I've driven both long-nose and cab-over trucks, and the experience is night and day. Much more visibility, quicker stop times, better turn radius. Much safer having flat-nose trucks in urban centers.

Great post on how our unsafe trucks (they’d never be allowed in Europe) kill so many pedestrians, and how our governments and companies do almost nothing about it despite endless safety theatre. open.substack.com/pub/lloydalt...

I have to say, the REM is so fantastic, it's going to make the Eglinton Crosstown feel even more like a let down. Ironically, the Eglinton stations seem a lot more impressive, but the REM is just so fast, frequent and high capacity by comparison. I really hope CDPQ does more . . .

This healthcare news out of Alberta is absolutely wild

Toronto's planning culture is so broken. Every argument here is backwards. www.thestar.com/news/gta/law...

Fantastic piece, and a conversation we should have more often. House are not "better" than condos.

Beyond a certain level of traffic, you should dedicate the entire street to transit, dead-end half of the crossing streets, build platforms capable of having 2-3 buses stop simultaneously and/or stagger them. Fundamentally, there is no way to do effective TSP in through gridded street layouts

Maybe @gspeng.bsky.social knows, but what is causing the poor air quality in Toronto today?

Hannah Ritchie's writings on the data behind climate change and the energy transition are fantastic, this recent post about a frequently cited IEA "Current Policy Scenario" being trumpeted as "oil demand is going to keep going up!" feels particularly insightful. open.substack.com/pub/hannahri...

A City Like Victoria should really be looking at building a higher order transit system with tech like this: www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnmV...

One of the biggest problems we have in the public transit space is that people who should be leading conversations often say things which are just completely untrue. I talk about it in today’s article: open.substack.com/pub/nextmetr...

I’m doing my weekly trawling of the blogs and it is amazing watching disproportionately older people crush young people and their ability to have families under high housing costs - often through the vector of “nuisance” “I don’t want more shadows on my porch!” brandondonnelly.com/the-causal-e...

This is an absolutely fantastic piece and I wish I didn’t live in a province that was trying to create exactly this type of environment. Imagine the social harms of springing on the gambling addiction of young men. open.substack.com/pub/derektho...

Not for nothing, but now that Metrolinx has sadly sent the Europeans home... I'd like a journalist, maybe for some reason one covering the Union electrification height clearance, to compare standard electrification vertical clearance to GO network air rights heights sold off. You will find something

Remember, the REM is likely going to BOOST demand on the rest of the network, so the business case for these other lines is even stronger. As it is, I took the bus along the Pink Line corridor in Montreal Nord and the crowding was unbearable.

Wild that Toronto, which is Canada's largest city and has Canada's first subway system, now has the smallest metro system in Canada by quite a margin. I don't think it is the busiest either.

This is hilarious all around. It seems Toronto’s regional transit agency may have not realized it needed to keep the rights to the space above its tracks so it could actually electrify them. Perhaps why we’ve been hearing so much about battery trains…?

I wrote a long article about my personal trajectory and the path I’m on: open.substack.com/pub/cinqpers...

With the REM building wrapping up, and the Blue line well underway Montreal should be planning the following: Orange Line Extension Mascouche Line Upgrade Pink Line (Likely with Similar Specs to Ontario Line) Blue Line West Extension Centre City / Plateau Trams

Most of the REM Metro system in Montreal is now open, and Oh The Urbanity has a fantastic video (a real step up in production value) on it, check it out here! youtu.be/4G1oeIAfxDU?...

It’s really hard to describe how exciting the REM is for the future of Canadian transit. We are so close to a revolution in personal mobility.

The biggest chunk of the REM in Montreal has just opened, and I’ve been reflecting not only on what it means for Montreal, but for Canada as a whole. Read my latest article now: open.substack.com/pub/nextmetr...

There are a lot of real scandals and bad practices around infrastructure projects in this country. How do we get journalists look at those instead of this non-news?

How do I explain to laypeople that expropriating 0.9 sqm is not really something worth a news but it's a pretty common thing for projects that insists on the public right-of-way? www.tvanouvelles.ca/2025/11/14/t...

It makes me sad that an instructor for several major Canadian universities would assert something so verifiably false. People ask why we build weird, bad projects, well part of it is people learn a version of the world that isn't real.

That’s what all the cities in the world do! Important, global cities such as: - French example #1 - French example #2 - French example #3

Ah Montreal, never change

Carney calls is a light metro, yay!

Anyone following me who works at EQ Bank?

While a lot of their policies are back asswards it should probably concern the NDP that the provincial party described as not being like them is one of the ones that actually gets elected fairly consistently

What’s most amazing about the speed camera discourse Is that all of the people who typically talk about personal responsibility and how our society has given up on it suddenly think that should go out the window once someone actually has the ability to harm others quite easily in their hands

I shouldn’t read the comments, but it’s good to know that we have a government for the (sane) people! Who cares if a six-year-old gets driven over by a speeding motorist, people have places to go and donuts to eat!

The government of Ontario is choosing complaining drivers (including government ministers) over the safety of pedestrians and specifically children, not surprising but still disappointing that these are the leaders we’re left with. Read my latest article: open.substack.com/pub/nextmetr...

Good reporting of course, and sad that telling the truth to the public still isn't just standard operating procedure, and yet . . .

Internal documents obtained by the NDP reveal Metrolinx covered up serious problems tunnelling under Highway 401 for the Scarborough Subway Extension, forcing highway lane closures & months of repairs that were not disclosed to the public globalnews.ca/news/1152183... #onpoli

I was recently in a car driving around Toronto and something felt totally off, nobody was trying to aggressively pass me, and everyone was . . . Driving the speed limit? So curious why that is, obviously not the omnipresent speed cameras of course!

I wrote a long post about why we should stop subsidizing car factories and start subsidizing open technologies (less). Read it now: open.substack.com/pub/cinqpers...

Does anyone following me work in video at CBC?

This is exactly what we don't need in transit advocacy. "being able to see the trains come and go is cooler visually" The Quebec coroner literally recommended doors in Montreal because so many people are killed on the metro.

This is random but, the Henson razor is great. A high quality safety razor that means I'm not sending my money to the ol consumer good megaconglomerate, there is no plastic, and it's made in Canada!

It's a real indictment of Vancouver, Ottawa, Montreal and Toronto that none of them have retrofitted a single platform screen door decades after it started happening in Asia. Its the kind of thing that honestly makes Canada feel like a less developed country.

Its remarkable the way Albertan cities took their fairly good public transit systems from around 2010, and has basically wasted them. Its also amazing the lack of progress beyond in rail. It's honestly a major reason I wouldn't move to Edmonton or Calgary.

Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow on the City’s Neighbourhood Retail Initiative. www.linkedin.com/posts/mayor-...

A lot of people have asked me to collaborate on videos over the years, but I don't generally do that type of project. One of the best creators I know Paige Saunders (of CBC fame) on the other hand is starting to just that. Send me a message for more info! youtu.be/zqaIJc39ExI?...

This map is remarkably bad

I really would love the NDP to go through this transition and become a big tent party for progressives.

My new post in Ottawa suggests how to improve and develop the O-Train network. I'd be curious to see a map of what the full buildout would look like if anyone wants to take that on! open.substack.com/pub/nextmetr...

I have a mini plan for the future of the O-Train network and its very satisfying. Includes: -Rail from airport to downtown -L2 Electrification -Trans Ottawa River Rail -Speed Improvements -Screen Doors and Automation -0 New tunnels

Ahhh Mt Dennis also on map

Some interesting reading material