Want to share @alonlevy.bsky.social's good critique of this piece. bsky.app/profile/alon... I was a bit surprised that the brief doesn't even mention the idea of a civil service providing options to elected leaders who then decide and empower them, without appeals to direct democracy.

The problem is this post-Moses trend in treating the "community" as if it's monolithic and knows more about transportation planning than the experts. We as a society can say "more transit good, road expansion bad" and ask locals to weigh in on where staircases go, not "should this even happen?"

While the proposal is quite well thought out and hits on some key points. I think the obsession with optimizing to light metro to address cost concerns is misses the mark. Copenhagen didn't have lower costs because of light metros, they better manage their projects and N Americans don't because...

evergreen graphic for north american jurisdictions seeking to build primarily grade-separated low-floor light rail systems because they know no other alternative for 21st century "flexible" rapid transit

relatedly, you could get away with duplicating the canada line design spec for both ballard+WS with 40 metre stations and 2-car trains, to save even more. concerns about capacity? canada line today isn't near capacity, & still carries higher daily ridership than the *entire* LINK system. ~$150m/km

Sound Transit can halve the cost of light rail to Ballard and West Seattle by building them as a connected automated light rail line with slimmer stations, according to two transit experts who have launched the Sound Transit Now campaign. Guest op-ed: www.theurbanist.org/op-ed-reconn...

More evidence to support lucky # 🎱 on our 10-point plan: *Optimize Stop Spacing!* If done correctly, #streetcar travel times & reliability can be *massively* improved, while minimizing any negative effects on accessibility through carefully chosen standards.

Notable chart included in a new TTC Board report about improving streetcar speeds, comparing stop distance and average speeds on Toronto routes versus surface rail routes in other cities. secure.toronto.ca/council/agen...

So often NA planners travel abroad & bring back the most surface-level lessons. That incuriosity creates vapid projects that don’t deliver actual material benefits at high costs - all while we complain about low public support. True learning requires constant questioning of our broken status quo!

This project is batshit insane and nobody’s paying attention. $11bn is enough to make good progress on regional rail, moving riders from slow, uncomfortable, high-operating-cost buses to trains. Instead it’s happening in isolation from Gateway/Penn planning, resulting in no major new transit service

Line 5's top speed is now 80 km/h in tunnels! Removing unnecessary speed restrictions is 3️⃣ on our ten-point plan, and a great first step to put #Eglinton on the fast track! Now it’s time for the surface section of Line 5, Line 6 and the #streetcars to follow suit. See more here:

It's important to recognize the Waterfront East LRT is estimated to cost nearly 2x more than any Metrolinx LRT project. At 800million/km it's more comparable in price to Metrolinx subway projects. This could very well be the most expensive LRT project in the world. www.thestar.com/opinion/cont...

Here for the Canada Line Positivity Thread

my god, just do a pilot during FIFA and ban cars off a stretch of yonge, and activate it. our city lacks any of the public space that has existed in every other first-rate canadian city. this is being watered down into a mere sidewalk expansion that we'll be lucky to even get in the next 3-4 years

who said buses and metro trains can't meet cross-platform? 📍 talleres station, monterrey

Next stage: Enlightened planner: what if we identify and resolve the reasons for unreasonable cost escalation in transit projects instead of treating them as an inevitable part of big infrastructure projects?

"One of the biggest problem we have in transportation planning in Canada is that we don't view our transportation modes as a comprehensive network" - @jedwinmok.com Nice to see @cbcnews.ca with @hudsonyuen.bsky.social for a video on what to learn from Copenhagen’s public transit solutions.

Honored to be a part of @hudsonyuen.bsky.social video on CBC about what we can learn from Copenhagen! We must continuously question the status quo and learn holistically from others; not just about their innovative plans & policies, but also the institutions that enable them! youtu.be/_3IqW3aerBo

New video. It’s like when I upload a YouTube short, except this one’s long. I think you’ll be pretty shocked at just how absurd this truly law is 👀

🚨A STREETCAR with a PRESERVED surface right of way is costing MORE per kilometre than the MOST COMPLEX railway projects in the WORLD. 🚨 We’re getting so little value for money in the English-speaking world that soon even the simplest of projects will be too expensive!

@englishrail.bsky.social was on CBC this weekend explaining three big steps we can take to speed up streetcars in Toronto! See our full, 10-point plan here: fast-track.to #TOpoli #ttc #toronto

Fantastic to see the City's Congestion Management Plan call for Enhanced TSP on more corridors! That's point #1 of the FastTrackTO 10-Point Plan in motion! ✅ It's an exciting start...but we're not done. Let's keep up the momentum #TTCriders! #TTC #TransitSky #Urbanism #Toronto #TOpoli

a great plan. the big takeaway here is that the plan needs to be implemented in full along entire routes to make a real noticeable impact on commutes and win public favour there is no one singular silver bullet. this will be one of *the* election issues going into the october mayoral race.

Happy to have helped @torontorbot.bsky.social with new report calling for more fare and service integration. Includes supporting improving service across GTA (so we have base reliable service everywhere) and full fare integration so TTC and GO fare are same. bot.com/Resources/Re...

Very exemplary case of how making an HSR line capable of handling freight traffic, i.e. by raducing grades, increase the cost by requiring more tunneling. Left: pssenger-only option = zero tunnels Right: mixed-use line = many tunnels and/or a longer alignment to avoid more rugged terrain.

We are so obsessed with putting density in odd/constrained places in the GTA. Instead of upzoning Plains Rd, which is already serviced by a 10-min frequency arterial bus route, we are creating additional congestion from areas impossible to serve efficiently by transit and awful to walk/cycle from.

Toronto’s streetcars are an icon of the city (the largest system in North America!). But they’re also disappointingly slow compared to other tram cities (and sometimes even compared to Toronto’s own buses). A 10-point plan from local professionals and advocates to fix the problem.

We're thrilled to see transit experts lay out a plan to revolutionize the streetcars! When we held our Streetcar Summit, the most popular solutions among riders were effective signal priority, banning left turns, installing 2-point switches, & more. Experts & riders agree - let's get on with it!

Toronto’s streetcars are the SLOWEST in the world. But they don’t have to be - tram systems around the world provide far faster and more reliable service. 10 low-cost fixes, when implemented together, can launch Toronto closer to global best practice. Be sure to read our plan below!

Toronto has some of the slowest tram services on earth. Trams are not inherently slow but Toronto has archaic operational practices, out of date service and track design paradigms, as well as a general lack of care for them. Below are ideas on how Toronto can start fixing them:

Excited to be helping on this! We need a comprehensive plan that can show how much the streetcars can improve.we can save Torontonians hundreds of thousands of hours a day.

A few of us advocates got together to start enumerating all of the things the city and TTC should be fixing (and should have a long time ago) and created a group with a ten point plan. We estimate you could save *billions* of dollars of peoples time in just the first decade.

Today FastTrackTO is officially launching and releasing our 10 point plan to modernize the Toronto Streetcar network. An iconic symbol of the city that could be fantastic with some achievable, common sense and low cost changes. The plan if implemented would transform the city. fast-track.to (1/2)

68% of households in Paris proper (population: 2 million) do not own a car.

It was already bonkers to duplicate Sounder commuter rail + express buses with a new LRT "regional spine" that's slower than the existing alternatives But it's even worse to prioritize that duplication while shredding the better elements This is a disaster for rail planning credibility in Seattle

But have you considered that running good service is inconvenient for railroaders?

another day of getting where I need to go faster because of replacement buses 🫠 from Dufferin to Long Branch, 47 mins on the bus vs 56 mins scheduled by streetcar.

Making up the difference by running trains more frequently would be “constrained by the lack of grade separation on the Metrolinx system,” the draft report states. Madness. www.thetrillium.ca/news/municip...

this is what happens when there's an explosion in transit-building costs (some of which is design-based) and transit expansion is politicized and held hostage by funding agreements from various jurisdictions. planning transit like there will never be transit expansion ever again in west LA.

This is what happens when elected officials make your transit decisions. (There is a categorization error. The Caltrans rep cannot vote. The other rep is appointed by LA mayor and does her bidding. 100% of LA Metro Board votes belong to elected officials) bsky.app/profile/rsda...

what happens when your rail transit planning doesn't account for the possibility of buses being useful

Cycling side-by-side isn’t bad behaviour—it’s human behaviour. It’s how parents talk to their kids. How friends catch up. How communities form. If bicycle infrastructure is too narrow for people to ride and talk together, the problem isn’t the people. It’s the infrastructure. Nørrebro, Copenhagen.

Just want the condo haters in Toronto to consider what things would look like without them. It's not pretty.

“Running a major transit agency without international expertise makes about as much sense as icing a pro hockey team without Canadians, or organizing a marathon without Kenyans. You can do it. But we’ll be missing out on the best of the best.”

I can't draw any more circulation plan diagrams today (I'm dreaming of arrows and lines at night), so I made a quick visualization of my pet theory: "North America inherited teeny tiny main stations, with short platforms and narrow throats, and that's a problem for rail planning."

oh hey — it's like my blog post, but with data! as i wrote, expect this effect amplified once the ontario line and better streetcars (one can dream) come online. in case you missed it, my post looks at how wayfinding could better account for this pattern. fernkhahn.medium.com/line-1-is-no...

For the 1st time in the 1st year of a presidential administration since at least 1993, under Trump 2, the Federal Transit Administration signed 0 new contracts for major transit projects, like subways or light rail. The US is facing a crisis of rail transit investment: www.urban.org/urban-wire/r...

Please can we buy more European buses? PLEASE

i spent all summer organizing for dedicated transit lanes against typical toronto nimbys who claimed that "emergency vehicles would get stuck in traffic and more people would die" anyways, here's real life:

“It’s the end of the city. Toronto sucks.” “This is the beginning of a quiet decent neighbourhood in our city being destroyed simply because it’s on the new subway line.” Totally normal reaction to a six-unit, three-storey residence being built near transit.