority, OC Transpo, which announced that Ottawa university students will pay $180 per semester for their universal transit passes (U-Passes) next year. That’s a 17 per cent hike from the $145 they paid this year. According to the Carleton Undergraduate Students’ Association, the new price—$360 a year for most students—means Ottawa and Carleton will have Canada’s most expensive student transit passes.
In contrast, consider that students at Dalhousie University in Halifax pay only $69 per semester.
Continue reading Students declare “death of affordable transit”
Canada’s best cycling schools
Two-wheel transport speeds ahead on campus
Cyclist at Dalhousie. By Andrew Tolson.
From the 21st Maclean’s University Rankings—on newsstands now. Story by Jason McBride.
If you were to design the perfect bicycling environment, it would include safe, well-maintained and lit streets. It would have almost no car traffic, dedicated bike paths and ample secure parking and storage. It might even have showers purpose-built for sweaty commuters and a well-equipped repair shop where cyclists can get help fixing a flat tire. In short, it would look quite a bit like the campus of McMaster University.
McMaster is located in blue-collar, largely car-centric Hamilton, Ont.—an unlikely champion of the bicycle. But in the past two years, the city has been in the vanguard of sustainable travel, expanding cycling infrastructure, improving regional transit and adding carpooling programs. Municipal support has, in turn, emboldened the university, and encouraged both students and faculty to take up, in great numbers, alternative modes of transportation. According to Kate Whalen, manager of McMaster’s office of sustainability, a 2010 campus survey revealed that 37 per cent of students walked or cycled to school. “We have a very engaged population,” she says. And the university is very responsive to the needs of that population. Just one example: after a civil engineering student did a systematic geographic information survey of the use of university bike racks, underutilized racks were relocated to more optimal spots on campus. Ten additional racks are installed each year, Whalen says.
The university’s war on the automobile
The new political cause on campus? More parking, please.
Photo courtesy of Kevin Krejci on Flickr
From the 21st Maclean’s University Rankings issue. Get your copy from newsstands now.
Watching Tommy Douglass on YouTube, one can’t help but recall Matthew Broderick’s legendary rendering of a spoiled but highly resourceful high school student in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Douglass, a fourth-year University of Regina student, has a boyish face and a sleek businessman’s attitude. And he’s on a mission: to redress his school’s parking woes. “Until now, I’ve never had a single complaint. I like my school . . . it’s ideal,” he says in one of several videos he’s used to draw attention to the issue. But, he adds, “we are seriously, seriously messing up parking.”
Against the backdrop of his student bedroom—complete with a laundry basket and a picture of a blond bikini babe tacked to the wall—he shows viewers two of three $65 tickets he recently received for parking in a staff lot. “I am not going to pay a single ticket,” he says defiantly. He’d gladly pay for one of the school’s parking permits, he adds, but the school has already run out.
UBC could have bike sharing soon
BIXI heads west
Photo by fudj on Flickr
The University of British Columbia is poised to benefit from the likely arrival of the BIXI bike sharing service in Vancouver, reports The Ubyssey. Carole Jolly, Director of Transportation Planning for UBC told the newspaper that she has been working with the City on the project since last April. Her initial analysis shows that a trial could include 200 bicycles and 20 docking stations on campus. The City would presumably install a number of docking stations in various locations off-campus, close to where students live.
Bicycle sharing has obvious environmental benefits, but is can also be a money-saving option for commuters. In Toronto, for example, BIXI members pay $95 annually for a membership key that allows them to pick up and ride the black bikes to other docking stations sprinkled across the city. There are no charges so long as bikes are docked at any station within 30 minutes and there are minimal late fees thereafter. Best of all, there’s no worry that your fancy new ride will be swiped while you’re in a lecture. It’s always locked.
Dalhousie professor quits over parking
School has 2,000 spots for 20,000 staff, faculty and students
Photo courtesy of Kevin Krejci on Flickr
A Dalhousie University professor told CBC News that a severe parking shortage forced him to quit.
That’s how bad things have become for commuters on certain Canadian campuses.
Dan Middlemiss was in a long line on Monday to buy one of only 2,000 parking passes available to the 20,000 students, staff and faculty at the university in Halifax. But after waiting more than an hour, he quit the line in disgust and then quit his job too. Middlemiss had taught for 31 years as part of the Centre for Foreign Policy Studies. He explained his problem: “I have to get on the road around 6:30 to 7:00 to get an assured parking spot somewhere so I can get here to teach at 2:30 in the afternoon,” he said. “It’s ridiculous.”
The school is planning to turn one of its lots into a reserved parking area for about 200 drivers and to install 100 new bike racks there too, meaning fewer spots for regular drivers. A parking garage is also in the early stages of planning. Clearly, it can’t come soon enough for Middlemiss.
Other universities are struggling to provide more parking too. The University of Victoria is facing opposition from the municipal council in Saanich, B.C. where they want to erect a 505-stall seven-story parking garage to deal with cars that will come to its planned 2,100 seat gymnasium.
The high demand for parking spots means high costs at many schools — more than $100 per month at some. But at other schools, parking is still very affordable. To see for yourself, check out our list of the Top 10 Most (and Least) Expensive Schools to Park at in Canada.
Top 10 most (and least) expensive parking permits
Click to find out who charges $25 and who charges $1,000+
Photo courtesy of Canadian Starhawk on Flickr
Most students walk or take a bus to school, but some just need to have a car. For one, it makes grocery shopping much easier. It also tends to boost a student’s popularity at a time when it’s crucial to meet new friends. Oh, and it provides an easy way to visit mom and dad on the weekends. (If angling for a car, don’t forget to remind mom and dad about that important point.)
Whatever a student’s reason, bringing a car to school can be very expensive — especially in big cities. Or it can be suprisingly affordable, especially in Eastern Canada. It costs less to park for eight months at some maritime schools than it does to park for a weekend in Toronto.
That’s why we’ve decided to show you the Top 10 cheapest schools for parking passes, followed by the Top 10 most expensive.
Top 10 schools with the cheapest parking
1. Memorial University — $25
2. St. Thomas University — $75
3. University of Prince Edward Island — $82
4. University of New Brunswick — $94
5. Trent University — $99
6. Acadia University — $110
7. Algoma University — $121
8. Bishop’s University — $132
9. Lakehead University — $136
10. Brandon University — $145
Top 10 schools with the most expensive parking
1. Ryerson University — $1017
2. McGill University — $990
3. University of Toronto — $760
4. University of Ottawa — $744
5. University of British Columbia — $640
6. University of Calgary — $632
7. University of Winnipeg — $630
8. York University — $616
9. Queen’s University — $608
10. Université de Montréal — $546
This analysis is based on the lowest rate for an eight-month permit (or year-long permit where applicable) at 49 Canadian universities that are profiled in The Maclean’s Guide to Canadian Universities. Note that because these are the cheapest lots available to students, they may also be the first to sell-out. That’s right — it could cost even more to park.
This article originally stated that the lowest parking rate at the University of Regina was $640. That figure was incorrect. Maclean’s On Campus regrets the error.
Laval students get free use of bicycles
After pilot program’s success with res students, borrow-a-bike program will expand
According to the CBC, Laval University has teamed up with a Quebec City-based organization to provide its student population with free bicycles.
The company, Véloville, currently repairs and maintains free bikes for similar programs set up in tandem with the province’s ministry of transportation and the city’s transit authority.
Previously, the program was in the pilot stage and only available to students in residence. The program proved to be so popular that all staff and students will now be able to access the 40 bikes for up to six hours at a time.
ULethbridge student treated for TB
Student caught infectious disease on a Greyhound bus between Alberta and B.C.
An Alberta student who was a passenger on a Greyhound bus last week has been diagnosed with tuberculosis.
Spokesman Andy Hakin says the University of Lethbridge student is being treated for the potentially infectious disease and is recovering.
Last week passengers who took two Greyhound buses between Lethbridge and Kelowna, B.C., were told they may have been exposed to tuberculosis and were urged to get tested.
The B.C. Centre for Disease Control said a person with active TB travelled on Greyhound bus 5164 from Lethbridge to Calgary on May 24 and then transferred to bus 5155 for the trip to Kelowna.
- The Canadian Press
