The City of Ottawa posted the raw speed data from before and after Doug Ford banned speed cameras and the effect is so obvious it's not even necessary put a line marking when that happened. This chart shows the percentage of drivers going 15km/h or more over the posted limit.

My new research study finds that the Ontario provincial government's funding austerity is harming patient access to hospital care 🧵 #onpoli #cdnpoli www.policyalternatives.ca/news-researc...

The Port Authority has submitted a letter to the Planning & Housing Committee re: Ookwemin Minising requesting that future residents agree to “warning clauses” about noise from the airport. Also suggests buildings be designed so windows can stay closed. www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis...

NEW – Pace of global warming has nearly doubled since 2015, study says ✍️ @ayeshatandon.carbonbrief.org Read here ⬇️

The Tumbler Ridge shooter had used OpenAI to discuss scenarios involving gun violence. It was bad enough to get flagged and reviewed by employees, who warned the company & suggested alerting law enforcement. The company said No. This tragedy could have been prevented. Gut wrenching.

If public transit and cycling had even 10% of the subsidies we give to car culture, our cities would look completely different.

Visitor parking means fewer homes, which means fewer opportunities for neighbours and local friends, which means more need to travel to see people, which means more loneliness. Yay for downward spirals!

3,100 trips in current conditions is bonkers. Bonkers. How many more people would choose to ride if the bike lanes (and bike share stations!!!) weren't snowed in?

I am a climate scientist and this is correct. As the planet warms, storms like the one today are getting stronger… and as the Arctic is warming twice as fast as the mid latitudes, it increases the risk of the “freezer door” swinging open. Technical explanation here: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Better tear out the sidewalks too, so that impatient drivers no longer have to heroically mount the sidewalk on residential streets to get around garbage trucks. Nothing else to be done.

The "after" picture really drives home just how polluting cars are: it's a near-perfect map of the roads, with higher pollution corresponding to busier, faster roads.

Lots of this for Toronto, please. The amount of unshaded concrete already makes it inhospitable during summer heat waves.

"Road Cost Recovery Trends" (vtpi.org/rcrt.pdf) This short study calculates the portion of US roadway expenditures paid by fuel taxes and tolls. Most local road costs and a growing portion highway costs are funded by general taxes; user fees now cover less than half of road spending.

Particularly when trying to listen to a podcast or audio book with bone conducting headphones, you're forced to recognize how insanely loud cars are: a comfortable volume is completely inaudible as a single car passes.

This federal government has failed to recognize that transit is a nation-building project. Transit supports a strong economy. Transit supports climate resilience. Transit connects communities and opportunities. We will continue to pressure federal electeds to fund public transit!

It's crazy that so much of Toronto being flat or shrinking is unremarked or actively hidden. You get Cllr Mike Colle, whose ward grew only 1.7pc, saying his constituents are "threatened" by constant change. Or residents in the Annex, which has fewer people, saying there's no space for more density

Media is reporting that #COP30 delegates are appropriately questioning Canada’s commitments to #ClimateAction. To be clear, we can’t do nation-building, we can’t grow and diversify the Canadian economy and global relationships, and we can’t make Canada strong, if we don’t lead on #ClimateChange.

This has been such an obvious move for the past 30+ years, yet Canada keeps doubling and tripling down on oil and pipelines.

Especially important when over 50% of trips in cities like Toronto are under 5km, which is bikable in 15 min. Even if you only choose to walk or ride in 1-2/10 of those trips, it adds up quickly when everyone able does the same.

⬆️ ventilation = ⬇️ Covid HAIs Increasing from 1 to 6 ACH = 50% reduction (~40% to 20% attack rate) Increasing from 6 to 10 ACH = more reduction (~20% to 10% attack rate)

The most insanely frustrating thing about the #ClimateCrisis is how the breakthrough we so clearly need isn’t technological. It’s just a collective willingness, a determination even, to change in ways that would clearly be SO MUCH BETTER than the clear and obvious consequences of NOT changing.

“In the era of the climate crisis, politicians campaigning against bike lanes aren’t fit for office.” — @taylornoakes.com in @cultmtl.com Also in an era of worsening urban traffic, urban pollution, urban noise, exploding public costs, competition among cities, & not nearly enough space in cities.

Canadians care about climate change, so you killed the consumer carbon levy for the most cynical of crass political reasons and took us off the path of declining emissions reductions while talking up digital asbestos data centres and unworkable "carbon capture" fantasies. 👏👏👏

That footprint is essentially the land needed for a drive-in stadium (ignoring, of course, how much elevation would be needed so people could see the field over the cars ahead of them). It's only a bit surprising that this concept has never been done in the US.

This is why carbrains always argue in an all-or-nothing way about active transportation ("how are you going to get a new couch home on your bike?!"). Even if 28% of car trips were translated to other modes, there would be so much less traffic, noise, pollution, crashes, and deaths. All for free.

Why does the media keep covering these #NIMBYs over their nothingburger complaints? It's: * On their own property * Completely within bylaw guidelines * More housing, which we desperately need The real kicker: the picture from the complainer's house sees into the neighbour's yard.

Meanwhile, Toronto's transit and active transportation projects continue to face delay after delay with there's still no word on when the Finch West and Eglinton Crosstown LRT lines will open. It goes to show Toronto & Ontario need to rethink their priorities. #BikeTO #WalkTO #TTC #TOpoli #ONpoli

It's wild how lockstep Del Duca is with Ford's policies given that he once ran against him as a Liberal. It's also fascinating that these politicians are against automated speed enforcement but all-in on actual surveillance cameras. toronto.citynews.ca/2025/10/14/v... #onpoli

Air quality monitoring agency concludes that clean transport initiatives in Paris – including 1,500 km of new bikeways, conversion of on-street car parking to gardens, and lower speed limits on the Périphérique highway – saved France €61 billion over 10 years in reduced health care costs.

BREAKING📢 Crack team of climate scientists show "it is no longer defensible for companies proposing new or extended fossil fuel projects to claim the climate harms will be negligible. Our research shows the harms are, in fact, tangible and quantifiable – and no project is too small to matter"

We have truly not yet figured out how to cope with a person or institution that is "aware" of climate change, "accepts the science", but then decides to continue actively worsening it anyway We don't even have a word or a phrase for this! theconversation.com/mark-carneys...

51km/h: 80% fatal to pedestrians. 65km/h: 100% fatal to pedestrians. Both of those are big problems, especially on a street going through so much residential land. #topoli #onpoli

Anyone else wearying of Doug Ford’s endless efforts to kill pedestrians and cyclists while misappropriating tax dollars? Just me?

Counterpoint: police infamously have not been enforcing traffic laws for the past decade -- to the point that speeding is so normalized that having no-brainer automated enforcement is being highly politicized, and vigilantes cutting down the cameras are being coddled. #onpoli

"Doug Ford’s war on road safety is going to get innocent people killed. With Bill 212, he has essentially banned municipalities from building speed-calming complete streets where they are most needed, and now he is attacking...enforcement against speeders.” www.insidehalton.com/news/ontario...

Amnesty International: “The Canadian government is pushing forward new fossil-fuel projects during a deepening climate crisis, while one of the worst wildfire seasons on record still rages in parts of the country, & in contravention of the rights of affected Indigenous Nations. This is concerning.”

Canadian COVID Forecast: Sep 13 - Sep 26, 2025 Severe: NL, PEI, SK Very high: CAN, AB, BC, MB, NB, North, NS, ON High: QC Moderate: none About 1 in 81 people in Canada are CURRENTLY infected.

Why are they all like this? Nearly 90% globally and over 80% of Canadians want stronger political action on climate and nearly half of Canadians would contribute 1% of their income to make it happen. Why are our leaders cowards? www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The city always tells us to wait for these much-needed street reforms until the street is re-paved... and now we're supposed to wait longer? Especially with the threat of bill 212 preventing such bike lanes, this is a non-sensical and possibly existential crisis. Make it make sense... #TOpoli

Trigger warning. “In crashes, SUVs are more likely to strike vital organs in the core of adults’ bodies & heads of children. Hitting pedestrians above their center of gravity means they’re more likely to be knocked forward & down and then be driven over.” Plus more likely to hit in the 1st place.

Canadian COVID Forecast: Aug 30 - Sep 12 2025 Severe: Very high: AB BC NL High: CAN MB North NS ON PEI QC SK Moderate: About 1 in 65 people in Canada are CURRENTLY infected.

Another fun example from Canada, where tolls were lifted on a section of the 407 a couple of weeks ago and there is already talk of needing to widen it because of congestion: www.globalnews.ca/news/1133482... #onpoli

Near-misses are another important metric that are starting to be taken more seriously thanks to the work of Miovision and others. www.therecord.com/news/waterlo...

"... allow US tanks onto the streets" Literally, sight line-wise:

There is genuine mismanagement, and then there is Ford underfunding school boards and then blaming the trustees for not balancing their books (on the backs of special needs children primarily), and he doesn't differentiate between the two while he centralises authority over education.

Doctors: we've accepted too many myths about Covid. My presentation explains why - and gives you the science you're missing. youtube.com/watch?v=GPUT... 🧵1/11

We ship 11 billion tonnes of stuff around the world and 40% of that is fossil fuels.

When the Ford government announced that it was forcing the Somerset West Community Health Centre to close its supervised consumption site, they quoted unsourced stats about local crime rates. They lied. Crime actually went down significantly when the CTS was open.

To put it simply, a virus that has caused over 28 million deaths an estimated 409 million (end ‘23) to suffer #Longcovid is not in anyway mild. Viruses that go on to upend people’s lives and leave them with chronic health problems are not mild.