Connexions Resource Centre
Focus on Transportation

Recent & Selected Articles

  1. This is a small sampling of articles related to education and children in the Connexions Online Library. For more articles, books, films, and other resources, check the Connexions Library Subject Index, especially under topics such as education, children, youth, post-secondary education, film, and schools.
  1. Barely Legal: the Global Uber Enterprise (July 14, 2022)
    In terms of the gig economy, there are few more ruthless buccaneers than this San Franciscan ride-share company that has persistently specialised in cutting corners and remaking them.
  2. The Boeing Way: Blaming Dead Pilots (May 24, 2019)
    The House Transportation Subcommittee on Aviation held a hearing about the recent crashes of Boeing 737 MAXs. The Representatives (many of whom received campaign contributions from Boeing) actively tried to shift blame from the company and place it on the dead pilots.
  3. Truckers Spend the Holidays Driving Too Much for Too Little Pay (December 14, 2018)
    A look at the diminishing compensation provided to truck drivers, and why the trucking corporations get away with paying so little.
  4. No Fare Is Fair: A Campaign for Free Public Transit in Toronto (March 14, 2018)
    Public transit should be a right for everyone in Toronto. Using subways, buses, and streetcars shouldn't require paying fares, or user fees, that penalize riders with lower incomes.
  5. Driverless Cars: Hype, Hubris and Distractions (June 27, 2017)
    The driverless personal car is quickly emerging without a legal, ethical and priorities framework, when priorities should be placed on safer, more efficient and less polluting means of transport.
  6. Cities Need More Public Transit, Not More Uber and Self-Driving Cars (August 2, 2016)
    In the near future, it is likely that cities will come under intense pressure to sacrifice public transportation in favor of new, private, car-dependent alternatives, even at a time when city planners are suggesting reducing or even eliminating car use in cities.The article looks into the benefits of the new technologies, as well as benefits of public transit.
  7. The great train robbery (June 1, 2016)
    Privatised networks of European railways have neglected safety, community and environmental issues in pursuit of profit.
  8. Corporations Undermined Public Transportation (October 27, 2015)
    Over the past eighteen months two of the world's largest automakers have been found responsible for deadly conspiracies. But, recent revelations can’t compete with the industry's previous scandals.
  9. Time to Jail Auto Executives? (June 10, 2015)
    Rather than allowing automobile industry debacles to float by without inspiring systemic change that will save lives, criminal prosecutions should become an integral part of -- even a priority for -- both federal and state governments.
  10. Rail disaster strategy lacking (March 16, 2015)
    A rail disaster strategy should include an actual plan to save lives and the environment. It is impossible to compensate lost lives and damaged environment from highly toxic damaging crude oil and radioactive substances that are being transported.
  11. "It's not just 2 pesos; It's the country:" Mexico City's #PosMeSalto Movement Protests Rising Transit Costs (January 10, 2014)
    The author surveys the 2 peso transit fare hike in Mexico within the context of the country's suffering ecomomy and low living wage to showcase why the decision is a mistake.
  12. Deputation to the Toronto Board of Health regarding proposed expansion of Island Airport (December 9, 2013)
    The waterfront is a highly utilized collective space that we have highly invested in to be used for recreational activities that promote health and fit into the city's vision of increasing green space. Why would we destroy it with an expanding airport?
  13. Porter's corporate interests can't be allowed to trump public health (November 21, 2013)
    We are concerned that it will be the children who live, study and play less than 300 metres from the current airport in the high-rises, the Waterfront school, Little Norway Park, the daycare and community centre who will be most affected by the addition of jets. Consider that landings and takeoffs generate the highest emissions and that peak airport periods coincide with times children walk to and from school.
  14. Letter to Toronto City Council regarding jets at Toronto Island airport (August 3, 2013)
    We are writing to express grave concerns regarding the proposal to expand the Billy Bishop Airport to jets. We are community health physicians and are extremely alarmed by the potential health harm of jets which will particularly impact the community that lives in such close proximity to the airport.
  15. Free transit (2013)
    A pamphlet which gathers together a number of essays on the struggle for public transit. It emerges especially out of the urban context of Toronto. But the essays speak also to the wider crisis of public transit in North America, and the importance of this demand to an eco-socialist vision of feasible futures.
  16. Ecosocialism and the fight for free public transit (December 4, 2012)
    Mass transportation is intimately tied not only to the physical form of cities, but to the deeper social structures of imperial capitalism. A campaign for free public transit can be an important part of a broader fight to restructure society along ecosocialist lines.
  17. Flags of Convenience (January 18, 2012)
    Maritime lawlessness isn’t confined to pirates. Thanks to a system of ship registration called ‘flags of convenience,’ it is all too easy for unscrupulous ship owners to get away with criminal behaviour
  18. Connexions Archive Case Statement (September 24, 2011)
    Working together to secure a future for the past
  19. Cars and Class (September 10, 2010)
    Making life difficult for cars could be, in fact, described as a form of class war, but one that works in the long-term interests of the poor and working class.
  20. Connexions Archive seeks a new home (November 18, 2009)
    The Connexions Archive, a Toronto-based library dedicated to preserving the history of grassroots movements for social change, needs a new home.
  21. Fare-Free Public Transit Could Be Headed to a City Near You (July 25, 2007)
    It's time to give people a free ride on public transit. And here's proof it works.
  22. 17 Reasons (or More) to Stop Charging People to Ride the Bus (July 5, 2007)
    The time has come to stop making people pay to take public transit. Why do we have any barriers to using buses, trolleys, SkyTrain? The threat of global warming is no longer in doubt. The hue and cry of the traffic jammed driver grows louder every commute.
  23. The Los Angeles Bus Riders Union (July 1, 1997)
    The Bus Riders Union began as an outgrowth of the Labor/Community Strategy Center's "Equity in Transportation Project," a policy analysis group which to study the transportation problems of the urban poor. What they discovered was an increasingly polarized allocation of public resources based on race.
  24. What's Wrong With Front Yard Parking? (April 15, 1994)
    The negative effects of front yard parking are significant, and affect us all. The benefits are small, and go only to a few.
  25. Snake Oil in a Computer: The Pseudo-science of Transportation Modeling (August 16, 1991)
    Planners, politicians, and other decision-makers want to know what effect their projects will have on the environment. In many cases they don't really want to know, but want to convince their constituents that the results will be beneficial, or at least neutral. In both cases, computer modeling is being used to "answer" the questions.

Selected Websites and Organizations

  1. This is a small sampling of organizations and websites concerned with education and children in the Connexions Directory. For more organizations and websites, check the Connexions Directory Subject Index, especially under topics such as education, children, youth, post-secondary education, film, and schools.

    Other Links & Resources



    Books, Films and Periodical

    1. This is a small sampling of books related to education and children in the Connexions Online Library. For more books and other resources, check the Connexions Library Subject Index, especially under topics such as education, children, youth, post-secondary education, film, and schools.


    1. Bikes vs Cars
      Author: Gertten, Fredrik (director)
      Bikes vs Cars is a documentary about the bike and what an amazing tool for change it can be. It highlights a conflict in city planning between bikes, cars and a growing reliance on fossil fuels.
    2. Free Public Transit: And Why We Don't Pay to Ride Elevators
      Author: Dellheim, Judith; Prince, Jason (eds.)
      In an age of increasing inequalities and ecological crisis, movements for free public transit are proposing a profound rethinking of urban transit as a fundamental human right and public good. Research shows that, if the bus were free, people would ride it as much as 50% more in the first year, dramatically reducing car use, traffic, and pollution, while redistributing wealth and increasing social inclusion for poor and working people. But free public transit alone is not enough; it must also be combined with much better service and reserve bus lanes to be effective. In its twenty chapters, this book explores the winning strategies and pitfalls of case studies ranging across fourteen countries: the United States, Canada, Estonia, Greece, Italy, Sweden, Brazil, Mexico, Poland, China, France, Belgium, Germany, and Australia.
    3. Keep the TTC public
      Privatization of public transit around the world has been a disaster for taxpayers and riders. In this video, we learn of some of these disasters and why Toronto should avoid TTC public-private partnerships. Narrated by Canadian actor Eric Peterson.
    4. Other Voices: The Connexions Newsletter - March 18, 2017
      Public Transit
      Author: Diemer, Ulli (ed.)
      Public transit - good affordable public transit - is key to a liveable city. Around the world, there are movements of transit riders fighting for better public transit. A key perspective guiding many of these struggles is the idea that transit should be free, that is, paid for not by fares, but out of general revenues. This is how roads are normally funded: their construction and maintenance are paid for by taxes, rarely by user fees. Free public transit by itself would not be enough, however. We also need good transit, transit that runs frequently and goes where people want to go.
    5. Reclaiming Our Cities & Towns
      Better Living with Less Traffic
      Author: Engwicht, David
      Cars destroy the environment; people should embrace alternative modes of transportation like bycycling and walking to make urban areas safer and enviromentally sound.
    6. Stop Signs
      Cars and Capitalism on the Road to Economic, Social and Ecological Decay
      Author: Engler, Yves; Mugyenyi, Bianca
      A global ecological critique of the American automobile addiction.


    Learning from our History

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    Resources for Activists

    The Connexions Calendar - An event calendar for activists. Submit your events for free here.

    Media Names & Numbers - A comprehensive directory of Canada’s print and broadcast media. .

    Sources - A membership-based service that enables journalists to find spokespersons and story ideas, and which simultaneously enables organizations to raise their profile by reaching the media and the public with their message.

    Organizing Resources Page - Change requires organizing. Power gives way only when it is challenged by a movement for change, and movements grow out of organizing. Organizing is qualitatively different from simple “activism”. Organizing means sustained long-term conscious effort to bring people together to work for common goals. This page features a selection of articles, books, and other resources related to organizing.

    Publicity and Media Relations - A short introduction to media relations strategies.

    Grassroots Media Relations - A media relations guide for activist groups.

    Socialism gateway - A gateway to resources about socialism, socialist history, and socialist ideas.

    Marxism gateway - A gateway to resources about Marxism.