Something almost magical about how much more spacious a rush hour Mark V skytrain seems compared to its predecessors

billionaires and autocrats hijack and target communication platforms in an attempt to control information flow, and people of sense and empathy are endlessly dirven to new platforms it's been central to my internet experience for an entire adult life

A rare example of a quality full redesign of a street in Italy. Via Amedei, Mantova. First pic, how it was, i.e. the typical oversized street of postwar peripheries. Other 3 pics: how it's now, turned one-way, depaved and traffic-calmed.

What is the point of driving bans exactly if you can just keep driving

Can we get this in Vancouver? Or Everywhere?

This is what local control has gotten us. Sadly, Illinois municipalities won't build local housing unless we change the rules statewide. It's honestly heartbreaking to read this thread and see how much housing isn't getting built.

rare in north america do you get a rapid transit project does all of this: -replaces one of the busiest existing bus routes in a city (wilshire is the 2nd busiest) -is 2-3x faster than the bus (7 min vs 22-30 min) -and way faster than driving (18 min+) los angeles did it. grade-separated rail wins

Never has an editorial screamed out for a "Now do highways and roads" response more than this one.

This CBC essay about a family moving from Toronto to Saskatchewan is framed as escaping “busy city life” but most of it is about how cars and gridlock made their lives unbearable www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

Before (2015) / After (2026) Avenue de Bouvines in the 11th arrondissement of Paris. On the right it is the children’s playground, but there were too many kids to take a photo (that is necessarily close since there’s no distance from it) so I’ll do it another time when there’s hardly anyone there :)

I continue to be flabbergasted that other (non-insane) governments aren't making similar changes. The Canadian government won't shut up about how important "digital sovereignty" is, and then it pours resources into posting everything to Twitter and Facebook.

ST is using the Canada Line as an example AGAINST doing ALR? What?

This Oakville project is really interesting because it’s one of the largest examples of high density, truly greenfield development. When you look at the satellite imagery below you can see the context. And this is good because building more housing is going to require more than infill projects

Infrastructure projects routinely spend billions of dollars to avoid difficult conversations. I wrote a new piece on Infrastory on how we need to be better at recognizing the problems that can be solved with a phone call rather than big infrastructure. open.substack.com/pub/infrasto...

vancouver's west end healed me as an entire district of medium + high density housing on a network of low-car streets (with some car-free treatments!) pleasant, quiet, but convenient to walk, bike and take transit. perfect. and illegal to recreate across most canadian cities 💔

Media challenge: write one of these articles that doesn’t focus only on incumbents. Find the people priced out, people living with parents, people living in basements, people forced to move away. Those people are our future, if we have one - ask them how they feel about building more housing…

Rode the Bergen Bike Bus today to make a big announcement: We’re redesigning Bergen Street and Dean Street, from Court Street to East New York Ave — adding new bike boulevards and more pedestrian space. Safer rides to school for New York City kids coming soon.

Some of this is homeownership bias, and partly it is even dumber - simple ‘number go up is good’ mentality. We get the same skewed takes with currency movements

From a statcan study on housing across generations, behold our failures. www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/46-28...

Good news. We elect people to make decision, not hold processes by which extremely unrepresentative subpopulations drag out any decision for months. Easier than ever to contact your elected, we don't need public hearings.

It's 2026 Census Week, and to celebrate we put the refreshed CensusMapper live. It's got a fresh look and feel and advanced map-making capabilities for everyone. Check it out! Read about what changed in our blog post:

Our new IONizeWR article is a deep dive into the evolution of plans and costs for ION Stage 2:

Wow. Where was the president of Cornell and did he know his car was capable of doing this on its own?

Automated bus/streetcar Lane enforcement is the norm now in many cities in North America. One of the many cameras on the bus snaps the license plate of any car illegally in front of the bus. Which Canadian city will be the first to implement it?

Imagine trying to implement other social programs like this! Like replacing taxpayer-funded food stamps with an unfunded mandate that grocery stores sell 30% of their food at a loss.

If you don’t have time to read this urgent media release, here’s my one-question translation: What did you have to travel an hour to access this week that should’ve taken a fraction of that time? Now multiply that excessive travel time over a year. This is the conspiracy, not complete communities.

A finding that e-bike injury risk in Oslo, Norway is *lower* than conventional bike risk after adjusting for distance traveled. Caveat for North American readers: e-bikes in the EU are speed-limited to 25 km/h. findingspress.org/article/1578...

People generally need to be ok with letting hosing get built that they would not personally like to live in. Can't tell you the number of times someone has told me "I would never want to live in an apartment." Just...don't live in one then? That's no reason to make them illegal to build!

Welcome to Kindred! A six home houseplex in the heart of walkable, bikeable, transitable VicWest in #yyj. These homes took 30 months for rezoning and permitting and 18 months to build. Now this building is home to 15 adults and children of all ages. www.lapishomes.com/projects/633...

This is truly mind-blowing: Norway has gone from near-zero sales of non‑emitting battery electric vehicles to now close to 100% of all new passenger car sales - achieved in about 13 years. More in my next substack newsletter. Sign up here: substack.com/@janrosenow

On the skytrain, two young dudes are talking, one trying to recite all the skytrain stations in order from memory. Resisting the urge to interject - ‘not 49th, you forgot Oakridge’ - don’t forget Sea Island Centre’ (understandable, to be fair)

"Less space for cars does not necessarily mean more congestion." Over the past few years, Utrecht has extensively redesigned major traffic artery Western City Boulevard. The chosen approach was to create more space for greenery, walking, and cycling, and less space for cars. READ: buff.ly/8wWBasc

Now legal in Missoula: ADUs, over-garage homes, apartments, small-scale multiplexes. Mixed use on every parcel. Costly off-street parking mandates gone. The new code doesn't just lead Montana... it shows up almost every similarly sized city in the US. @dannytenenbaum.bsky.social

Good morning. Someone is always going to make money on real estate. The price of housing is set by supply and demand. High housing cost cities are letting landlords and homeowners get rich off of housing scarcity. We should let developers make money building new homes for people to live in instead.

In Seattle's Pike Place Market, vendors claimed that removing cars would cripple them. Nope. Sales actually rose. Remember: Studies show that biz owners consistently exaggerate how many customers drive and undercount those who walk, bike, or ride transit. Info: www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

It's been a year! Cartogram of the 2025 federal election.

went to the massive miniature world complex in toronto and patiently explained to staff for ten minutes that the steam clock isn’t next to waterfront station and there’s no community gardens in the plaza of nations and the infamous chandelier doesn’t hang over the water and somehow *i’m* the problem

Good job, Maple Ridge! 75% reduction in building application times is a great example of what leading on housing looks like

Check out my latest opinion piece! Public transit can save someone up to $15,000 per year. There is no other cost saving tool at any government’s disposal as powerful as public transit. @movementyvr.bsky.social

this is great little article on all the 'small' things that had to be done to berth 5 car trains on the skytrain system buzzer.translink.ca/2026/04/how-...

This story gets crazier by the day. It reveals so much about the dark and seedy side of YouTube and of the conjunction between AI slopaganda, foreign political interference, and old fashioned greed.

People online: arguing about e-bikes, scooters and bike lanes. Meanwhile in IRL:

Ever want to want to rank all the SkyTrain stations like @jmcelroy.bsky.social but were overwhelmed by choice? Well no longer! Checkout my new web app that pits SkyTrain stations against each other to let you build your own ranking easily! kristianblais.github.io/transit-rank...

The trouble when there is only one playoff game on at a time, is that there is nothing to switch over to when there is a 20 minute scrum. Like, I just want to watch some hockey, is that too much to ask?

IMO, the most obvious, slam-dunk, it's-right-in-front-of-your-face transit decisions to be made in Metro Van are the connection of the two largest universities to the rapid transit network. SkyTrain extension to UBC and Gondola to SFU.

It’s a thing to note here: rapid rail transit is *overwhelmingly popular* be it subways or high speed rail I don’t think the “eat your vegetables” attitude regarding, say, Via Rail or bus funding from some quarters is helpful. Demonstrate to the public you can do great things

Vancouver needs to return to cut and cover for future skytrain projects. Use some of the enormous savings to pay off business owners along the route.

Decking (red) for the cut and cover structure Busan Metro Line 5 and Korail Bujeon-Masan Line. Busan Metro Line 5 is a fully underground AGT light metro. 1st phase of Line 5 from Sasang to Hadan is 7 stations and 6.9 km long. Estimated to cost 150 million INT$/km to build...

From Australia: "New research has found public transport fares have not been a decisive factor in pushing people to shift from car to public transport." "Better public transport access, coverage, reliability, and travel time have a greater impact than price in changing long-term commuting habits."

The cult of community engagement