TAO Board Member Bob Myndiuk
In
August of 2011, Bob (Bohdan) Myndiuk joined the Transport Action
Ontario Board. Born in Ukraine, Bob attended high school in Toronto,
then the University of Toronto, followed by the Ontario College
of Education. He taught accounting, business law and
economics in North York and Etobicoke secondary schools. In 1971, he
joined Cholkan Realty where he stayed for over 30 years, becoming its
President and CEO.
Bob has been especially active in the Ukrainian community in Toronto, serving on a variety of its non-profit boards. Recently, he was associated with a major project at York University, funded by the federal government, to extend professional development to foreign and trade policy analysts in cooperation with Ukraine’s government. For a number of years, Bob has served and still is a director of the Canada-Ukraine Chamber of Commerce.
Urban transit, and especially streetcars – now known as light rail transit (LRT) - have always fascinated Bob. Over the years, he has travelled widely in Western and Eastern Europe, South America, Mexico, as well as in the US. He frequently focussed his travels on cities with street railways, and has developed a worldwide knowledge of this mode of transportation that has even led to links to Eastern European LRT vehicle manufacturers. Bob participated in the first wave of the tendering for new streetcars by the TTC on behalf of the Ukrainian firm of Tatra-Yug.
Now semi-retired, Bob tracks the rebirth of LRT across the world. Following World War II, countries around the world shed urban streetcar systems in favour of buses, mainly as a result of the rise of automobile use. Even in Europe, tram systems were abandoned except in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium. Holland and Eastern Europe. Bob wrote a detailed article on the fall and rise of LRT for the September 2010 newsletter of Transport Action Canada. Peaking in 1920 at 1,700 streetcar systems, the number dropped to about 300 by 1980, and now this number has doubled. Bob points out that Edmonton started the LRT comeback in Canada in 1978, adopting the German example of Frankfurt-am-Main. Edmonton became the model for San Diego in the US which opened its first LRT in 1981. He mentioned that both France and the US are now leading the way with over 20 new systems each and more planned.
The hallmark of modern LRT is fast and reliable service obtained by putting track on dedicated right-of-way and stops further apart than every city block. But so called “heritage” streetcar lines are also returning in the form of on-street trams usually designed for local downtown circulation. Portland, OR is one of the best examples with its growing LRT and streetcar routes.
Asked
to comment about the world’s outstanding LRT vehicles and systems,
Bob is reluctant to provide a first choice. The low-floor Eurotram
built for the Strasbourg, France, LRT system that opened in 1994
certainly set a new standard for LRT vehicles design. However,
after
several decades of development, many high quality low-floor light
rail vehicles are on offer from multiple builders.
Bob stressed that, because city forms vary so significantly around the world, with all kinds of streetscapes even in any one city, the experience of taking light rail transit is just as much about the look and feel of the places where LRT runs as it is about LRT technology itself. Subways may move large crowds over longer distances quickly, but LRT gives the traveller a sense of place and its unfolding in terms of style and function, and how it is being used by people living and working in such places.
The TAO Board is fortunate to have Bob available as a resource person regarding the many benefits and advantages of bringing light rail transit to Ontario.
[NP – Among several Ukrainian community boards, New Pathway Publishers Board of Directors is also fortunate to have Bohdan Myndiuk as a board member.]
Transport Action Ontario Newsletter – January-February 2013
PHOTO
Bohdan Myndiuk