Ah yes, the two genders, Tall and Sprawl

My new podcast DWELL TIME IS OUT! Join Denis Agar and Rodney Chan in their discussions around transit in Canada. From buses to trains and everything else transit, learn about advocacy happening in Canadian cities and beyond. Apple podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/d... Spotify link below:

It's really hard to take the municipalities seriously about these concerns when one of the largest "downloaded" cost is the Employer Health Tax that every employer has to pay www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

I regularly walk by 8 and 10 storey buildings that are next to low rise. It really wouldn't matter if they were 12 instead.

The problem is that "smaller metro area" where a tram-like LRT can perform the role of higher-order transit spine in North America means places like Québec (barely 1M) or Waterloo (1/2 M). Everything else is either too small and weakly centered for rail or too big for low-speed LRTs.

Also more TOD, better service levels, more hospitable and modern transit, cultural stuff etc. but those are big

also bored. here's the canadian cities (from apta) vancouver = 0.507 calgary = 0.410 victoria = 0.278 edmonton = 0.264 winnipeg = 0.259 have to dig around for more ridership data for these two given all the agencies in the metro area, but they're at least this much: toronto >0.539 montreal >0.424

A lot of Blueskiers are going to dismiss this observation because of the source, but it is correct. I'll just add that I don't think there's anything special about single-family homes that means they should never be rentals, any more than there's a rule that multifamily units should never be condos.

It's no wonder that Toronto transit is such a mess when half of the people advocating for transit are happy with the mediocrity of getting a bigger bus with no improvement on speed or frequency and arguing with those advocating for actual meaningful improvements for transit riders.

Why I’m Less Excited About Trams Than You youtu.be/JLzkcfGfnDg

I have not been shy on my coverage of transit issues in Toronto. With the disastrous opening of the Finch West LRT in early December, I have some thoughts from Hong Kong using my historical experiences with Toronto in this longform post.

Never appreciated before how similar the Toronto and Vancouver metro shapes are. Just take this image of Line 1 in Toronto and rotate it to align with Expo and Canada Lines, then add in line 2 where the Millenium Line runs...

Even more wild IMHO is when the SkyTrain Surrey-Langley extension of the expo line is done that branch's length will be twice as long as the Vaughan side of Line 1 but with a travel time just a bit lower than a non-express GO train

New StainerTheFirst video! www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRAR...

Don't forget to thank everyone from Surrey for taking one for the team by electing Doug McCallum to save us from a Finch Style LRT at the last minute.

The TTC Finch W Tramway is a walking disaster and the Montreal REM is a runaway success.

The thing to remember is that the critics of the LRTs when they were proposed took issues with the original run time of 33 minutes, even the most critical opponents would never have believed that the run time would end up in the 50 minute plus time

The SkyTrain has really warped my view of rapid transit. It gives us metro stop spacing with just slightly slower speeds than local GO trains. Aroura to Union is 53 minutes with 6 stations while Langley to Waterfront will be 65 minutes with 28 stations. Both are around 40km

We need to build homes, everywhere, for all kinds of people. That's how you solve a housing crisis.

<3 you SkyTrain, happy (belated) birthday www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

Ughhh TTC board is being so dodgy on talking openly about signal priority Matlow is pushing for transparency and they keep saying no we’ll talk about it “in camera” (closed private session) They say it’s to “preserve their relationship with metrolinx” See: @ 54:00 www.youtube.com/live/-5Xz9HS...

If Toronto gets line 6 working half decently in a timely manner because of all the criticism we are going to end up all the people who were going on about it just being a soft opening and just wait for the improvement thinking they were right aren't we

Let's push for more mobility as opposed to just not

We're still waiting for the TransLink survey results, and council's decision on the route is expected early next year. Send them an email about your preference if you haven't yet! movementyvr.ca/bby-heights-...

I hope that the opening of Line 6 breaks us out of this "good transit vibes" era North America has been in. We prioritize streetcar aesthetics to try and sell vibes to developers and riders instead of caring about the actual speed and frequency of our transit Transit should be fast!!!

So the soft launch and fine tuning TSP are only going to allow line 6 to hit the 46 minute goal. WTAF is going on inside the TTC. The province should just remove the TTc them as operators of the line and shut it down while they sort out a new operator. Commutes won't even be worse in the meantime

Toronto transit discourse is absolutely foul. With too many negative posts about Line 6 the mods of /r/TTC have sequestered all Line 6 discussion to a mega thread stifling ongoing conversation. Let's be clear this wouldn't have happened if posts were positive, this is because people are critical

i grew up in jane & finch as a kid. i remember being there when they were initially planning this line and promised a fast, new train to replace the overcrowded finch bus. i was excited back then. all i can say is i feel insulted this whole project feels like an insult to communities along finch

I was wrong, the responses weren't mixed. They were all negative, with a few people with Stockholm syndrome trying to justify their foamer tendencies

Over twice the speed of driving, this isn’t what gets people onto transit. Oh and the bus? 10 minutes faster! At least the media is starting to take note! Politicians too! youtu.be/OsCFS-Mxzyo?...

It’s wrong that the Finch & Eglinton LRTs don’t have signal priority. Billions of dollars were spent, only for “rapid transit” to go slower than the buses it replaced. Last Spring at Council, I moved for signal priority on these lines. The 2026 budget must fund this priority.

The Finch West LRT being slower than the bus it's replacing might be my personal Joker moment. The army of people who fought to preserve LRTs in the face of a mountain of dishonesty from multiple parties deserved an honest effort to make them actually operate well. Instead, we get Toronto.

We wrote an article on how we could fix Spadina and many of those are the same fixes needed here. We shouldn't tolerate bunched vehicles and average speeds below 15km/h on lines entirely in their own lane. Fortunately, we don't have to. www.thestar.com/opinion/cont... 7/

A rambling thread about the Finch West LRT from someone in BC with no connection to Toronto so feel free to ignore. While I don't have a connection to Toronto I'm a transit enthusiast who wants the cities in this country to be places that people can lead good lives without a car. 1/

I love that the TTC is now dredging up the ~12 year old justifications for the Finch West LRT to justify why its so slow, instead of just . . . making it faster . . .

A rambling thread about the Finch West LRT from someone in BC with no connection to Toronto so feel free to ignore. While I don't have a connection to Toronto I'm a transit enthusiast who wants the cities in this country to be places that people can lead good lives without a car. 1/

Updated TTC Subway reduced speed zone map.

This video slaps: www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTcC...

I made a joke as I ride this slow new ride

Metro Vancouver is so lucky that we were able to dodge the Surrey LRT for the SkyTrain, not to mention that for all the SkyTrain lines LRT options were seriously considered. It's nice to be at the point where light metro is the only serious option considered for upcoming lines.

Okanagan Transit Alliance winter social on Dec 11 details. I’m not an organizer. Just sharing. Hope to see you there.

Toronto just opened a new rail line, Line 6 Finch West. It cost C$3.5 billion to build for 10.3 km of route, from which I conclude it must be a 100% underground city center line and the picture of a tram in the article is unrelated. www.thestar.com/news/gta/fin...

got the chance to speak to CBC about the finch west LRT and talk about how after all these years and $3.7B, riders might not see service that is meaningfully more fast and frequent than the finch bus replaced. and of course, one of the big solutions: transit signal priority! (1)

I don’t really think most of the light rail being built in the GTHA is a great idea but once we build it, we sure as hell should make sure it operates as well as conceivably possible and there’s a lot of room to improve what we’ve built so far.

On Reddit the TTC operators say the problem is self sabotage, TTC is operating much slower than the Metrolinx tests, on purpose www.reddit.com/r/TTC/s/1toQ...

I’ve long felt that one of the major issues with the TTC is that its managers treat it like they’re running a fleet of garbage trucks, and don’t think they’re in the customer service business. This comment does not dissuade me of that view.

What are we doing here? 170m between streetcar stops. It makes the service borderline unusable.

The cynical take that there wasn't a Finch West Express bus because it would have absolutely smoked these trams is seeming more and more likely. For too long the Toronto transit advocacy sphere was so hand wavy about speed, other stuff matters, but people really do want to get places quickly!

Transit discourse in Toronto is just so myopic.

I'm glad that the virtuous plan to build a transit line to serve and underserved communities and relieve crowding has ended up lowering transit frequency and increasing travel times for most of the day but at least it's a nice electric train.