On most days, I walk to the office. That is going to be changing later this summer, but what I'm about to say will still apply.

Because I walk more often than I drive, whenever I have to go somewhere that necessitates a car and that obligates me to leave during the evening rush, the first thing I usually think to myself is "shit, it's going to really suck getting out of downtown."

I have very little patience when it comes to sitting in traffic. So when I'm faced with this kind of situation, my mind immediately goes to: "okay Brandon, what are your other options here?"

And this is exactly what happened this past Friday. I had a dinner up in Vaughan after work and I opted to take the subway to VMC station (the northern terminus of one of Toronto's lines).

It was actually my first time riding this new line extension and it was cool to see the area around the station. It's not yet a 15-minute community, but I believe it can get there with some narrow streets and the right kind of ground floors.

The entire trip took about 45 minutes, and I can tell you that on more than one occasion I thought to myself, "this is way better than sitting in traffic."

Neat B and I had a very good friend's 40th birthday dinner in the Junction this evening.

So naturally, we walked over to the UP Express station from our offices in the Financial District and took the train one stop to Bloor Street. When we got off -- along with everyone else who uses our airport link as a regional express train -- we then walked the West Toronto Railpath up to the restaurant on Dupont Street. All in all, it took us about 35 minutes. We hopped on the 5:30PM train and we arrived at Lucia around 5:50PM.

I know that a lot of people use this particular train to get to and from work, but I'm always so happy whenever I do it. I will take this over being stuck in traffic every day of the week. And for me, it is a powerful reminder of just how critical "two-way, all-day regional rail service" is to this urban region. We can talk all we want about better traffic signals, ramping up enforcement, or whatever, but the real solution to solving traffic congestion is getting people moving in other ways.

Anyway, I digress. Here's a photo of the delicious pasta we had:

Happy birthday Philip!