2014 TransLink Bus Performance Review – Top Performers vs Bottom Performers

Another transit policy wonk post here. In an earlier post, I looked at a bar graph talking about the Cost per Boarded Passenger by Sub-Region. It helped to illustrate which sub-regions were the most and least cost-efficient. Here’s another handy graphic from the 2014 TransLink Bus Performance Review [PDF] showing what makes for cost-efficient bus routes.

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HenryAugust 5, 2015August 3, 2015Leave a comment

Transit, Transportation, Vancouver

2014 TransLink Bus Performance Review – Cost per Boarded Passenger by Sub-Region.

A lot of the local media has been featuring the 5 most overcrowded bus routes in Metro Vancouver. That’s a nice and easy headline that people can latch onto. However, that data is actual part of a bigger document that TransLink has released. This document is the 2014 TransLink Bus Performance Review [PDF].

There’s one graph in particular that highlights how TransLink has made buses more cost-efficient over the past 5 years.

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HenryJuly 31, 2015July 28, 2015Leave a comment

Culture, Intercultural Encounters, Japan, Photography, Travel

定山渓 Jozankei – Onsen Day Trip

Apart from our first night at Chitose Airport, we hadn’t been to an onsen during the month in Hokkaido. We had discovered that there was a nearby onsen resort town called Jozankei (定山渓). The first time we heard about this place was through the lovely green mascot below.

That cute green mascot, my friends, is a kappa. Kappas are supernatural frogs of Japanese folklore. This particular kappa is using her powers of cuteness to reel in customers to the Jozankei onsen area. Just look at the wooden tub that she has to carry around with her to protect her modesty.

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HenryDecember 22, 20141 Comment

food, Intercultural Encounters, Japan, Photography, Travel

Eating my way around Hokkaido – 3

Time for the third installment of Eating my way around Hokkaido.

Afternoon dessert at the Sapporo Sweets Cafe

I heard about this wonderful underground dessert cafe on YouTube just before I left for Sapporo. Somebody had posted an entire episode of Journeys in Japan featuring Sapporo. The Sapporo guide for this episode is a fellow Canadian, Isis, who moved to Sapporo many years ago and is now a DJ and a TV show host.

My wife and I ended up going one afternoon after classes with one of our classmates. We had a free afternoon and I had wanted to visit the Sapporo Sweets Cafe. I had a little trouble finding the place. The underground city in Sapporo is quite large and all the shops seem to look the same. When I could finally find a WiFi hotspot, we were able to locate exactly where the Sweets Cafe was.

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HenryDecember 10, 2014Leave a comment

Japan, Nature, Photography, Travel

富良野 Furano – the Blue Pond, More Flower Farms, and Shops in the Forest

After being awed by the lavender fields of Farm Tomita, we were on our way again. However, I had no idea what our next stop was. I don’t remember ever receiving a travel itinerary. We were in the hands and at the whims of our two accompanying teachers from Hokkaido Japanese Language School. It turns out that our next stop on our highway coach field trip was to the Blue Pond, or Aoiike (青い池).

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HenryDecember 8, 2014Leave a comment

Japan, Photography, Travel

富良野 Furano – Farm Tomita

Hokkaido is famous for a few things. Hokkaido is the bread basket of Japan with farms covering much of this northernmost island in the archipelago. So Hokkaido beef and dairy are all famous products. Hokkaido is also well known for its cold and snowy winters. However, Hokkaido is also famous for its beautiful fields in the summer. In Furano, the area is famous for its colourful lavender fields that cover several farms’ fields. These lavender fields are also partly the reason we chose to spend a month in Sapporo. We were only a one-day trip away from the beautiful fields of purple.

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HenryDecember 1, 2014November 30, 2014Leave a comment

Culture, Cycling, Intercultural Encounters, Japan, Transportation, Travel

My (brief) Cycling Experience in Japan

Bicycles are pretty ubiquitous in Japan and a part of the everyday fabric. Kids, salarymen, sales ladies, and seniors all seem to ride bikes everywhere in Japan. Bikes are on sidewalks and on the street and nobody thinks anything of them. There isn’t the hyped up car versus bicycle antagonism that exists here in Vancouver. So I really wanted to experience what riding a bike was like in Japan.

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HenryNovember 24, 2014Leave a comment

Culture, food, Intercultural Encounters, Japan, Photography, Travel

Japanese Sweets Creation

Disclaimer: I hate cooking and I’m really bad at cooking. Perhaps I was emotionally scarred as a child against cooking or maybe I’m lazy or maybe I’m incompetent. I don’t know. Cooking is one of the most stressful things in my life. It makes me extremely anxious and grumpy whenever I cook.

Given my disclaimer, it’s amazing that I actually enjoyed our afternoon workshop on making Japanese sweets, or wagashi. This was yet another cultural experience workshop put on by the Hokkaido Japanese Language School, or JaLS. A whole gaggle of us students walked over to the Susukino area and to the Chuo Ward Office all the way at one end of Tanukikoji.

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HenryNovember 17, 2014November 15, 2014Leave a comment

food, Intercultural Encounters, Japan, Photography, Travel

Eating my way around Hokkaido – 2

Here’s more food from around Hokkaido. I just put all of my smartphone food photos from our month in Hokkaido into one single folder. It came out to 141 photos and 1.4 GB worth of foodiness. Here’s a smattering in this second installment of Eating my way around Hokkaido.

Lunch at Matsuya

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HenryNovember 11, 2014November 11, 2014Leave a comment

Japan, Photography, Transit, Transportation

Sapporo Streetcar

Apart from the buses and subway system in Sapporo. There is also the Sapporo Streetcar. The Sapporo Streetcar runs in what almost looks like an L-shaped loop, but the loop is incomplete at one end. So the two termini of the line are literally two blocks apart from each other.

Looking east from the Susukino Streetcar stop

These two end stops both start in the busy Susukino district of Sapporo. Susukino is Sapporo’s entertainment district. It’s home to a whole whack of restaurants, host/hostess clubs, and other businesses of the night. Susukino is where you will also find the largest collection of neon billboards and adverts in town. This area really shines through at night.

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HenryNovember 9, 2014November 14, 2014Leave a comment