Category: Canada

  • Keep it Moving

    Twelve Mile Circle examined freeways and motorways with the most lanes previously. That was a measurement of potential capacity. Would those massively-wide behemoths continue to reign supreme once someone posted actual traffic volumes? That wasn’t the case except for one notable exception. Comparisons weren’t easy although Annual Average Daily Traffic (AADT) seemed to be a…

  • Middle of Nowhere

    I once searched for and found the Center of the Universe. Never mind that there were plenty of other claimants, I found the one true center naturally because the Intertubes confirmed it and of course that made it unquestionably true. It was much more difficult to find the middle of nowhere. First one must discover…

  • Portage in Canada

    The United States Geological Survey is a Federal government agency. It has been impacted by the government budget impasse that exists as I write this article in October 2013. Guess what? It also means that the Geographical Names Information System was turned off. Only websites “necessary to protect lives and property” are running at the…

  • Placentia is Not a Flat Cake

    The trouble with words that look almost alike is that they can mean completely different things. Case in point, I noticed a 12MC website hit from a visitor in Placentia, a town in Newfoundland & Labrador, in Canada. I seemed to recall somewhere in the recesses of my mind that there was also a Placentia…

  • Reader Mailbag

    This is a rather special edition in a long series of intermittent Odds and Ends articles. I will call it Reader Mailbag for the obvious reason. Yes, comments, emails and tweets from Twelve Mile Circle readers inspired this one more than anything else. These topics were all completely unknown to me previously. So maybe I…

  • Completely Random

    I happened to pop onto the 12MC Clustr Map as I like to do occasionally because I’m strange like that and I enjoy watching visitor statistics in real time, and a certain placename caught my eye: Random Lake, Wisconsin. It seemed — and you knew where I’d take this — so incredibly random. “Where do…

  • Largest Artificial Islands

    My favorite inspiration, the random one-time visitor, struck again. Honestly I don’t know why any of them land on Twelve Mile Circle. This time the person wondered about the world’s largest artificial island. Repeat after me: search for “Wikipedia Largest Artificial Island.” Why come to 12MC when Wikipedia has a wonderful answer already prepared? I…

  • Bus Traps

    Calgary,(1) Alberta, developed an unusual means to curtail traffic in residential areas. Simply, the city wished to prevent automobiles from taking shortcuts through its neighborhoods. However, they still wished to serve residents with convenient public transportation. So, cars bad. Buses good. Thus arose a devious little road feature called the Bus Trap. Actually, it’s more…

  • Airports Named after Fictional Characters

    Every once in awhile I post an article not necessarily for the 12MC audience, intended more as a public service to people who might come to the site for a highly specific purpose only a single time. I’m not always sure why I receive sudden website traffic surges, however I try to be accommodating. Often…

  • What the Drung?

    While we’re speaking of street suffixes — we were just speaking of street suffixes, weren’t we — and after the stravenue encounter, 12MC stumbled upon a suffix of even more weirdness: Drung. Imagine, living not on a street, an avenue, a boulevard, a drive or even a terrace, rather a drung. Drung used in this…