The Buzzer blog turns one year old today – can you believe it?

After just one year, this blog has over 400 posts, over 3,500 comments, and a community of sharp readers who are a genuine pleasure to connect with.

So on this occasion, an enormous thanks to all of you for reading, commenting and otherwise coming here to share. (Remember, there’s a birthday meetup on Thursday, so we can celebrate together!)

For my part, I really must say I’m proud of the blog we’ve built together. Every day, I’m glad to help you find out what’s new and where you can learn more about us and our region’s transportation issues.

Plus it’s always great to listen to what you guys have to say about everything, and it’s super nice when the blog gets a compliment or two :)

OK now, cue up a nostalgic song, and let’s take a tearful look back at some notable posts from this past year.

• Hey, it’s the very first post on the blog! And here’s the second post: an interview with Spirit of the West for last year’s Ride-Share Week.
• Thank heaven we had this blog when the new SkyTrain Mark II cars arrived! How else would we have shared all those pics and videos with you? In fact, the first post showing the new exteriors is one of the most popular ever, and the posts about their interiors and the first ride aren’t far behind.
• I Love Transit Week! Essays, buttons, and a night filled with transit games! Yay!
• The Central Valley Greenway photo tour was fun to put together and proved very useful for many braving the CVG for the first time.
• The podcasts are all fantastic fun: one on the voice of the SkyTrain, the voice of the SeaBus, John Abou-Samra the trivia guy, and the story of the SkyTrain chime. I promise to do more in the future!
• A two-hour tour of Fleet Overhaul turned into a six-part behind-the-scenes series about how our buses get repaired. That place is so mindblowing!
• Canada Line, Canada Line, Canada Line: again, what timing that we had a blog so we could share all these behind the scenes stories with you! We were even able to hold a contest to give a preview tour to six lucky readers. Add to that the Buzzer blog tour and blog from the line during opening day—again, thank heaven we had the blog so we could share this all!
• CMBC has really been phenomenal in letting the blog in to write about them. Getting to share the behind-the-scenes action at T-Comm, the transit communications centre, was a real blast, and it was super cool to see the technology in action.
• Transit on film has been one of the most fun items to put together: The Trial of the Incredible Hulk is still my favourite, but really, check out all of them!
• How about transit from an international perspective? Getting to go to Chicago for the APTA rail conference, see its amazing train system, and learn about rail and rail projects was a real highlight this summer.
• I can’t say enough about the Friday fun post/polls. They’re a constant source of really enlightening discussion — for instance, discover where people like to sit on the bus, or whether anyone’s fallen asleep on transit and missed their stop, or even which is everyone’s favourite kind of train car!
• Transit history has been great to cover: a big thanks to Jorge Guevara for keeping us updated on our retired trolleys in Argetina, and Lisa Codd at the Burnaby Village Museum for her continued help with longer regional history pieces!
• And oh dear, I know there are more, but I’d better stop or else this list will be a mile long!

Thank you again for everything, and I hope to see you on Thursday!