Jedwin Mok
@jedwinmok
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Fellow @Metrolinx | Producer @fietsprofessor | Creative Director @uxforcities | fmr: Transport Data @cityoftoronto , @UofT CompSci
Toronto, Ontario
Joined September 2021
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How did European cities get their human-centric streets and public spaces? Why could they escape the car-dependent status quo, while North America seemingly can’t?
There's one EASY trick planners and engineers don't want you to know about: Street Experiments. 🧵 1/
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And if you can’t afford a car or can’t drive, it turns into a 58 minute city. Great work
The “15 minute city” is already a thing. It’s called living in the suburbs and owning a car. Most things are <15min just bc cars are fast.
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The average car occupancy in the US is 1.5.
A bus only needs 3 people on it to be more space efficient than a car.
No politics here, just facts and logic!
DESANTIS DEPOLITICIZES TRANSPORTATION
"Some activists want to make driving so miserable that people have to abandon their cars."
Leftist cities and counties will cut lanes for half-empty buses and exorbitant bike lanes.
"That's not going to happen in FL." -
@GovRonDeSantis
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“Neighborhood character”
One of my favorite aspects of Tokyo is how none of the buildings match. Each one is its own individual creation, built to its own height and expressing its own style.
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I've never been more convinced that NYC is the only place in the United States that meets every qualification to be considered a real city
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Crazy how there's almost no difference between parody and reality
After feedback from multiple local businesses that Metro construction may inconvenience them, we've completed a new design for the central Downtown station! Building 300 feet below ground ensures the least disruption while adding less than 15 minutes to each rider's travel time.
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Oh no! The street was pedestrianized.
Now there's no garbage or emergency services, all the stores are going out of business, and everyone's trapped in their 15-minute city bubble. It's a warzone!
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Ottawa built a rapid transit line for only $21M:
- Buy an old freight line
- Build passing tracks where strictly necessary
- Run frequent service with modern European DMUs
- Feed the line with frequent busses
This is the pinnacle of service-first planning; a model for NA.
Original OTrain Trillium Line opened 2001, 8km long. Cost: $21 million
Barrhaven OTrain Extension now planned, 10km long. Cost: $4.019 billion
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Omaha Streetcar:
- $64M/km
- slow, mixed traffic streetcar that adds zero additional transportation value
- 15-20 minute headways
Brescia Metro:
- $50M/km
- fully automated, tunneled/elevated light metro, true rapid transit fed by bus + regional trains
- 90s headways
Extortion.
the proposed omaha streetcar is one of the most egregious examples of a small, useless streetcar in a mid-sized US city.
it is *entirely* paralleled by the longer, existing bus rapid transit line less than 400 metres away
1/3
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High speed rail - airport integration in Europe is stunning. This is Frankfurt Airport, where there are frequent and fast connections direct to any city center in Germany, eliminating hundreds of domestic flights every day.
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North American cities:
Stop spending insane amounts of money on slow, low-utility trams in car-centric suburbia.
Instead build fast, through running, electrified regional rail, and feed it with buses.
Grassy tram tracks in the median of a stroad can't undo decades of sprawl :)
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I'm here in Montreal for the first day of a new integrated regional transit fare scheme, and it's easily the most underrated transportation initiative in all of North America: 1/
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The Canadian “frequent feeder bus + fast regional rail” model EFFORTLESSLY generates transit ridership in car-centric suburbs.
This is Brampton, an industrial suburb as pedestrian-hostile as it gets in North America - yet trains and busses are PACKED at 8:30pm.
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There’s an ongoing crisis of overpriced bus-replacement trams that are slower than the busses being replaced and no one is doing anything about it
what the hell is going on in Maryland. 2x the cost of second avenue subway for a glorified bus
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"Design a bus shelter that can be placed in an area constrained by sidewalk width"
Quito, London, Hamburg...
and Los Angeles.
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It's impossible to overstate how transformative REM is for the continent:
- By far the most modern metro in NA, on par with the newest systems abroad
- Built quickly and affordably, pivotal from NA planning ideology
- Catalyst for in-house transit expertise
📷
@georgeintraffic
Montréal's automated REM metro launches today for preview service from central station to the south shore.
REM becomes 3rd North American automated metro, after Vancouver SkyTrain & Honolulu Skyline.
Montréal already has 3rd-most-used metro on the continent after NYC & CDMX.
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After being in Munich for a week, I'm now a firm believer that regional rail is the next truly transformative transport mode for cities, even more so than the highway or metro: 1/
I’m pretty convinced that high(er) speed regional rail could be the first really transformational new urban transport tech since the expressway. It’s fast enough to allow people to move across the biggest mega cities fast, and much higher capacity than expressway.
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Transit infrastructure like this should never be built unless we're running proper service. YRT spent $50 MILLION on this massive bus terminal only to house one rapid transit line with awful 20+ minute headways. Connecting busses are hourly or worse, with untimed transfers. 1/
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"A majority of residents want bike lanes removed"
The majority of residents:
A group called “Keep Toronto Moving” wants to remove bike lanes on Bloor, Danforth, University and other routes. They’re out this morning with a poll done by Navigator (N=501, online) claiming a majority want bike lanes off major streets.
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I’m constantly told how legacy metros in NA (NYC, Toronto, etc.) can’t be automated because they’re “too old.”
Paris M4:
- Opened in 1908, over a CENTURY old
- Automated without disrupting ops
- Now runs world-class service: reliable 2 minute headways, PSDs, and high capacity
Ile-de-France : la ligne 4 du métro de Paris est désormais 100% automatique. Ce 19 janvier 2024, son automatisation est inaugurée par
@JeanCASTEX
, président de la RATP,
@vpecresse
, présidente (LR) de la région
@iledefrance
et
@ChristopheBechu
, ministre de la Transition écologique
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Less than 4 years ago, the REV network didn't exist.
Now, Montreal's express cycle network is so popular that the city will create 200+ km of dedicated cycle tracks in the next 5 years.
Build it and they will come!
Montréal’s Saint-Denis Réseau Express Vélo is packed these days. Its success comes from:
- wide, protected bike lanes
- cycling priority signals
- a widespread and affordable bike share network
- medium density housing and a diversity of destinations easily accessible by bike
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The wealthy, old homeowners who constantly lament about how kids are “stuck inside” are the very same people who oppose traffic calming measures - in this case, a NEIGHBORHOOD PARK in Mississauga.
The North American planning process is deeply, deeply broken.
From claps 👏 to BOOS 🤬 in less than 10 seconds…
Our own
@georgeintraffic
stands up to motorists in favour of a street experiment in Mississauga.
How can older residents who claim to support safety and freedom for children oppose traffic calming measures around a public park?
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I've been falling down the rabbit hole of failed Nigerian metro projects built with Chinese expertise and it's incredibly fascinating
What's up with the Nigerian practice of towing EMUs with diesel locomotives on metro projects?
A 🧵
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Rome:
building a SECOND metro line FEET away from the Colosseum under an existing cut-and-cover metro
San Jose:
Spending 10x more to shove a suburban subway in an underground skyscraper to coddle the feelings of some small business owners
Left: Suburban Phoenix, where we paid extra for a wireless tram so as not to impact the historic view.
Right: The Roman Colosseum.
📷 Tempe:
@christofspieler
, Rome: unknown
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Incredible that the Big Dig follows EXACTLY the alignment necessary to connect North and South stations, which would've enabled a world class regional rail system.
Boston didn't end up putting tracks in the tunnel which would've moved 30+ lanes worth of highway traffic
I WILL NOT STOP SHOUTING THIS AT THE TOP OF MY LUNGS
TRUE BIG DIG MITIGATION SHOULD'VE BEEN A FULLY INTEGRATED, THRU-RUNNING ELECTRIC REGIONAL RAIL
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San Jose, CA wants to build a
- 10km subway at the earth's mantle
- through low density, car-centric suburbia
- duplicating existing rail at low frequencies
... for $12 BILLION
It will be the single most expensive rail transit project in the WORLD.
SOMEONE DO SOMETHING!
has vta considered not building an elevated guideway inside a giant subway tunnel that almost touches the earth's core, with deep stations that look like underground skyscrapers?
it might, I don't know, reduce the cost of this extension. but what do i know, im no expert
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Toronto, this could be every night, not just once a year.
Safe streets, vibrant places, and a flourishing night economy.
Just take away the cars.
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I'm a broken record on this, but:
Pedestrian and cycle friendly streets are incredible for small business - parking and car traffic isn't. Small businesses need walk up traffic to drive sales, and pleasant pedestrianized environments do just that!
The retail vacancy rate on Montreal’s Mont-Royal Avenue dropped from 14.5% before pedestrianization (2018) to 5.6% after pedestrianization (2023).
📍 Montreal 🇨🇦
@Val_Plante
@AvenueMontRoyal
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IBX is blessed with a pre-existing rail corridor, which could accommodate world-class metro or regional rail service.
Instead, NYC is TRASHING the reliability, speed, and capacity of its premiere crosstown line with a streetcar because they’re too cheap to tunnel 2/3 of a mile…
“Unlike a subway, a light rail can travel at the street level, and the MTA plans to briefly divert the right-of-way onto Metropolitan Avenue and 69th Street in Middle Village for about 2/3 of a mile before returning to the pre-existing tracks.”
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The more I ride Skytrain, the more enraged I am that Toronto abandoned the Scarborough RT.
We could’ve had a crosstown metro that was:
- fast, frequent, and reliable
- cheap to operate and expand
Instead, we’re getting an unnecessarily deep subway and an overpriced streetcar.
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The subway was PACKED at 10PM on a weekday, with trains every 4-5 min.
Upcoming
@TTChelps
service cuts to 10 min off-peak will be an unmitigated DISASTER for Toronto's economy.
We will lose FAR more revenue from lost ridership than the paltry $61M required to retain service.
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Historic European city centers are consistently used as a trope against high density development - the “human scale” alternative.
Reality is that these cities have heavily densified the peripheries to compensate.
The ones that haven't are in the deepest housing crisis.
It's kind of odd how textbook high modernist towers in the park became the face of Vienna's social housing.
Like, this is a high-rise high-ish-density suburb. Which is fine because it's a European one served by rail, but it's not like Jane Jacobs capital-U Urbanism, you know?
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Yglesias is absolutely correct:
It is IMPOSSIBLE to grasp the fundamentals of how to improve US transit without visiting a major Canadian city.
Everyone’s instinct is to suggest an Asian or European city with awesome urbanism but my vote is Calgary and Ottawa both of which have higher transit mode than any non-NYC American city.
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Buying the world’s third largest TBM is not a flex.
It’s an expensive sign of incompetence and lacking institutional expertise.
VTA is excited to announce that the Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM) for the BSVII Project has been purchased! The TBM will be the third largest in the world! Learn more about how we’ve determined the size of the TBM and the next steps in our latest blog:
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GO Expansion will be BY FAR the single most transformative city building initiative in North America.
The space-time compression that Paris, the Netherlands, and Tokyo experienced in the 1970s created DECADES of growth and prosperity.
And now it’s happening in Toronto.
Great news! We’ve accepted ONxpress’ proposal for the operations & maintenance of the GO network beginning Jan. 1, 2025, for the next 20+ years 🎉
A new
#GOExpansion
operator will mean more trains, less waiting & faster, more frequent service! Learn more:
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It’s obvious that mode choice studies in North America are purely exercises in pseudoscience because instead of carefully analyzing their technical characteristics we give each one…
A SMILEY FACE
There's a sort of analysis theatre when it comes to evaluating transportation projects, isn't there?
Long documents with colourful scorecards, designed to conclude that you need light rail along a widened stroad, or infrequent diesel-hauled trains along the CSNF main line
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Just to drive the point home, Seattle is building a TRAM to cover INTERCITY RAIL distances. Awful mode choice and planning.
it seriously baffles me the sheer size we are building in seattle for our train system
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It's infuriating to watch Vancouver and Montreal build fast, high capacity automated metros - at a FRACTION of the cost of Toronto's LRTs.
Instead of expansion, Toronto closed the Scarborough RT after a decade of deliberate neglect...
... in favor of glorified streetcars.
The worst part about the Eglinton Crosstown is that once it opens we will realize it shouldn’t have been LRT
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Bro has clearly not read Transport for Suburbia:
Transit in a car-centric suburban context is a solved problem.
Combine the fast regional rail of Melbourne with the local feeder bus network of Toronto, and you've got a system that is faster & more efficient than driving.
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Three planning failures that completely wasted expensive high capacity rail infrastructure.
All three ended up providing slower, less reliable service at higher cost 😑
to conclude: get more out of your rail capital investments by building to support high-capcity rapid transit service, and don't forget that the bus exists. treat at-grade LRT like a main line. more lines on the rail map ≠ better transit.
i am a broken record
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I was told that elevated rail would disfigure our neighborhoods and cause mass poverty.
Guess Vancouver should’ve spent 10x the tax dollars to bury this suburban metro extension deep underground
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Mode choice is crucial:
Toronto Eglinton Crosstown LRT:
- Capacity 15,000 pphpd
- Requires massive three unit trams
- Unreliable at grade ops
- $684M/km
Vancouver Broadway Subway:
- Capacity 25,000 pphpd
- Small, four car trains
- Fully automated + grade separated
- $500M/km
Toronto could learn a lot from Vancouver who builds its subways for half the price in more or less half the time. The first picture is the Eglinton crosstown. The second is the Broadway subway in Vancouver. The Eglinton Station appears roughly twice as deep.
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Toronto and Montreal will be the first cities to introduce world-class metro systems to North America, on par with Europe and Asia:
Fully Automated, Platform Doors, Ultra frequent(90s headway), LCD wayfinding, etc.
Truly a golden age for transit expansion in Canada!
So! Hitachi will provide the trains for Toronto's newest subway line! Super interesting!
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Learn from Regional Connector: DON'T plan network flaws that make reliable operations under high service levels difficult.
Most obvious is the flat junction at the new East portal of the downtown trunk, causing conflicts between A(Azusa) and E(Santa Monica) Line trains. 1/🧵
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Frequent automated light metro from the airport to the Asian mall in 15 minutes!
What is this Singapore??
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It’s time to demand that cars are banned off Yonge street during subway closures.
Traffic backups are holding up tens of THOUSANDS of riders every hour, spilling onto the sidewalk, just to convenience a few drivers who will be stuck in traffic anyway!
An absolute disgrace!
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There’s something truly baffling about America’s obsession with building massive station boxes.
Like more than 75% of space in the SAS and BartSV station boxes are unusable by riders.
What are they building in there? A sex dungeon? Affordable housing units?
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Transit wayfinding and UX in German speaking countries is incredible.
- Unified modal icons & service designations
- Widespread digital screens showing connections and disruptions (incl. retrofitting older vehicles)
- Standardized wayfinding nationwide
We have lots to learn!
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Helsinki Ring Rail isn’t talked about enough.
It’s a great case study of how fast & frequent regional rail with frequent bus connections can transform car-centric suburban geographies.
Built for cheap, reusing the existing rail network, it’s a masterclass in suburban planning.
I bloody love the
#Helsinki
airport train, is it the best there is? 🤔 I got from Plane door to Train seat in only 12 mins, there's up to 6 trains per hour, and it's just €4 to the city centre... Amazing! 🇫🇮
#Finland
#NonstopEurotrip
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Incredible to see
@GOtransit
Kitchener trains packed with food courier bikes.
With the rapid expansion of Toronto’s cycling network and GO RER bringing world-class regional rail to the region, we’re on the brink of a massive modal shift.
Next step: upzone and deregulate zoning!
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There's no excuse for bad transfers when spending $2 BILLION.
When Central Subway opens, riders to/from downtown will have to wait twice at badly timed signals, backtracking across dangerous high speed roads to transfer. This is at one of the BUSIEST rail stations in the city.
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Meanwhile, the federal NDP is announcing a subsidy for wealthy homeowners.
Canada's left leaning parties are letting Conservatives outflank them from the left on housing policy and rhetoric.
Legalizing the construction of new homes wins elections during a housing crisis.
Want more homes for students & seniors?
Require cities approve massive apartments next to all federally-funded transit stations.
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GO Transit’s transformation is revolutionary among North American cities - creating an unmatched level of service and cross city connectivity.
I can almost guarantee that in the next 10 years, GO will eclipse the NYC systems and achieve the highest ridership on the continent.
10 busiest commuter rail systems in the US/canada by latest data:
1. Long Island Railroad
2. Metro North Railroad
3. NJT
4. GO Transit
5. Metra
6. MBTA
7. SEPTA
8. RTD
9. Caltrain
10. Metrolink
nyc dominates, toronto is growing at the highest rate; denver, LA & SF are stagnant
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The local transit -> cycling mode shift is directly seen in places where:
- transit service is inadequate/deteriorating
- the cycling network is extensive/growing
Toronto & Montreal are going the way of a 1980s Dutch city - horrible inner-city transit losing riders to cycling.
I think a big reason cycling has gained such a foothold in Montreal is that the local transit is such a mess.
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This tiny metro moves more people than Portland’s ENTIRE rail network.
- Canada Line: 94,000 pax/day
- Portland MAX: 74,000 pax/day
It’s faster, more reliable, and costs HALF to build.
- Canada Line: $75 M/km
- MAX Orange: $135 M/km
Clearly Vancouver made the wrong choice…
As I study this Portland Oregon train/tram map I can't help but think we may have made a terrible mistake in Vancouver building underground subways and SkyTrain. Hopefully we will build light rail to UBC and elsewhere throughout the region.
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So much of what makes great cities is a constant re-imagining of public space.
Tonight in Toronto, we don't have to imagine.
Every night. Every day. Pedestrianize Yonge Street.
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Crazy that people think we don't need shoulder stations (like Spadina) serving ALL GO lines to relieve Union Station.
Union is already at capacity, and by 2030, GO service will increase to more than 5X current levels.
We're getting world-class regional rail, let's act like it!
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Anyone advocating for “human-scaled midrise” urbanism in opposition to high-rise construction also needs to accept widespread densification within SFH residential zones, not just on main streets.
Otherwise, it’s opposition that perpetuates gentrification and the housing crisis.
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In Canada’s largest city, drivers are coddled & subsidized over everyone else.
Space on Yonge street is 90% given to cars, despite having some of the busiest intersections and metro lines on the continent.
We ACTIVELY sabotage our economy every day by not pedestrianizing Yonge.
all of us see it with our own eyes as we walk up and down overcrowded, cramped sidewalks on yonge street, but there's data to back it up: yonge street sees *multiple times* as many people walking than cars.
yet, despite so little car traffic, yonge street looks like this:
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THIS is world class cycling infrastructure: curb raised, parking protected cycle paths, wide enough to ride side-by-side with a friend.
Incredible work from
@TO_Cycling_Ped
!
College street, Toronto. 2024 <- 2020.
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Myth
#1
: “Euro cities are just old”
Many Euro cities were destroyed in WW2. ‘Old’ city centers are often rebuilds of historic city plans, as was in the case of Munich.
Other cities, like Rotterdam, were damaged so badly they were completely rebuilt from scratch. 3/
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This all goes back to the "lines on a map" derangement syndrome seen too often in US planning, instead of examining networks, ridership, and service.
Common comparison is Toronto vs Chicago: similar pop but JUST LINE 1 of the TTC carries more riders/day than the ENTIRE Chicago L
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@TheMaymar
Yeah. In NA, there's an intense demand to live in walkable, urban places, and an extreme lack of supply.
All while homeowners in those places continually block housing construction, driving up prices.
We desperately need to legalize housing everywhere
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Toronto’s traffic congestion is already ridiculous. What we need is to cancel the Gardiner rebuild and continue investing in GO RER (an actual solution to traffic) - not increase traffic volume via induced demand and waste the most valuable real estate in Canada on private cars.
Toronto's traffic congestion is already ridiculous. What we need is to finish the Gardiner rebuild - not have another dozen rounds of consultation, debate, and delay.
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There's a unique North American obsession with conducting public-facing alternatives analysis.
Asking grandma what she thinks the mode choice and alignment should be on our latest multi-billion dollar transit investment is almost always a bad idea.
Really not a good look for the planning apparatus when SUSPENDED MONORAIL is an option actually studied.
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The next transport revolution is already here - and it’s not hyperloop or flying cars.
160-180 km/h cross-city regional rail has the potential to turn sprawling megacities into compact, accessible ones.
With GTX, Seoul’s periphery will feel closer to the city - and more urban.
Hot on the heels of GTX-C, GTX-B started construction yesterday. 22.9 km will reuse the existing Gyeongchun Line, the central section and suburban extension into Incheon, all underground, will be 60km long. Costs 8.2 billion 2022 PPP Adj INT$ or 100 million INT$/km to build....
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Often, “good urbanism” in European cities is attributed to historical, cultural, or geographic factors - things out of our control. This assumption is wrong: the built form of a city is a DIRECT result of conscious decisions made by people.
So first, let’s dispel some myths: 2/
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$14.8 BILLION for 15.9 kilometers of light rail. That’s $930 Million/km, nearing some of the most expensive subway projects on planet Earth.
If this continent EVER wants to get serious about transit expansion, we must get costs down and project delivery more efficient.
April 2024 update on financing LA Metro K Line Northern Extension. New $14.8b estimate for hybrid option, built in 3 phases from 2029-2046. WeHo could fund $645m with 45-year EIFD, $2.2b with 75 years. Up to $22b could be raised if other agencies joined.
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Toronto needs a downtown car light/car free zone.
Alongside congestion pricing, this would effectively turn all arterials into local access roads for cars, instantly making surface transit faster and more reliable.
King St pilot shows us what is possible!
@shawnmicallef
This morning I showed up to the 506 at 9am and it said 8 minutes until the next streetcar which then took well over 20 minutes and this is how far they were spaced during rush hour. How is that helpful or effective?
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@Lib_Development
Cologne is on HSL Zuid. Same with Paris - Strasbourg, mostly on the LGV. These routes are incredibly popular and very competitive with flights on travel time.
You could probably make that argument for trips within Germany, but HSR in France dominates the intercity market.
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The result? 51%-49% voted in favor - a decision so pivotal that Groningen later became the nation’s leader in sustainable urban mobility.
The cycling revolution in the Netherlands could’ve never happened - if just 1% of people voted differently. 9/
25 jaar geleden stemde 51% van de inwoners
#gemeentegroningen
in een
#Referendum
voor een autovrij
#Noorderplantsoen
. De
@univgroningen
onderzoekt dit referendum. Hoe kijken de inwoners er nu tegenaan? Vul daarvoor de korte
#enqu
ête in via .
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Toronto's world-class suburban bus service completely disproves the dominant theory that high density urban forms are required for transit to succeed. Build an attractive service and people WILL come. Density is good, but not required.11/
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San Jose: you aren't special.
Saying "low costs aren't possible" is regressive and ignorant.
No local context justifies building the world's most expensive subway per mile through a glorified suburb - only bad planning and incompetence.
I know. I lived there for 18 years.
@steamyporkbuns
You’re calling it a bad take on the principle that you believe infrastructure can be done cheaply in the US today when it cannot.
@monicamallon
is not wrong on the merits here. Stop dunking when all you have to work with are you own heuristics, but no local context.
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I find it pretty abhorrent to coddle the aesthetic desires of wealthy homeowners during a shelter crisis.
The cheapest detached home for sale in the area costs $1.5 MILLION!
A drastically larger majority of people can afford to rent a condo, no matter how "luxury."
YIMBYs, please learn how to read a room.
There's a shelter crisis - the majority of us cannot afford the existing supply of condos - it is fair for communities to be afraid and grieving.
Change is difficult - it doesn't have to be callous
#TOpoli
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Time to demolish those single family homes and get to building 🏗️🏗️🏗️
Suburban Toronto better look like Tokyo or Hong Kong within my lifetime 😎
everyone is waffling about "where is the missing middle" blah blah. so unambitious.
what if we removed the single-detached homes and built even more 50-storey towers? what if we just had towers everywhere?
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Myth
#2
: “They were built before the car”
1950s planners sought the ‘modernity’ of American postwar development - shoving cars into dense cities wherever possible. Public plazas turned into parking (Top: Gouda) and streets were repurposed for car movement (Bottom: Munich). 4/
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Los Angeles is now building a SUBURBAN TRAM line at over THREE TIMES the cost/mi of Crossrail, an infamously expensive fast regional rail line tunneled under one of the busiest cities on the planet.
It also has less projected riders/day than many local bus routes.
Extortion.
LA Metro staff estimate the Eastside Gold Line would cost $10.1 billion to go to Whittier, and recommend the 4.6 mile option that ends at Greenwood, estimated $7.4 billion cost.
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“Bike parking” vs car parking at UofT’s $15M+ parkade.
This is one of the most transit/bike accessible campuses ON THE CONTINENT.
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Toronto's first major elevated rail project in decades is built for incredibly heavy bilevel trains - yet we insist on expensive deep bore tunnels for subways and slow surface running LRT.
Elevated alignments provide grade separations that can be built quickly and affordably!
Huge day for this amazing project. First test trains over the viaduct. A full, 12 car set, powered by an MP40 & MP54.
It's funny to have watched this every day for the last three years & finally see the end result of all that labour. Congratulations to the whole project team!
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Cityplace, Toronto. One of the largest master planned communities in North America. Endless rows of tower blocks in real life shook me.
Was told they’re part of the reason young people don’t get married and have children.
Do you remember recess on a sunny spring day? Children playing on a soccer field in the centre of a big city. The new school in
@cityplacera
has added a heart to the neighbourhood that is magical ❤️ ☀️⚽️
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An incredible day for Toronto!
Protectionism of the low-rise, car centric yellowbelt will finally end, with densification legal citywide.
We're taking the first step towards housing affordability - removing segregationist regulations that have perpetuated the housing crisis!
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Traffic lights and stop signs are unnecessary in urban contexts!
In Rotterdam, users of all modes interact at control-free intersections, yielding ROW.
Given good street design that emphasizes visibility and slow speeds - intersections are safer, more efficient, and intuitive.
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Car-centric policy eventually sparked “Stop de Kindermoord” - literally “stop child murder” - a massive protest movement against traffic violence (and heavily influenced NL “sustainable safety” traffic policies). Similar demonstrations were held in other cities as a reaction. 7/
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Mark my words - Eglinton will be an overcapacity, unreliable disaster starting day ONE.
We spent BILLIONS tunnelling through midtown, only to bottleneck with long dwells + poor passenger flow of the LRVs, insanely low stop spacing, and lack of TSP - it’s a glorified streetcar.
Making the Eglinton crosstown a low floor LRT instead of a subway might be one of the worst mistakes in Toronto's transit planning
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Why?
There are a multitude of reasons, but the basics:
1. Service: TTC Subway NEVER falls below 5 min scheduled headways. Peak hours there's a train every 2.5 min or better. In Chicago it's normal to wait 15-20 min for a train, because of interlining.
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Transit in a region should be viewed as a comprehensive network, just like we see our roads. You don't pay extra to drive on arterial roads compared to a residential street. 5/
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@yangji_yankee
There are cities much smaller than New York around the world that I would consider a "real city," and Montreal is one of them for sure
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Today, the VAST majority of residents would argue that re-opening the park to traffic would be pure insanity - It has become one of the most popular public spaces and cycling links.
Groningen still stands as one of the largest indictments of public participation in planning. 10/
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Eglinton East LRT is a $4.4B, 18km ($244M/km) surface tramway that doesn't fundamentally change anything for transit riders.
Calling it "rapid transit" is laughable:
- 40+ min travel time to UTSC, SLOWER than the existing RapidTO Bus corridor
- 2600 pphpd, similar capacity
1/
City recently dropped a new website for the Eglinton East LRT (dubbed Line 7). Emphasizing connecting Scarborough through public realm & rapid transit.
LRT will be separate from Line 5 for cost-saving, corridor-specific features.
10% design; not funded.
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Yes. Kids used to play in the street. Not necessarily all due to auto industry lobbying, but the establishment of designated "playgrounds" was in direct response to the new imagination of the 1930s that the only purpose of street space was to move cars.
Excuse me, playgrounds are now part of the Big Auto conspiracy?
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Woke is when you live in the most urbanized US city and use common sense to choose the fastest, most convenient mode of transport.
Broke is when you choose to be massively subsidized by everyone else while you drive
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Ontario Line + GO RER is the single MOST transformative city building project in North America.
Toronto's geography will fundamentally change:
- greenbelt to city, 30 mins.
- crosstown suburb to suburb, under 1 hour.
It MUST be aggressively advanced without delay.
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The pedestrian environment is surprisingly lacking. The terminal is adjacent to a hospital and community center, but first you have to illegally cross the 4 lane road and parking lot.
They spent money on the wood finishes but couldn't buy some white paint for a crosswalk? 3/
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