Friday, March 28, 2008

Hey, our studio project got in the newspaper!!!

I guess that one would expect it if a guest was a reporter for the Philadelphia inquirer, but here you go.

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/front_page/20080328_Phila__visitors_compare_SEPTA_to_Toronto_transit.html

Now that I'm famous (indirectly and actually not at all) the job offers should be flooding in.

Sunday, March 23, 2008

At long last I have put together a selection of photos from the recent trip to London and Toronto for my Studio Class. The ostensible reason for travelling was to examine these two cities and their transportation systems and take back ideas for use in the Philadelphia region. Overall, we got a lot of ideas but they were mostly of the, "London is soooo much better than Philly, there's no way we can do anything like that here," variety. London IS waay better than Philly, and I will go so far to say that it is the BEST city that I've ever been to. I say best in the all inclusive sense; it has history but is vibrant with a modern urbanity that is refreshing and interesting. The city is well run and is trying to get better still. They place a great emphasis on global warming and in fact are truly taking the lead on that front. Things are generally clean and they've just pledged 500 million pounds for bicycle and pedestrian improvements by the Olympics in 2012. Stupendous stuff.
After London, Toronto could only play second fiddle. They are much more comparable to Philly, but the city felt like a wierd mishmash of Minneapolis and New York in collision. We did get an opportunity to hobnob with some of the best and brightest from Toronto and Philly at the "Sips and Nibbles" event, which was a good chance for me to practice my "hire me" face.

More pictures are available at my Picasa site: http://picasaweb.google.com/aaronritz/London
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Wednesday, March 05, 2008

Sheeeit, three weeks of non-stop school work behind me, now I just gotta get through another two easy days and I'm off to London!! Our regional transportation studio presented the midterm report on monday, and as I was one of the 4 suckers who presented, I ended up wearing a suit for the first time in 3 years or so. I cannot honestly remember the last time I put my Goodwill suit on, but I looked SHARP! I gotta remember that when I go looking for jobs in the near future.

So yeah, on Thursday we head out to London some time in the evening and have a couple of free days before we meet with some grand high muckety-mucks at the London Transit Agency, London 2012 and some other place that I'm forgetting. Next Wednesday we then jet back to Toronto for a meeting with some important folks on this side of the pond. It's going to be pretty sweet, and in a nerdy way I'm hoping to get to see all of the city planning wonders that these places have to offer. We're going to ride the tube, see the sights and spend alarming amounts of money. Goddamn weak dollar!