So Manchester United recently picked up 18 year old Striker Dong Fangzhou, you may have noticed from the name that he's of Chinese origin. The initial fee was 500,000 pounds and may go as far as 3.5m depending on the number of first team appearances. Lets hope he kicks some ass for the Red Devils!

So I was driving to Toronto this morning to drop the folks off at Pearson Airport. Was curious what kind of traffic the 401 would have for the time, it was 5am and as it turned out Ontario's Superhighway was rather busy. I'm a big fan of the 401, I fervently believe freeways are wonderful means of moving traffic (people/goods), and that they're an integral part of any city's infastructure. Out there it consists of a mere 3 lanes per side, but in the city is where it opens up. So here we were, just past 5:30 in the morning, cruising at 125 down the highway when we passing the 401/403/410 junction. I take a look around at the 10 lanes of eastbound traffic and am greeted with a sea of taillights. Damn, I guess the morning rush does start pretty early here, a lot moreso than back in little Winnipeg anyhow :P.

I deliberated only briefly upon it, but I was thinking just how great the 401 is at moving traffic. There's a helluva lot to be moved, and it does an admirable job, which is probably why I'm such a big fan. That's not to say there aren't flaws. Times when the traffic builds and backs up are often the result of choke points as I like to refer to them as. Now, entry's and exits build up as well, but there's not much that can be done to lessen the impact of that reality other than the inclusion of 'Collectors' which has already been done, so that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about on the westbound 401 as when it goes from 10 lanes down to 3 within a few hundred metres. I'm perfectly aware that a bunch of it is send off down the southbound 403 and northbound 410, but never-the-less, this area is backed up EVERYDAY during the evening rush hour, because it's a major choke point and there's bloody shitloads of traffic leaving the city. Something really should be done someday about that. Next chokepoint is on the eastbound 401 just past the 427. At this point the collector branches off to the south and north shortly after merging part of its eastbound traffic with the express, then the express continues as 5 or 6 lanes up until it merges with the 409. So here's my problem, there's a lot of construction going on around here, so it's hard to complain about it since I haven't going through here without construction, but think about it: 10 lanes drops to 6, then at the 409 merge point it separates again into a express and collector section, but because of the construction there's only 1 lane going into the express and 2 going into the collector. Damnit, that's unacceptable! I hope it's not so bad where all the work is finished, but since I've been here all year it's been brutal to see. Traffic gets backed up a long, long ways.

Anyhow, I'm sure no one really was interested in reading about my freeway rant. But I just felt the need to get that off my chest. I still love the 401 I think it's a wonderful mover of traffic. I guess everyone should just be happy I didn't go into a rant about the very disturbing possibility of the Gardiner Expressway being dismantled (hello!?! how do you expect to get people in and out of downtown!?).

Now, I must goto work. We had a PCB spill last night, lets see what happens this eve!

INotD: StinkyNuts.

~K