I think many people following along the housing discourse know about Ontario Building Code rules preventing single stair and small elevators, but I think more Toronto YIMBYs and urbanists need to be aware of the absurd City of Toronto rules for garbage pickup that swallow the entire ground floor.

Zoom ahead less than a decade and bathouses became a major location for HIV/AIDS prevention education. Anti-sex and anti-safe-space puritanism has a terrible cost whatever the decade. Lives ruined needlessly.

"Or, better yet, make the political choice to tackle snow removal more aggressively on sidewalks and bicycle lanes than roads. Cars can be mounted with snow tires but people can’t, leaving them more vulnerable to winter conditions. www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/edit...

"Maybe the city's full" says the man living in a 2.7 million dollar house on Palmerston, while sipping $170 scotch after defeating a multiplex proposal across the street. www.pressreader.com/canada/toron...

It’s cool that Toronto puts up ads bragging about its snow clearing instead of, you know, clearing the snow

Yes, we had a major snow event. Yes, the city is triaging, and many sidewalks in particular still need work. But it's been a week and arterial bikeways are remain unrideable and worse appear to be dumping grounds for snow-clearing. What's the plan, Toronto? www.torontotoday.ca/local/transp...

Finally a proper use for AI antirender.com

It seems increasingly obvious that Toronto has made a deliberate policy decision not to clear the bike lanes. It hasn’t snowed since Sunday

Just started doing new data analysis and I know I keep saying this, but: I really, really don't think people appreciate how much this moral panic was a deliberate and extremely expensive invention.

Possibly related: northpoll.substack.com/p/who-is-usi...

Doug Ford said it had to close because the roof was unstable. Massive snow dump, roof just fine. Doug Ford lies.

The $113-million mess of a community centre I wrote about this week is 100% funded from “development charges.” It is going in a neighbourhood with zero population growth. In part, these charges are a tax on newcomers to subsidize existing wealthy homeowners. globalnews.ca/news/1163476...

TL;DR: no (Although bike lane snow-clearing has improved in recent years it's still wildly inconsistent and nowhere near the treatment of major roads.)

I love my profession deeply, but some of them are not covering themselves in glory these days. If a mob boss draws a sharp blade languidly across your palm and says it would be a real shame for you to lose your pinky, your headline isn't "Godfather rules out hacking off finger to settle debt."

Very good -->

Where are new transit lines opening this year? Mostly in China & India... though there are major new metro & light rail lines planned for Egypt, Türkiye, Italy, Canada, Malaysia, Brazil—& a few in the US. Check out the Transport Politic's annual roundup: www.thetransportpolitic.com/2026/01/20/t...

This new Toronto Subway order works out to be over 300,000 INT$/ linear meter of train. Shenzhen Metro Line 5's additional 39 sets of 6 car trains cost less than 90,000 INT$/linear meter of train.

thank godddd we need regulation on this across the country. Are there other countries which have effectively regulated excessively bright headlights?

If there's one empirical insight I'd want everyone to understand about American politics, it's this: America's problems are solved problems. Just not here. What would change if the US simply matched the average of 31 peer democracies? Not Denmark or Norway. Just the middle of the pack. 🧵

If it takes mayoral intervention to get a single-stair building with three stories and six units approved in Toronto despite all these safety features (few of which are required even in the US) even after years of warming them up in various forums, current Toronto building and fire staff needs to go

Want to know what's broken with transit in Canada? Often the same things broken in other areas, government willing to charge taxpayers huge amounts to keep votes in select communities

You can design elevated stations that are so much better and less imposing when they are above a public space

One of my least popular opinions in the transit-sphere: I generally think advocates are a little too sanguine about getting people to accept elevated rail, regardless of the merits. But then I see stuff like this and I'm like, damn, you know, maybe I'm wrong.

Zoning in theory: You can’t build housing next to the pollution source 😊 Zoning in reality: You can only build housing next to the pollution source, also daycares are illegal

Honestly if you describe how zoning works to normies it sounds legitimately psychotic. Like, daycares are presumptively illegal in most parts of most cities. Hell, until recently in Ontario daycare was not a permitted use *in schools* as a rule.

I cannot stress enough that homelessness is caused by policy levers primarily at the provincial level. And AMO's new report shows it: homelessness in Ontario rose 8% last year, with 85,000 people becoming homeless. 20,000 were youth and children. Horrifying. globalnews.ca/news/1161124...

The Canadian Taxpayer Federation getting upset about a $2000 plaque that wasn't taxpayer-funded rather than the austerity that led to a dead raccoon lying on the sidewalk for days without pickup is so indicative of their whole deal.

Toronto is proposing $132.5M over 10 years for cycling infrastructure. That's down from $175M in last year's budget and $289M (!!) in 2024. Meanwhile Montreal is planning to spend $473.5M. Cities make choices.

interesting reflections from Lou Haigh on Twitter's damage to the very art of politics

As usual, Toronto civil service, defending obviously unjust systems. Why should costs for transit be paid for heavily by a small number of new residents?

American netizens are devising ingenious puns to avoid the country's pervasive online censorship.

This policy is illegal in Ontario.

uh holy SHIT?

Winnipeg has greater public transit ridership per capita than every American city other than New York!

The high waist for men is back.

Please enjoy this extremely vintage, extremely niche Onion article Justin just found saved in his college files

I've always thought this was at the root of the American conservative fiction that cities are warzones. There's a jealousy there, and acknowledging that our blue cities are very nice places to live undermines their own choices and worldview, so they just fuckin' lie about it.

MNTO member Hana Suckstorff has penned a reflective piece over a small apartment proposal that lost at CoA and is now being appealed at TLAB. On the nature of "neighbourhood character", and what is lost when we apply it only to built-form. hsuckstorff.substack.com/p/saving-the...

Year 1 data on congestion pricing in Manhattan… * Vehicle traffic: -11% * Foot traffic: +3.4% * Storefront vacancy: -0.9% * Pollution: -22% * Revenue for mass transit: $548M So YES this has been a huge success.

Credit to Ed Zeidler for the idea and @shawnmicallef.bsky.social for reporting on it www.thestar.com/opinion/cont...

I refuse to shut up about this: NYC started charging $9 to bring a car into our most transit-rich zone, the haters & trolls predicted doom, but traffic evaporated instantly and here’s Times Square tonite (even after the holiday tourists have left). For a better future, build transit & price driving!

@thestar.com has a story today about our public hospitals using donations to subsidize rent payments for patients at risk of homelessness. While commendable, how backwards is it that we use charitable giving to fund what should be government policy—guaranteed housing? www.thestar.com/news/gta/thi...

Prince Edward Island has far more autonomy than the City of Toronto

"The potential to have things seized will send a message that you can't ride on the sidewalk," Burnside said.

DYK Ontario municipalities have to give Enbridge Gas, a for-profit fossil fuel company company, free access to build pipelines under public land? In 2026, there will be a local fight to change this. Guelph & Waterloo Region are resisting. Toronto & Ottawa have concerns thenarwhal.ca/ontario-enbr...

Reece criticized this article for ignorance and fair enough but I want to point out the Scarborough Subway is also a disaster. The Ontario Line is a disaster. No one, especially conservatives can get their heads out of their asses long enough to tackle spiralling costs torontosun.com/opinion/colu...

Ford closed the science centre for no reason, is shrinking it dramatically, and gov’t doesn’t want you to know the truth about this. My column: www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/toron...

In any case, if HSR is going to cost a bazillion, does not get downtown or even ends up not being built at all, blame Mulroney. This one guy killed any prospect for modern passenger rail in Canada for the next century for the equivalent of 4 bn in today's dollars. The art of the deal, I guess