Spacing sat down with Adrian Corry, an international transit consultant, to discuss recent trends in public transportation and how different technologies can be used to serve different civic need. Corry said that in order to get people out of their cars and into transit, the experience must improve. “People are used to riding in their cars. They have their sense of being in control: they have their own coffee, they have their ability to connect, they have their cellphones, they can listen to the radio. And they feel basically that they are in control of the situation,” he said.  Essentially, public transit must be able to compete with this in order to make trading in your car for the subway the more attractive option. He also noted that cities must look elsewhere when considering their own transit options.  “Looking at what other cities are doing, what else is happening around the world is absolutely an imperative,” he said.

Listen to this great chat by pressing the "play in new window" link at the top of this post. Or subscribe to Spacing Radio on iTunes.

In this edition of Spacing Radio, we're talking about public transit announcements.

Matthew Kupfer started the VoxTranspo project to collect stories about Canada’s transit soundscape, focused on the stop announcement. The crowd-sourced, nationwide project aims to collect all kinds of stories — from small, personal anecdotes to those concerning larger issues like planning and accessibility. In this podcast, Matthew shares the first stories and sounds he's collected — from Ottawa, Toronto and Edmonton.

Have a story or recording to share? E-mail: matthew-dot-kupfer-at-gmail-dot-com.

Links from Spacing Shorts 003:

• VoxTranspo

This episode we take you behind-the-scenes.

First, we go to Toronto City Hall where Mayor David Miller has packed his bags to make way for Mayor Rob Ford. Spacing publisher Matthew Blackett and contributor John Lorinc spoke to Miller on one of his last days on the job. Then we stay up into the wee hours with Edward Birnbaum and Maia Filar. The mission? To explore the late-night restaurant scene that caters to cab drivers.

And finally, streetcars are an iconic part of the Toronto streetscape, but ever wonder who is tasked with trying to keep them on schedule? Producer Mieke Anderson visits streetcar headquarters as the debate heats up over the best way to move people around.

Note: There's more of our conversation with former Mayor Miller to come -- we couldn't fit it all into the episode so we'll be posting the rest throughout the week!

Links to stuff from Spacing Radio 028:

• Follow John Lorinc's Spacing Toronto posts
• The Taxi Gourmet Blog: a quest for delicious food, guided by cab drivers
• Steve Munro's take on the future of Toronto's streetcars and TTC Transit City
• Our musical guest is Diamond Rings, the solo project of John O'Regan

In this episode of Spacing Radio we explore the topic of elimination - eliminating jogs, reducing unsustainable quick fixes, and phasing out cash fares.

Spacing contributor Andrew Walsh tours Toronto's newly re-aligned Queen & Dufferin intersection with Councillor Gord Perks to find out how 'jogs' play into a city's street grid. Spacing Atlantic's Veronica Simmonds takes us to Dalhousie University for a discussion on sustainable growth featuring David Donnelly and Bruce Lourie. And, Spacing's Luca de Franco looks into the future of the Presto electronic fare-card system with executive director Ernie Wallace.

Links to stuff from Spacing Radio 027:

• The Dufferin Jog in the news: Blog TO and The Globe & Mail
• Spacing Atlantic dispatch: Green Development and Growth Go Together – hosted by the Ecology Action Centre
• Five-year review of Halifax Regional Municipal Planning Strategy
• Presto in the news: The Globe & Mail and The Toronto Star
• Our musical guest is The Guest Bedroom: blog and MySpace page

Spacing Radio is back for Season Four and we’re jumping right into Toronto’s election debate!

This election has been zany, to say the least. We go to Toronto Star columnist Christopher Hume for his take on why candidates have strayed so far off topic. And leading up to voting day, reporter Daniel Guillemette is on the campaign trail looking at how the front-runners are using our public spaces.

Also in this episode, all the election talk about the so-called "war on the car" got producer Mieke Anderson thinking about the traffic lights that control our movement. And reporter Andrew Walsh rarely knows when his streetcar will be arriving and sets out to investigate the technologies designed to reduce his frustration.

And we want to hear from you! Host David Michael Lamb will be at Spacing magazine's release party Wed. Oct. 6th asking: "What do you think is the first thing the new mayor should do on Day One in office?" We’ll be featuring your responses in an upcoming episode. (If you can’t make it out, we invite you to answer the question on the blog).

Links to stuff from Spacing Radio 023:

• Christopher Hume: The Toronto Star, columnist page
• City of Toronto: Transportation Services
• TTC Tech Info: website
• Laurence Lui, transportation planner: Blog
• Our musical guest is A.M.: website and MySpace page

George Smitherman loves to walk. Earlier this week, in fact, he walked along Eglinton — all the way across Toronto.

Spacing's Todd Harrison caught up with him yesterday in Leaside, and they walked and talked until just west of Victoria Park. Todd asked how Smitherman’s vision for Toronto applied to walkability, and what he as mayor would do to improve walking conditions in suburban communities.

Smitherman, however, does not see walking as an issue-in-itself. Integration is his buzzword, and as such, he thinks of walking primarily as a means to connect people to “higher-order” forms of transit. “The walkability’s got to get you somewhere,” he says.

He sees the individual health benefits of walking, but has yet to investigate how walkability initiatives can impact people’s abilities to better traverse their own neighbourhoods.

The interview also included discussions about road cuts and the new pavement degradation fee, urban design, bike lanes, public transit, trash, and trees.

Links:

• George Smitherman's mayoral campaign website
• A Toronto Star article about the walk
• Spacing Toronto post about the City's Public Realm office
• Paul Hess's walkability studies

Sometimes exploring a city means just shutting your eyes and listening. In this soundscape, Spacing producer Mieke Anderson takes you underground into the Glasgow subway system.

Affectionately known as "the Clockwork Orange" because of its orange subway cars and circular route, Glasgow's underground dates back to 1896 making it the third oldest in the world. Recently, the city was considering shutting down parts of the system if they couldn't come up with the money for a massive modernization plan (the route itself hasn't changed in over a century). In April, an upgrade worth £290 million was approved guaranteeing residents and visitors many more years of fun lurching and hurtling round and round the city.

So close your eyes and let us take you for a ride!

Links to stuff from Spacing Radio's Summer Shorts 013:

• Strathclyde Partnership for Transport: Glasgow Subway
• Herald Scotland: Closure 'an option'
• BBC News: Go-ahead for £290m Subway revamp

Photo by Karoly Lorentey

Spacing Radio reporter Monika Warzecha sat down recently with writers Richard Gilbert and Anthony Perl.

The second edition of Gilbert and Perl’s book, Transport Revolutions: Moving People and Freight without Oil, itemizes five major changes in transportation that have altered its course and development. And the rate of change is about to increase rapidly.

“We feel that environment and energy considerations are leading us to a threshold where change will again be concentrated,” Perl told Spacing. “That’s why we need to refamiliarize ourselves with transport revolutions.”

Links to stuff from Spacing Radio's Summer Shorts 009:

• website about the Transport Revolutions book

Ask a bunch of people their definitions of a 'complete street' and you're bound to get a whole bunch of different answers. In today's SUMMER SHORT, reporter Andrew Walsh explores what it means to share our roads. He attended the 2010 Complete Streets Forum this past April and spoke with Barbara McCann, credited with coining the phrase, and New York City's Assistant Commissioner for Planning and Sustainability Andy Wiley-Schwartz.

Links to stuff from Spacing Radio's Summer Shorts 006

• Barbara McCann: National Complete Streets Coalition
• Andy Wiley-Schwartz: New York City Department of Transportation

Welcome to Spacing Radio's pilot show. In our first podcast our host David Michael Lamb jumps right into the thick of things with a sit-down interview with former London mayor Ken Livingstone. In early 2003, Red Ken ushered in a congestion charge for anyone driving into the core of London. It was a radical idea but something London needed to implement to remain a globally competitive city. What can Toronto and other cities learn from London's experience? Livingstone gives us his insight.

You'll also hear the opinions of regular Torontonians on road pricing.  Spacing publisher Matthew Blackett will drop by to fill you in on why Spacing has started a podcast show and what to expect in the upcoming issue of the magazine. And what would a radio show be like without music? Our featured Toronto band is The Bicycles.

Links to stuff from Spacing Radio 001

• Congestion Charges: City of London's web site and Wikipedia primer
• Ken Livingstone: Wikipedia profile and 2008 election site
• Spacing Toronto: blog posts and article links on "road tolls"
• The Bicycles: web site, MySpace, Facebook, and iTunes