Patrick Lam

Thoughts and travels of Patrick Lam

Submission to NZ Crown Minerals Amendment Bill reopening gas and oil exploration

Get with the program! The NZ Coalition of Chaos wants to reverse the oil and gas exploration ban. It is 2024, not 1984.

Posted by Patrick Lam on Thursday, September 26, 2024

Book review: Wellington's Railways: Colonial Steam to Matangi, by David Parsons

David Parsons. Wellington’s Railways: Colonial Steam to Matangi. 2010.

This book is certainly not lacking in detail. It covers the early development of Wellington region rail (different parts of New Zealand, and I guess many other countries, were quite isolated 150 years ago) until 1920; refinements from 1920 to 1970; and the changes from 1970 to 2010. Wellington rail did manage to mostly hang on through the global Reagan-Thatcher neoliberal era. It has relatively recently gotten through to Waikanae and perhaps will reach Levin.

Posted by Patrick Lam on Sunday, October 8, 2023

Submission to NZ inquiry on inter-regional passenger rail

NZ needs inter-regional passenger rail as an alternative to flying and driving for climate and other reasons. Here’s my submission to a Parliamentary inquiry, with comparisons to Canada and Switzerland.

Posted by Patrick Lam on Saturday, September 17, 2022

WLG-NSN

An excellent opportunity to add to the walked-to-airports list! I’d meant to walk to NSN last July, but we actually only flew into that airport after the Heaphy; our flight to the start of the track was replaced by a van ride. Here’s my chance!

Posted by Patrick Lam on Friday, March 12, 2021

Optimal travel from Montreal to Waterloo

The plan was to leave our stuff at our friends’ place in Toronto, go to Montreal and the Eastern Townships for the holidays, leave our car at my parents’ place, and then get back to Waterloo, clean the house and execute last-minute tasks, and then get back to Toronto, pick up our 5 checked bags and bring them all to the airport.

Let’s talk about getting from Montreal (well, Brossard) to Waterloo on December 28.

Posted by Patrick Lam on Saturday, December 28, 2019

Travel options from Waterloo

2019 Travel options to/from Waterloo

A lot has changed from the last time I wrote this in 2008. The options for getting to Toronto and Pearson are much better. I went to BUF a few times a while ago but now there aren’t good Star Alliance options from BUF and they’re not that much cheaper, so I haven’t done it for a while.

Here are various options for carless transportation from Waterloo in 2019.

Posted by Patrick Lam on Thursday, December 26, 2019

Biking to Amqui

An epic trip from Waterloo, ON to Amqui, QC and back via Campbellton, NB, to referee in the judo provincial championships. Trains, bikes, planes, buses. We’ve got it all!

Posted by Patrick Lam on Sunday, April 8, 2018

Travel options from Waterloo

Travel options from Waterloo

I’ve tried to figure out various options for carless transportation from Waterloo. Here’s what I’ve discovered.

To Pearson Airport

  • Airways Transit option 1, door-to-door: 1.5hr, $80 for one direction. You have to wait for everyone to get on and off. They do tend to drive at reasonable highway speed.
  • Airways Transit option 2, Airporter: 2 hours from the UW Student Life Centre, limited schedules (departs 6am, 10:45am, 1:00pm, 3:30pm; returns 8:15am, 1:30pm, 3:15pm, 6:13pm) and even less on weekends. $46 per direction.
  • Greyhound to Toronto ($22, 1.5 hours) and Pearson airport express ($20). About the same cost as the Airporter, but more hassle and more schedules available. Cheaper if you have a student card.
  • Get to Mississauga Square One (works if you can take the FEDS bus) and then take the GO service to the airport ($3.50). Can be extremely cheap, if you can make it work for you, and probably isn’t all that slow either.

To Buffalo Airport

All reasonable options cost about $65.

Posted by Patrick Lam on Wednesday, August 6, 2008

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Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Waterloo; patrick.lam@uwaterloo.ca

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