Wednesday, November 9, 2016

Toronto By Bicycle - CFMJ / CILQ

Recently, my wife and I spent a few days in Ontario and decided to take a bicycle tour of Toronto.  It was a beautiful Saturday afternoon when we met the other people in our group along with our guide Genny.  The Heart of Downtown tour took us to many different neighborhoods and landmarks in the city including Chinatown, Kensington Market, Union Station, "MINT Corner", St. Lawrence Market and the Hockey Hall of Fame.  I was a bit worried about riding through the 4th largest city in North America on a rented bike, but our guide was great at navigating away from vehicles when possible (even stopping traffic for us at intersections) and mixing it up with heavy traffic rarely happened.  Toronto even has some dedicated bicycle lanes with their own traffic signals.

Sugar Beach - an urban beach park located across from a sugar refinery on the Eastern Bayfront.

Eaton Centre shopping mall.

Down the street from the Royal York Hotel, the residence of choice for Queen Elizabeth II when she visits Toronto.

Distillery District

The tour ended at Roundhouse Park near the base of Toronto's famous CN Tower.  When the concrete tower was completed in 1976 it was the tallest free-standing structure in the world.  Nine radio stations and seven television stations transmit their signal from the 335 foot antenna.  From the railroad-themed park I could also see the headquarters of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation with its distinctive logo.


Somewhere along the way, we rode past the headquarters of Corus Entertainment which operates 39 radio stations across Canada.  I made our bike tour stop so my wife could take a quick picture in front of their gleaming office building.


Corus runs three radio stations in Toronto--the legendary Modern Rock outlet "102.1 The Edge CFNY, (sticker here), Talk-formatted AM 640 CFMJ and Classic Rock "Q107" CILQ.

AM 640 went on the air with the CFMJ call letters in 2002.  At one time, they were the flagship station of the Toronto Maple Leafs.








"Q107" signed on as an Album Rock station in May, 1977.



Donald Trump won the presidential election last night in a contest that very few people predicted correctly.  Every election season some folks claim that they are going to move to Canada if their chosen candidate doesn't win.  I'm not saying I want to move to Toronto because Trump is a horrific human being (he is), but I wouldn't mind living in this gem of a city because of its magnificence.  I've fallen in love with "Hogtown" and can't wait to go back.


1 comment:

Vaughn B. said...

Greg, don't even thinking about moving to Canada OK?

Just let it go.