Inspiration
Recently I was asked where my inspiration to create this site came from. (link)
Ultimately it came from having a lot of highway photos and information and limited opportunities to share it. I’d spent most of the last decade working on other projects. I contributed to other sites, participated in the road discussion forums and I did a lot of work in organizing the Historical Highways Society of Ontario. But as things progressed I found that this wasn’t really the best way for me to express my interests in Ontario’s extensive and impressive highway network. As the HHSO faded away the other sites matured, I found that there wasn’t much I could do in this regard. So eventually, spurred by work I was doing in my course of studies in transportation engineering, I decided to create my own site. I decided this format would work best as I wasn’t exactly sure of what I wanted to do. The established sites each had pretty set mission statements about what sort of information they wanted to present and the format they wanted to maintain. I just wanted a real potpourri, where each time you came to this site a new photo or fun fact would arrive. As this site has grown I’ve become more interested in creating a better archive function, which may ultimately result in a transformation of this site. But in the meantime, I’ll just continue to enjoy it as it is.
So that’s the rambling explanation as to why I created this site. As it may well have been the original purpose of the question, what lead me to choose this subject matter probably deserves an explanation (I’m just assuming, I figure it’s probably more to the point than technical reasons).
Ultimately I’m not too sure what got me into highways and infrastructure in the first place. I do know that it’s something I’ve always been interested in. Even as a kid I’d pay attention to little things that escape the attention of most users of the highways. I’d always try to understand why things were being done a certain way when it came to road design and traffic management. As I got older and began driving I would take trips to drive on highways I’d never driven before, trying to see new things and to visit new places throughout the province. Ultimately I set a goal for myself to drive every provincial highway in Ontario. I’m about halfway done that now, with Southern Ontario almost completed. This enthusiasm lead to me working for the traffic department for a municipality (you can probably guess which one by going through my archives) and to going to school for transportation engineering. It’s definitely something I’m passionate about, and it’s something that I’m glad that I can do for a job everyday.
By the way, check out the site for the individual who asked me the question originally,
