It's pretty clear to me that the developer here is kind of hoping for these to burn down. They blatantly left large openings for people to access the vacant structure.

Ontario municipalities must submit data each year on important issues like development charges, which helps citizens understand how their money is spent. 2023 data was due in May 2024, yet data for 31 municipalities is still unavailable, including for Hamilton and Cornwall.

Why This “Anti-Car Labyrinth” Is Actually Brilliant youtu.be/WAhlfWt25sA

Fun fact: despite the enormous land mass, the population-weighted density of Canada — basically the density experienced by the average person — is the same as Denmark and close to the Netherlands. Canada and Denmark are 3,000 people per km², while the Netherlands is 3,400/km².

Can you believe that most cities in the US and Canada, with only a few exceptions, allow cars to turn right despite having a red light?

When people say “developers just want to blanket our neighbourhood with apartment towers”, I respond: “that would only happen if your current zoning rules massively limit the supply of housing below demand. Is that the case?”. (In California, the answer is “yes”.)

The province of Ontario is soliciting comments on Provincial Planning Statement implementation, and boy, do we have thoughts...

Canadians: “We the north! I love hockey, skiing, and taking my kids sledding. Did you hear about a light dusting of snow shutting down some southern US city?” Canadians, when you suggest it’s possible to bike past September: “but what if I get… cold?”

Drivers:

At a recent delegation, I listened to the concerns of NIMBY neighbours worried that a 12 storey building would cause "privacy concerns", but a 6 storey building would be more appropriate. 1) How is floors 2-6 having a view of your house better than 2-12? 2) .... Curtains?...

The REV Saint-Denis is great too, but I think this protected bike intersection might be my new go-to recommendation for people visiting Montreal who want to see high cycling volumes in the North American context. (Rush hour at Bellechasse & Chistophe-Colomb)

This video is a long time coming. People always ask me: what makes Montreal so ambitious on urbanism? (At least for bikes and pedestrians.) I've been thinking through this and asking Montrealers, and in this video I want to cover *part* of the answer.

Lots of well-used Montreal bike lanes are just “paint on the road”. You can’t judge them just based on that, you have to consider traffic volumes, how wide the painted bike lanes are, etc. Further, many lower quality painted bike lanes are intended to be transitory, waiting for upgrades later.

This road is about 21 metres wide. 17% of it is for pedestrians, 17% for cyclists, and 66% for cars. No particular argument to make right now. I just think people should do calculations like this more often for roads in their city. (Google Maps, right click, “measure distance”.)

Found this video on YouTube of crashes that anyone against speed cameras should be forced to watch to get a reminder of the force and energy of a speeding vehicle and the destruction it inflicts. Trigger warning; crashed shown result in injuries/deaths, nothing graphic. youtu.be/3_M4BH8C6WA

Please, check on your friends and see if they too might be suffering from #CarBrain An ongoing thread... bsky.app/profile/dtkm...

Some fun Hamilton observations yesterday while I was driving: 1) Something positive: saw an older man with an oxygen tank using an electric scooter as a mobility device, showing that, yes, bicycle and mobility infrastructure is important to seniors and disabled folks. And two negatives...

GO Transit Niagara-bound trains will begin servicing the new Confederation [Centennial Parkway] GO Station on October 27. That's today's announcement from Premier Doug Ford. #yhmcc

Car culture thrives on all-or-nothing thinking. Dedicate some part of the road to bikes? “You’re basically banning cars.” Safer speeds? “Oh yeah let’s all travel 5 km/h.” It’s like asking a child to clean their room and they respond dramatically “so you’re kicking me out? to live on the street?”.

Here’s something people get wrong when they discuss whether Canada is different from the US. Often they go looking for things that make Canada unique. Bilingualism? Hockey? But so many of the differences are just the US being an outlier versus the entire rest of the developed world.

The post office doesn't need to turn a profit. The fire department doesn't need to turn a profit. The water filtration plant doesn't need to turn a profit. We receive common goods and services in exchange for taxation and citizenship, it's a crazy new idea called "government"

This is even disappointing from outside Montreal. Montreal has become a beacon of the cycling movement. Being a place to look to and go; "see North America can do cycling culture".

Limiting housing supply below demand makes a neighbourhood/city more exclusive. Who gets excluded? It’s not the people on top of the income spectrum. They can live where they want.

For a long time safe streets advocates and environmentalists have said that you can get away with nearly anything illegal as long as you do it with a car - now we have a government actively taking issue with the enforcement of laws we have specifically for drivers.

Just ridiculous. This government is looking to limit road redesigns that are best practice around the world for keeping people safe, and now looking to ban enforcement strategies aimed at drivers who can't watch their speed, which is posted clearly on the side of the road.

I wish we had a culture of driving that respected rules like speed limits. Instead, we have a culture where enforcing basic useful rules about how fast you can operate a multi-ton machine is considered “unfair” or a “cash grab”. Doug Ford to outlaw municipal speed cameras in Ontario.

When bike share has become such a part of the culture of your city that it gets referenced in posters advertising shows at bars.

Hamilton residents, advocates, politicians like @ward1wilson.bsky.social @ward2hamilton.bsky.social @nrindernann.bsky.social and @tammyhwang.bsky.social and staff should be reviewing information about how the cost and speed of the ION and the REM were kept reasonable.

I don't really get those that argue supply/demand doesn't exist for the housing market, and increasing supply of market housing won't bring prices down... Hamilton's condo market basically doesn't exist right now, and wow, look! Lower prices.

The most underappreciated issue in urbanism is the Anglosphere’s transit construction cost problem. It’s not just that we’re spending too much money on any particular project. It’s that we could be getting *much more transit* for the *same amount of money we’re currently spending*.

“The time [REM] went from ‘doesn’t exist’ to [revenue service] is mind blowing...” A masterpiece from @hudsonyuen.bsky.social featuring @chittimarco.bsky.social & @englishrail.bsky.social. So proud to have played a small part. MUST WATCH for planners who believe the status quo is inevitable

The most frightening thing is that car makers are permitted to put more and more horsepower under the right foot of a rapidly aging population.

Finally saying goodbye to these vacant eyesores. Hopefully with provincial help, & ignoring the Northend NIMBYs, we can get affordable housing, dense market & non-market housing & retail within 150 metres from a multi-billion dollar regional rail line and 1km to a multi-billion dollar LRT line.

The fun police. I will say I'm incredibly jealous that McMaster students have a proper homecoming party now. When I attended there was basically nothing going on.

It appears they weren't supposed to start demolition. Went by to see if I can get a view inside (I've never seen the inside with my own eyes)

I'll never forgive Hamilton for this. Just the most unfortunate sequence of events. Hamilton is filled with properties where the owners allow buildings to be neglected and collapse, on knowing the collapsed state is more profitable. Vacant commercial tax and lot now. Stop land speculating.

This is crazyyyy, and explains so much about things I've seen in the states. Additionally, this must save tons of money to the city, and is something I'm going to bring up regarding Canadian entitlement over property taxes and space in front of their house.

I brought this up to city staff in Hamilton, and they were like.... "Lol no". This is why Hamilton is being left in the dust. Our politicians and our staff have no vision. If they didn't read it in the "how to run a basic ass city" book, it can't be done.

I *love* this. A lot of cities concentrate housing density onto dirty, noisy, dangerous arterial roads. This motion in Vancouver would allow 6-storey apartments by default on local streets adjacent to parks or bike routes.

Not Just Downtown: Fighting To Expand The Cycling City

Lots of people smarter than me have talked about this, but for the layperson, there are two big reasons I don't see talked about why this is happening: 1) Financing 2) Industry See part 2&3 for an explanation...

Montreal outperforming Toronto, Vancouver with housing starts in 2025

In Ontario criminal vigilantism is acceptable, effective & can influence government policy. When Doug Ford gives his tacit approval of criminal vigilantism, indicating it can influence his government's public policy, it's a frightening moment for Ontario. My column on what we should think about.

I commonly hear people say that “rents never fall, at best they’ll stagnate, landlords would never accept less money than before”. Where does this come from? It’s clearly untrue. Under the right market conditions, prices can absolutely fall.

I literally can't understand how someone can argue supply/demand doesn't impact housing. Unless you're like 5 years old, you've lived through multiple instances of ownership/rental prices being impacted by supply & demand. See; rental prices in CBDs during COVID.

A school street pilot project between two schools in the Montreal borough of Outremont

People question whether building more housing can lower prices, but I think it’s useful to flip that around and ask: are you saying that you can block housing without pushing up prices? Is that plausible? Can I block the production of other goods or services with no effect on prices?

This is why the city should be regularly reviewing and analyzing policies to not require these kinds of proposals to come to a committee of adjustment meeting and just have been legal to build.

On your NIMBY Bingo card: - Five stories is too tall in a Major Transit Station Area on a major arterial road - More housing will decrease existing property values - More people means more ambulance responses - Significant privacy impacts Committee of Adjustment is underway. #yhmcc

"Should we put the new poles directly in the centre of the sidewalk in the new design, or like to the side?" "Fuck it, throw it directly in the way of people walking and using mobility devices"