I really like that we're doing filtered permeability on Portland and I wish my neighbourhood had more and I'm jealous. But I also want projects like these to be able to proceed in less than 3 years for what is effectively a change to two blocks of a single road.

The world has become much more resilient to disaster events over the last century. In the chart here, you can see estimates of average death rates — measured as the number of deaths per 100,000 people — by decade since the early 20th century.

We did it to ourselves, we did And that's what really hurts Us and no one else We do it to ourselves We do it to ourselves My @thestar.com column on the possible closure of Sneaky Dees. One councillor said it was the province’s fault. It isn’t Doug Ford here. It’s Toronto.

Watching a 506 streetcar with a nearside stop trigger a 10 second extended green light, which it obviously missed because it stopped to board, and dying a little inside that someone ordered this as transit signal priority.

An item from councillor Morley at next week's PHC asking City Planning to increase restrictions on multiplex building length/depth in the RM zone. I just wish councillors would think holistically instead of responding to NIMBYS with ad hoc adjustments. secure.toronto.ca/council/agen...

When real estate agents think it’s too dangerous to take the TTC but hundreds of school children take it everyday with no issue

The unemployment rate being basically flat since the beginning of 2025 is kind of wild when you think about it given *waves hand* all this. www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quo...

Took a few minutes after work to watch down University from Dundas to King and I just don't know how someone could watch this and conclude the bike lanes made any difference to the traffic. Maybe if you have really strong preferences for waiting at a light in a 3x6 formation as opposed to 2x9.

Italian traffic management doesn't really look as pretty and accomplished as the Dutch one, but somehow the application of a few simple principles of circulation planning makes it possible for a 200k city whose modal main streets are either 1-lane one ways or contraflow ones to somehow work.

Wait.. we're running a once per hour water taxi? Why???

Often times we say that much of what’s charged as development fees should be rolled into property taxes, but it’s under appreciated how much of it should be rolled into car taxes

The answer appears to be they will risk it in the last PHC session of the term.

Do you think this is enough façada articulation to pass design review ?

Remember, when you don't want to admit a mistake, you can just complain about other things instead. stevemunro.ca/2026/06/03/r...

(11/11) Great geology, innovative construction, standardisation, frugal planning and concentrated/curated methods are characteristics crucial to keeping costs down. Maybe those are the „int‘l practices“ we should try to adopt, not ideas that we cannot execute and end up blowing up our budget.

They've announced some road closures for world cup match days. Have to say I'm very excited for Strachan to be closed and I'll be looking out for whether that will be just better in general for my neighbourhood to the north. I suspect eliminating the through traffic will be awesome.

The Montreal borough of Rosemont-La Petite-Patrie is boosting road safety near schools and daycares. They’re modifying the circulation plan of the streets, creating alternating one-ways to eliminate through traffic. @francoislimoges.bsky.social @rosepatrie.bsky.social

I'm sure everyone else is on pins and needles waiting to see if MTSA as-of-right zoning is coming to next week's planning and housing committee or whether they're really going to risk it with putting it in the last PHC of the term.

If the character of your neighbourhood can't support 5 new homes, the established nature of the community is snobbery.

Beyond the question of whether TPS should spend their traffic enforcement efforts on bicycle rolling stops, I have another complaint: why is there a stop sign going from the Martin Goodman trail onto Queens Quay at all? It should be two-way stop on stadium. Is this bike priority path or not?

First APTA quarterly ridership results with the Crosstown and Finch LRTs operational in Toronto.

Rodney @chanface.bsky.social again tried to make me grumpy with bad takes from the other place. So I'll just point that per the TTS, from 1996-2022 Toronto's population grew 18% and the number of car trips by residents decreased 10%. Some pandemic weirdness in 2022 but more cars is not inevitable.

I hope this will be read and understood in say CCPA land, but not betting on it.

This is anecdotal, but my impression is that aggressive men in public are increasingly using loud hard f-slurs more brazenly.

The issue in that case (there are others in the article that may have more merit) seems to be that some incorrectly think that democracy means the City has to do whatever they suggest at a public meeting or delay to re-consider every wild claim. That's a problem that pre-dates strong mayor powers.

Interesting point but leaves me confused about Toronto/Ontario. We have a competitive provincial political sphere. I think municipal watchers would say we have competition between factions at City Hall even if we have no parties. But we are in the same cost decline as one party US systems.

Candidate registration for Toronto council have been open for 4 weeks now and 7 of 25 wards still have no one running. It's a (way too) long campaign and I expect all the incumbents in those wards to run. It just feels... slow compared to last time.

I'm somewhat agreed but will just add these thoughts on how heritage preservation is becoming a tool to try to "fix" what people dislike about zoning and design guidelines. I really don't expect that instinct to go away while things are *gestures* like this. hsuckstorff.substack.com/p/updates-fr...

A thing I'm trying to keep in my head for intuition purposes when looking at trip counts across different modes: 54k trips is about 1% of all daily trips for City of Toronto residents per the 2022 TTS.

The councillors blaming the province every time a development gets approved (in this case Bravo) need to have some self respect. No one made you designate the Downtown growth area. Acknowledge that growth needs to happen somewhere, there are trade offs and this is what you picked. Be adults.

I saw the petition to stop the redevelopment of Sneaky Dee's, an establishment that was a core part of my 20s and which I still love. But a reason for people to read staff reports is so they know it was already rezoned. Current application is the difference between 13 and 16 stories. It's too late.

Extremely interested to see the 2026 census mode share results.

It's municipal election season so you're going to read a lot about what the *real priority* should be (including from me, sorry), but TTC cost disease really and truly should be a top 3 issue for the city. It has lost the ability to build or buy anything.

This is what you would do if you had no idea what platform doors are or why you might want them.

After the request to pause parking requirement minimums in Scarborough passed at last week's City Council meeting, it was only a matter of time before other Community Councils got in on the action. <Looks at calendar> The matter of time was 6 days. secure.toronto.ca/council/agen...

Councillor Ainslie's request to study removing parking minimums in Scarborough has of course resulted in a copycat motion from Councillor Holyday introduced as new business at the Etobicoke-York Community Council. secure.toronto.ca/council/agen...

Amazing quote from Aurora mayor Tom Mrakas, summarizing his own NIMBYism: It wasn't a veto of transitional housing. It was a veto of changing the land use (to something that would have allowed the housing). He "fully" supports housing except all the places he doesn't. www.thestar.com/news/gta/dou...

In the same vein as the cycling slogan of "paint isn't infrastructure", I'm going to start saying "signs aren't infrastructure" for stopping turns across tram tracks.

The line at the Dovercourt Badiali's has been cut by what looks like 2/3rds since the Mirvish village location opened... . . . (Supply works)

A bit of a weird one. In the report the authors are careful not to over interpret their study (which was basically a moderately over-theorized mapping of census tract level income increase). But then on the website someone just says YOLO I'm going to mention a bunch of policies we didn't discuss.

Prague's Holešovice neighborhood circulation plan is a good example of how the "Divert Through Traffic" strategy is all about disentangling the main transit and traffic corridors Red: transit routes, mostly in mixed traffic but only local Yellow: main car thoroughfares. The do not overlap.

I'm glad the Star is taking this very seriously and not just allowing walking stereotypes who haven't given the question any thought whatsoever a chance to sound off.

Screaming, crying, throwing up in Toronto.

Oops. Narrative violation. www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quo...

The future we should want for downtown Toronto, cut car traffic, take out the traffic lights, and let the streetcars feast.

This past weekend’s rainfall was a great test of the floor protection changes to the lower Don, and looks to me like it passed with flying colours. Read that the Coxwell Bypass Tunnel is also open now too? Great improvements by the city.

Olivia Chow has registered. And since it's municipal politics she appears on the list of candidates just below a person with ummm... comically questionable intents.

Still sounds to me like Kandavel being sloppy, clumsy, or clueless. But does raise some uncomfortable questions about how much the normal Community Benefits Charge process sounds like bribery when you describe it to someone. www.thestar.com/news/investi...

All the people who confidently told me that my views on urbanism, car culture and exclusionary school districts would evolve once I had a kid were wrong. Don't project your feelings of bad faith onto other people!

Now that Major Streets made its way through the OLT, I should check if we've seen an uptick in building permits for buildings with 10-60 units. It wouldn't take long but I've got a few side quests on the go already.