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Old Posted Dec 24, 2012, 7:55 PM
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Thumbs up 2012 in Review

St. John's: 2012 in Review

2012 was a fantastic year for St. John's, the Avalon, and Newfoundland and Labrador as a whole.

We've seen major announcements, major news stories, and major projects take shape.

Let's review the best of 2012 together. What were the highlights of the year for you?

Mine were:

1. The formal approval for the development of Muskrat Falls.
2. 351, Fortis Place, and the Henry-Bell Condo Complex under construction.

And one that transcends ranking: moving home for good after spending 13 years total, almost half my life, on the mainland in two separate periods away.

And my contribution to this thread... since I moved home in June, that's when my pictures start, but here are some shots from 2012 in (mostly) chronological order.







































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Last edited by SignalHillHiker; Jan 14, 2013 at 10:35 PM.
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Old Posted Dec 24, 2012, 8:11 PM
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Let's make as many St. John's threads as we can to make sure we get our own section

Just kidding

Hmm.. I only joined in August, but here are my St. John's/SSP Highlights of the year:

- First of all, Signals pictures are probably the biggest highlight of my (ssp) year! I love logging in daily to see what beautiful pictures he has taken that morning!
- I love seeing the big developments progressing (351, Fortis, Henry Bell) and hearing news/discussing upcoming developments (Hilton, Deacon)
- Seeing Muskrat Falls go through the processes and becoming closer to a reality! We've been trying to develop the lower Churchill for over 50 years now and it's finally, for better or worse, coming to fruition. I believe it will be the best thing for our province in a long time despite all the negativity.
- Discussing rumours of things to come!

2012 was a great year here in St. John's and I look forward to an even more exciting 2013!
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Old Posted Dec 25, 2012, 1:54 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Townie709 View Post
Let's make as many St. John's threads as we can to make sure we get our own section

Just kidding

Hmm.. I only joined in August, but here are my St. John's/SSP Highlights of the year:

- First of all, Signals pictures are probably the biggest highlight of my (ssp) year! I love logging in daily to see what beautiful pictures he has taken that morning!
- I love seeing the big developments progressing (351, Fortis, Henry Bell) and hearing news/discussing upcoming developments (Hilton, Deacon)
- Seeing Muskrat Falls go through the processes and becoming closer to a reality! We've been trying to develop the lower Churchill for over 50 years now and it's finally, for better or worse, coming to fruition. I believe it will be the best thing for our province in a long time despite all the negativity.
- Discussing rumours of things to come!

2012 was a great year here in St. John's and I look forward to an even more exciting 2013!
I agree with all that you said. The main highlight for me is just the number of large development and re-development projects that started in St. John's in 2012. Specifically, the progress in just 9-10 months on the 351 project is amazing!
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Old Posted Dec 25, 2012, 4:27 AM
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It's been a spectacular half year in photos. Thanks for all your efforts Signal !
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Old Posted Dec 25, 2012, 11:08 AM
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Aww, thanks guys!

You should post your renders from this year too, Architype. And Jeddy should really share his transit ideas again. Those were definitely highlights of 2012 as well.

A few more highlights:

1. I loved that the Marriott hotel expansion was approved. My tolerance has expanded somewhat recently and I've figured out a new way to express my views: in my opinion, I think buildings 4-6 floors in height do not conflict at all with our heritage, especially not in our CBD. The height of a building like the Marriott hotel expansion should never be an issue on a street like Duckworth again. Unless it's a proper tower, such as, say, the old Fortis Building, then the height shouldn't be an issue.

I am, however, mostly thrilled about the Marriott hotel expansion being approved because St. John's is getting far too many empty lots and surface parking lots downtown. Part of preserving our heritage has to be preserving the atmosphere of what has traditionally been an incredibly dense city. Giant empty spaces around the existing Marriott Hotel and, for another example, TD Place... those destroy our heritage far more than a modern building occupying those spaces would.

I'm still not willing to just let developers build anything downtown. It has to fit with our city's vernacular - whether it's as literal as the Bluedrop Building or as abstract as the new Star of the Sea Building. As long as it fits, it's fine. Which is why the Hilton Garden Inn is one of my lowlights for this year, ha!

2. A personal one: getting up inside 351 while it was under construction to take photographs was amazing. I loved it. And Fortis sending me a render of TD Place was awesome too. I felt so important, ha!
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Old Posted Dec 27, 2012, 8:55 PM
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And now, one more:

GETTING OUR OWN SECTION!
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Old Posted Jan 3, 2013, 4:21 PM
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Our beloved CBC weatherman (Ryan Snoddon) always does very in-depth analyses at opportune times. Here are excerpts from his summary of 2012 in St. John's and Newfoundland:

THE WINTER THAT WASN'T

2012 started with a bang. Following a quiet start to Winter, it was a few storms per week across NL and finally some Snow for Newfoundland. For Western Newfoundland, it was 3 storms in 3 days which finally put some Snow on the ground for good. However in St. John's and out into Central Newfoundland, it wasn't until late January when Winter ACTUALLY kicked in with snow. In Gander, it took until January 27th to pick up more than 10 cm of Snow in one single shot!

In Metro, Winter was pretty much contained to a 3 week period from January 20th to February 9th. Over that 21 day period, it snowed everyday, we had 5 Snowstorms, 113 cm of Snow and our average temp was -4.2° That was by far our coldest and snowiest stretch. However on February 12th, a massive 70-100 mm flooding rainstorm was pretty much the end of the Snow and the Winter for St. John's.

WE HAD A SPRING

When I posted the question "what was the biggest weather story of 2012" to you on Facebook and Twitter, more than a few of you replied "We had a Spring!". And what a Spring indeed. This past April was the warmest April ever recorded in St. John's, which is impressive given records go all the way back to 1874!

WHAT A SUMMER!

No doubt, many will point to the Summer of 2012 in NL and rate it as "The Best Ever"... and maybe that's because it was! In many cases it was the 2nd warmest "warm season" on record, second only to 1999. Looking back, perhaps the most notable thing about the Summer was it's length. Usually the Summer is far too short, however this year our first 20 and even 30 degree days were in May and our last ones were in September!

HELLO AUTUMN!

As mentioned above, September was fantastic for most and the warmest on record in St. John's. October pretty much picked up right where September left off in terms of temperatures. At St. John's YYT, October was the 3rd warmest on record.

ST. JOHN'S RECAP

-Warmest April ever recorded. (Records back to the 1870's)
-Warmest July/August combo in almost 30 years (1984)
-The most 20 degree days ever recorded in 1 year at YYT.
-Warmest September ever at YYT.
-2nd Warmest April to September "warm season", second only to 1999.
-3rd warmest October at YYT.
-Latest date ever recorded to drop to the freezing mark. (November 11th)
-This is still tentative, but likely the 2nd warmest year recorded in St. John's .
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Old Posted Jan 3, 2013, 5:16 PM
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Here's my Transit Idea:

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Originally Posted by jeddy1989 View Post
ok so here it goes... here is the transit system I came up with ..

I havent added mount pearl yet or the Goulds.. I think the goulds could use the same routes as it does now, but it may need a more creative solution.

anyways here goes nothing

explanation:

The system is a feeder/hub/express system.

This is inspired by how subway systems work in unisen with buses.
Buses gather people to subwaystations which then take people to points of interest rapidly.

The basics of the system is that there are hubs which have bus terminals and desired destinations with many people.
then the hubs are connected by express routes which go non stop between the major points of interests.
gathering people from the streets to the hubs are feeder routes which are the winding routes we are more use to, however they are short and the buses run both ways on them.
This makes the winding trips no longer than 15 minutes (the route could take 30 minutes to complete the loop to the hub however the max is 15 minutes either way.

The timing is what makes this efficient. if it takes you 10 minutes on the feeder then you arrive at the hub (all routes will be times to arrive when the express routes will depart)
then you get an express to the hub desired. this will take about 20 minutes give or take.
Then if you desire to venture further from the destination hub by taking one of it's feeders, it will only take a max of 15 minutes more.

what makes this efficient is the combination of feeder routes bringing people to and from the hubs and express routes rushing people between hubs.

reducing transfers

To reduce the amount of transfers, some of the buses could continue whilst changing route. for example take the D1 bus to hub D then that bus will become the bus which goes on the express route to hub C from there.
When it gets to hub C it continues as a C1 route bus. Of course an announcement will be made when they change route, and this will be a consistent practice for paired up routes.
Most people will most likely get off at a hub however this gives the opportunity to reduce the amount of transfers on a journey.
In theory a person could take a bus from kenmount terrace to the Avalon mall which then goes directly to the Village mall and continues on to the west end to for example Bowring park in about 30-35 minutes.
This is a dramatic increase in efficiency compared to the current system.

Expanding the system

This style of system allows easy additions. for example mount pearl could add a Hub or two and a few short feeder routes which serve the needs of the community then connect them with the existing system via express routes.
Assuming not all communities come on line in the region right away, in order to reduce the amount of traffic,
park and ride can be established at the hubs which will have express routes and no worries of parking to the areas of interest such as downtown.
Places such as CBS can eventually connect their hub(s) via express routes using the highway (very fast access to downtown).

Another upgrade to infrastructure I would suggest eventually happen is that the main through fares such as colombus drive add a bus/carpool lane. This will give transit an added advantage over
cars and make it more desirable while allowing a more efficient system during peek hours. As well, emergency vehicules can use these lanes to bypass most traffic.



here is a simplified map .. so you can see how there are feeders and express routes connecting.


to explain the route numbering

The Hubs are lettered A,B,C,D,E,F and their feeder routes are their letter plus a number ex. B2

The express routes are lettered with Z and are grey

Black routes are for when more than 2 routes take the same road (to reduce the number of lines)



Here is the system map:

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