Profile avatar
stephenwickens.bsky.social
Retired after 47 years at four Toronto papers. Transportation researcher and author of Station to Station (a report on the soaring costs of subway building in the Toronto area). https://rccao.com/research/files/RCCAO-STATION-TO-STATION-REPORT-APRIL2020.pd
117 posts 329 followers 360 following
Prolific Poster
Posts 45 Comments 5

The reference I heard was 'From A to Zee', which is a bad enough cliché to start with.

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

I won't claim this was a brilliant Tweet/reply or anything, but after only three views in 2+ hours, we can safely assume something about it upset Elon's algorithms and censors.

submitted 3 days ago • 1 comment

Hate to be picky on this, but we have a CBC story that spells storey incorrectly, at least if CBC is to be Canadian. I also heard recently a CBC person pronouncing the letter Z as if The Corp was practising for the post-annexation era. @cbcnews.ca

submitted 3 days ago • 1 comment

Don't expect there to be any straight answers anytime soon from Queen's Park or Metrolinx.

submitted 3 days ago • 1 comment

And these doctors who are quitting practices now are young. They're not retiring, but ...

submitted 4 days ago • 0 comments

From the age of 6 until I was 61, I was a patient at one east Toronto family practice, mostly with just one doctor. In less than 7 years since, I've had to sign up 3 times for new doctors and have just been told it's time to seek yet another. Why are so many doctors quitting?

submitted 4 days ago • 0 comments

The weird world of journalism: A few weeks back I got a nice note from an Australian thanking me (and an AP photographer I worked with) for doing a story in 2016 about how you can get the Beatles Abbey Road crossing shot. It was published 9 years ago today. www.winnipegfreepress.com/arts-and-lif...

submitted 6 days ago • 0 comments

Lead is very very bad, and the schools with repeated measurements above 10 ppb (like Central Technical) need immediate remediation. www.torontotoday.ca/local/educat...

submitted 7 days ago • 5 comments

I love it and I know the vantage-point spot. I hiked that waterfront regularly in the late 60s and 70s.

submitted 8 days ago • 0 comments

Fuckin' eh to zed. Get out and walk.

submitted 9 days ago • 0 comments

And I think this one is 1950, courtesy of The Coupler (a TTC in-house magazine)

submitted 9 days ago • 0 comments

Is it just me or does 'Metro Elliniko' sound like 'Metrolinx'? www.ekathimerini.com/economy/1264...

submitted 9 days ago • 0 comments

I remember my Day 1 ride from Woodbine to Keele and back. Though not quite 9, I knew enough Toronto geography to be up with knees on the seat in eager anticipation of that trip across the Don Valley.

submitted 9 days ago • 1 comment

The Verona-Vicenza section of the Milan-Venezia HSR is really taking shape on the ground with most of the civils completed or almost completed as visible in this recent drone fly-through video. youtu.be/bO_mNvUblsU?...

submitted 9 days ago • 3 comments

Metrolinx was eager to share info when the news was innocuous, that the Diggy Scardust TBM was safely making its way across the ocean. They promised the online tracker and now all they can say is Whoops.

submitted 11 days ago • 1 comment

And the Bloc would hold remarkable power under that breakdown.

submitted 11 days ago • 0 comments

A month before Diggy Scardust's journey started, we were told tunnels would be bored in 2 years, maybe less, and that the public could follow along with an online tracker. With Year 1 progress at slightly more than 1 km on a 6.9-km journey, it appears the SSE is way behind schedule.

submitted 11 days ago • 0 comments

🕰 Erasing 100 years between two photos taken at the same spot - TTC bus at MacLennan & Summerhill Aves., Toronto. March 8, 1923: Alfred Pearson March 8, 2023: Jeremy F Hopkin #erasingtime #thenandnow #ttc #bus #transit #rosedale #1920s #2020s #torontohistory #toronto #canada #hopkindesign

submitted 19 days ago • 5 comments

Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew and his cabinet trolling Marmalade Mussolini so hard and I am here for it.

submitted 22 days ago • 3 comments

Very heartening to see foreign officials mocking him for being a fucking clown. Feels like the garlic to his vampire

submitted 20 days ago • 1015 comments

Toronto Reference Library (Bloor-Yonge) has this cool free postcard exhibit until May 25th!

submitted 20 days ago • 1 comment

Looking North on Yonge Street at Wilton Avenue, a postcard from 1913. - Wilton Avenue was incorporated into Dundas Street. #FlashbackFriday #yongestreet #postcards #1910s #history #torontohistory #toronto #canada #jeremyhopkin

submitted 20 days ago • 3 comments

Not only did the U.S. president drop a juvenile and cowardly insult on a sovereign African nation, his cronies laughed as if it was all part of a daily, cliquy schoolyard bullying session. #Lesotho deserves a lot better. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/m...

submitted 21 days ago • 0 comments

I was wondering why I've had the Motown song, 'Nowhere to Run To' in my head in recent days: I think the 'earworm' is rooted in walking Toronto sidewalks like this one.

submitted 21 days ago • 0 comments

Thanks, John.

submitted 21 days ago • 0 comments

The French Embassy in Washington. H/T Robert Slager on Facebook.

submitted 22 days ago • 1 comment

Where did North Street go?

submitted 23 days ago • 2 comments

submitted 23 days ago • 0 comments

submitted 25 days ago • 0 comments

How Ukraine - and Europe - can survive without Trump. For some of us, the bigger question is how Canada can survive with Trump. It will require support from the rest of NATO and what remains of the free world.

submitted 26 days ago • 0 comments

Also looks like it's lid up.

submitted 26 days ago • 0 comments

My favourite Toronto moment of the winter. x.com/i/status/189...

submitted 31 days ago • 1 comment

Less than a week till election day: Will any of the candidates speak up about the Metrolinx clusterfudge? Is a promise to 'upload' Ottawa LRT to Metrolinx likely to sway voters in the national capital?

submitted 34 days ago • 0 comments

On Toronto Bay, 1886 Artist: William Armstrong (1822-1914) Medium: Watercolour Baldwin Collection of Canadiana, Toronto Public Library Iceboats taking advantage of the frozen waters of the bay #winter #1880s #watercolour #torontoart #art #artist #torontohistory #toronto #canada #jeremyhopkin

submitted 38 days ago • 0 comments

North Korea has nothing on America in 2025

submitted 39 days ago • 0 comments

By Zez Vaz of Portugal.

submitted 40 days ago • 1 comment

By donating their current U.S. inventory (which no one wants right now) to a Food Bank, Canadian grocery stores can compensate for the loss with a tax deduction and by a smart advertising campaign, then replace with a Canadian or non-American good. Win win.

submitted 51 days ago • 2 comments

In this brief radio address, Reagan explains why he voted for Democrat FDR. You could swear he's talking specifically about Trump when he repudiates tariffs. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tp1T... #tariffwar #tariffs #Reagan #Trump #trumpflation #CanadaIsStrongandFree #MexicoEstaConTrump

submitted 43 days ago • 0 comments

One of Reagan's last national radio addresses almost seems like a warning about politicians like Trump. It's not long and is worth a listen right to the end. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tp1T...

submitted 43 days ago • 0 comments

Some fellow passengers on my Montreal-to-Toronto Via Rail journey yesterday just had to have long and unnecessarily loud phone calls. It was irritating as hell, though some of us got a good laugh when one guy told a friend (and everyone within earshot) that his pet hedgehogs are teething.

submitted 47 days ago • 0 comments

Help protect the Humber River and the wildlife that call it home. Sign this petition to stop loud and fast watercraft from using it. thank you! chng.it/y7gd6rTDPf

submitted 47 days ago • 0 comments

By Bruce MacKinnon, editorial cartoonist for the Halifax Chronicle-Herald and Saltwire Network. He drew it in November "knowing full well no self-respecting family newspaper ... would be likely to print it. I was right. But given the events of this weekend, I’m gonna to let ‘er rip anyway."

submitted 53 days ago • 0 comments

John Kasyn Courtyard on Caroline Street Toronto

submitted 53 days ago • 0 comments

A big part of the Great Depression mess FDR inherited in 1933 was damage the U.S. inflicted on itself with the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, implemented eight months after the Wall Street crash. Here's a key part of a speech the 32nd president made that year in Seattle.

submitted 53 days ago • 0 comments

Almost certainly because North Americans ditched as worthless lots of very valuable public-sector expertise. 'Soft costs' are swallowing billions here in Toronto, too (and we're not supposed to know about it).

submitted 54 days ago • 0 comments