We haven't had any significant snowfall in a couple days, and yet this is the state of the bus stop behind Kitchener City Hall. That's nearly a foot to step down off the snow onto the LRT tracks, since there's a huge snowbank parked exactly where people are meant to walk.

This is not safe. People are slipping and falling. @colleenjames.bsky.social @mattjrodrigues.bsky.social I appreciate the sidewalk is cleared but there has been ongoing issues where windrows make boarding inaccessible and are also not cleared multiples days after. 🚏University Ave @ UW/Seagram

Wish I'd taken the "before" photo for this one. It takes less than 10 minutes to dig through a snowbank, but it's a huge benefit to your community and neighbours to help clear a bus stop or the snowbanks that collect at street corners. Adopt your local bus stop today to keep it cleared and happy!

"Fietsvlonders" are mobile bike platforms designed to turn a car parking spot into urban bike parking. They’re modular, moveable, and cheap, making it easy to test better use of public space. When car storage gets swapped for bikes, entire streets start to feel different.

Birdwatching makes me incredibly happy. I have a couple feeders in the yard, we planted a few small trees to improve the environment around the house, and I keep the Merlin app on my phone so I can find out who is singing around me. I also got a chickadee tattooed on my arm last year. 🐦🪺

News for Waterloo Region transit nerds: the ION route now displays with the Transit layer on Google Maps!

A groundbreaking new study found that the surge in SUVs from 1995 to 2019 reduced Minnesota's highway lane capacity by 9.5%. Less lane capacity --> More congestion Me, in CityLab 🧵

Quiet vibes waiting for the train

Carney: Canada never ever will be part of America in any way, shape, or form. We didn’t ask for this fight, but Canadians are always ready when someone else drops the gloves.

We're talking about making Canada competitive in a more hostile landscape? We need to get serious about building infrastructure and not wasting money like this.

Use the form at the bottom of this article to submit any locally-made products you know about for Waterloo Region!

The “cover” of today’s Globe & Mail, Canada’s national newspaper. #StrongAndFree

Trudeau: He has said repeatedly, what he wants is to see a total collapse of the Canadian economy. Because that will make it easier to annex us. First of all, that's never going to happen. We will never be the 51st state.

We will be there for Canadian workers.

Kitchener LCBO clearing out all the American product and taking the signs off too. Went in tonight and staff were rolling full carts of bottles off the floor. Bought myself some Canadian whisky and wine 🇨🇦

Hold the line. Back our leaders. Guard our traditions. Protect our sovereignty. Back those who defend us. Never say sorry. Elbows up. Let’s do this. 🇨🇦

Writing to my local governments tonight to request they delete their X accounts. Individuals can do what they want, but there is zero reason that official public sector entities should be driving ad revenue to a man who as of tonight is a legitimate national security threat.

NDP voters watching perplexed Liberals ask themselves how it is possible to get 30% of the votes but only receive ~10% of the seats under first-past-the-post

Well, we told @cityofvancouver.bsky.social council that new info on single stair buildings was coming soon… and here, the next day, is a big report from the Pew Charitable Trust * Quotes below… *based on a ton of legwork by @stephenjacobsmith.com and others www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-...

"Ford was elected on a promise to address our multiple and overlapping crises. The cost of housing was skyrocketing, family doctors were highly coveted but rarely found, schools were crumbling... Consider this: each of the crises he promised to fix has gotten worse." www.thestar.com/opinion/edit...

Cities should be designed for: ❌ A̶u̶t̶o̶n̶o̶m̶o̶u̶s̶ C̶a̶r̶s̶ ✅ Autonomous Kids

“To use a technical term, it blew my mind,” said Vancouver’s former chief planner Brent Toderian…”They weren’t lazy about it—they didn’t just throw up barriers and ban cars. It might be the best bargain I’ve ever heard,” Toderian said. #Montreal

"According to an internal provincial report obtained by the Star, Ontario patients visiting emergency departments in the past three years waited longer than they did in the previous 13 years." Please vote on Feb. 27th!

Today is the last day for early voting for the Ontario election! Before you go, check out how your Waterloo Region, Brantford—Brant, Guelph, & Wellington—Halton Hills candidates responded to our transportation questionnaire in partnership w/ @taaguelph.bsky.social @moretransitso.bsky.social (1/2)

NEW: The City of Toronto is forging ahead with plans for new bike lanes despite provincial crackdown City staff are proposing over 12 kilometres of new bike lanes, including in Cabbagetown, the Annex, Wallace-Emerson, and Bathurst/Steeles

It currently takes 10.5 hours by train to travel from Quebec City to Toronto via Montreal. If Canada proceeds with a high-speed rail system, the trip would take only 4.5 hours. This project is a no-brainer.

I’ll say it again, and it’s even more true now. I’m not optimistic. Or hopeful. Those are too passive. What I am is determined. #BetterCities #BetterFuture

Our rating systems need an overhaul. A vehicle’s safety score shouldn’t ignore the harm it inflicts on those outside of it. Death and destruction caused by reckless design should be factored into its overall rating.

Canada has (finally) announced plans for a high-speed rail project between Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto. As I wrote this Fall, it's a critically-important project: And it's not too late to do it right. www.thestar.com/opinion/cont...

Sneckdowns where two one-way streets meet are undefeated.

Today the bus dropped me off into a massive snowbank in front of the Waterloo regional building. Why can't the people who clear the sidewalks so beautifully take an extra minute to carve out a bit of space for people to get and off the bus?

Cars are getting 1cm wider every two years. That may not sound much, but over time it adds up, and they're showing no signs of slowing down 😬 That's #carspreading. Our new campaign is calling on city leaders to make parking policies fairer by varying costs based on the size of a car. Why? 🧵1/8

This is extremely good news, the Spanish are seriously good at cost effective HSR construction and ADIF is central to that www.railnewsvista.com/rnhs/canada-...

Provocative article salted with some great pictures! Yay to high speed rail and alternative modes of transportation. I think sometimes on how it was easier to get to Toronto from Niagara 20-30 years ago than it is now.

In Canada, it’s probably going to be Carney vs Poilievre for Prime Minister, in a time of unprecedented economic and sovereignty threats from Trump. Carney hasn’t been a politician, and is one of the most experienced and respected economic experts in the world, known for intelligence & integrity.

Proving that yet again that cities aren't loud, cars are loud.

"The most abundant nanoplastic was tyre particles (41%), then polystyrene (28%) and polyethylene (12%). Each tyre on the world’s 1.6bn vehicles can lose 4kg during its lifetimes and may be the largest source of tiny plastic pollution."

Okayyyyy Waterloo Region, let's talk about customizable transit cards for the GRT! So cute! So useful!

Emptying a bin in the Netherlands. Having these large bins on residential streets ensures there is no "bin day", residents are free to put their rubbish out whenever they please, which leads to less litter in the street. A sensor tells the local authority when it's full, meaning fewer truck journeys

Boring competant politicians are looking pretty damn good right now.

If you're looking to buy local/buy Canadian, there is some very helpful advice here. probablyworthsharing.substack.com/p/buy-canadi...

Transport is the biggest source of US emissions. The US transportation secretary has ordered the removal of the words "climate change" and "greenhouse gas emissions" from all departmental material.

Canada is coordinating it's response with Mexico as well. Trudeau suggesting Canadians start buying local instead of American. That could mean "Canadian rye over Kentucky Bourbon." Also suggests Canadian vacation at home instead of the U.S.

If you want parents to cycle to primary school with their young children in your city then building protected cycle tracks on main roads is an essential requirement

@transit.app The app hasn't been showing me the location of the incoming bus/train for the past couple of days; it only pops in when I'm actually onboard with the app going. Is this a temporary glitch or is this a permanent change?

Car dependency has been so normalized that most people don't know that putting a child into a car is more dangerous than putting them on a bike. In fact, car trips are the most dangerous activity that most children partake in.

Yesterday was mild-ish, and the snow started to melt along the edges. But almost none of the street corners got cleared when everything was loose. Then it froze solid overnight. Trying to get my child over these piles safely, while also watching for approaching cars this morning was... stressful.

New report concludes that Right-on Red is deadly: ROR "is generally unsafe for pedestrians, bicyclists, and drivers." "Right-turn collisions at signalized intersections were responsible for over 39k collisions and 217 fatalities between 2011–2022 in California." transweb.sjsu.edu/sites/defaul...

Got this flashback from 2021 @tomflood.bsky.social !

The math is the same in every city. Bikes and smart bike infrastructure SAVE a huge amount of space. And a huge amount of public money (infrastructure money, public health care money, & much more), a huge amount of ghg emissions, pollution and noise, & much more. And then there’s what they GAIN us.