Canadian Transit Thread II

[rdaner]

Just a graph to show densities of Aus v Can cities, another important difference.

https://chartingtransport.com/2015/1...ropean-cities/

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by rdaner

Just a graph to show densities of Aus v Can cities, another important difference.

https://chartingtransport.com/2015/1...ropean-cities/

Also interesting to see the difference between the UK (outside of London) and other parts of western Europe. I remember at one point there was someone on here arguing that Canada is more like Europe in terms of transit and auto-centrism compared to the US. They cited the similar rates of transit usage between Canada and the UK's second tier cities. But that falsely assumes that the UK is representative of Europe when clearly that isn't the case judging by the difference in density. IIRC they also argued that medium density leads to the highest transit usage since high density places are too walkable to need much transit. Clearly that isn't true either given the correlation between density and rates of transit usage.

[foolworm]

Originally Posted by savevp

These comparisons are such a waste of time but as you've asked...

Similar rates of transit usage (slightly higher in Canada generally).
Similar rates of transit expansion. Massive light rail and regional rail growth in all major cities in Canada and Australia.
Similar levels of provincial/state level involvement in transit planning and funding , rather than almost-entirely local control in the US.

Similar methods and levels of taxation to fund infrastructure at the provincial/state level.

Similar urban layouts - strong cores surrounded by desirable neighbourhoods. Very limited 'inner city' decay and suburban flight like you see in the US. And yes Australian/NZ cities generally do use a grid; Sydney, Brisbane, and Auckland less rigidly due to topography. Like Halifax for instance.

I could make just as many points demonstrating why American cities function entirely differently but there are too many obvious reasons to anyone who's spent time there.

Look at a ridership graph and you'll see plenty of evidence to show who our global peer cities are.

I just want to note that the Provincial involvement and funding situation is VERY different in Canada compared to Australia. In Canada transit construction and operations tends to be handled at the municipal level, and the municipality is expected to shoulder a significant portion of the costs. This is not the case in Australia, the municipalities in general are tiny and everything is top-down controlled at the State level. The US on the other works mostly at the County level with dedicated Federal programmes and guidelines for funding, something which doesn't always exist in Canada.

This burden on municipalities has historically stymied development of urban rail transit.

[1overcosc]

Kingston is working on an agreement with neighbouring counties to establish regional rural transit. The current proposal is for all day bus routes 7 days a week (30 min frequency at peak, every hour off peak) connecting Kingston to Verona, Sydenham, Harrowsmith, Odessa, Bath, and Gananoque.

[Coldrsx]

Nice video on the SELRT and impressive aerials.
• Video Link

[zoomer]

Nice quality video. I love how YouTube allows passionate people to reach a broader audience on a niche topic. Often their level of understanding and expertise is higher than anything else you’ll see shared publicly, especially by traditional media. Also fair to say that a lot of people would absolutely dread being stuck talking to these amateur passion geeks at a party! “Let me tell you about the track gauge now!”

Having said that, and great drone shots if he did that himself - the video left me a bit depressed around transit challenges in Edmonton and Canada.

Speaking of being depressed, Not Just Bikes video released today absolutely shreds Montreal in an increasingly merciless way. Don’t be fooled by the title and despite noting Montreal’s efforts to improve transit infrastructure and urbanism and how it’s doing that better than most of Canada, halfway through the video it becomes vicious. “Now I haven’t been to Calgary for a while, but I can easily see this being the worst downtown of any major city in Canada”. You can hear the rage/disgust in his voice as he pretty much vows to never do another video on a North American city. Ah, if only we could all live in Utopian Europe.

• Video Link

And on topic, sort of not.. and perhaps this should be under the Transit Oriented Development thread is another excellent quality video with a rather strange view of increasing housing affordability in Dublin. I dunno if creating new small scale neighbourhoods on greenfield sites far from the city is going to help all that much either.

The first video introduces the concept, the second an tangible concept:

• Video Link

• Video Link

Lastly, their plans around ‘street voting’ for addressing increased inner city density are also original if not realistic:

• Video Link

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by zoomer

Nice quality video. I love how YouTube allows passionate people to reach a broader audience on a niche topic. Often their level of understanding and expertise is higher than anything else you’ll see shared publicly, especially by traditional media. Also fair to say that a lot of people would absolutely dread being stuck talking to these amateur passion geeks at a party! “Let me tell you about the track gauge now!”

Having said that, and great drone shots if he did that himself - the video left me a bit depressed around transit challenges in Edmonton and Canada.

Speaking of being depressed, Not Just Bikes video released today absolutely shreds Montreal in an increasingly merciless way. Don’t be fooled by the title and despite noting Montreal’s efforts to improve transit infrastructure and urbanism and how it’s doing that better than most of Canada, halfway through the video it becomes vicious. “Now I haven’t been to Calgary for a while, but I can easily see this being the worst downtown of any major city in Canada”. You can hear the rage/disgust in his voice as he pretty much vows to never do another video on a North American city. Ah, if only we could all live in Utopian Europe.

• Video Link

Great video. The very happy pro-urbanist videos only ever show a handful of bikes lanes and their summer pedestrianised streets. Nobody ever talks about how many highways they have or how poor the regional rail service and local bus service is. Glad to see he called out all the flaws that most urbanists love to pretend don't exist.

[someone123]

There are different views and goals. If you're looking at comprehensive social engineering then sure, modal share in the suburbs matters. If you want to live in a nice neighbourhood that is urban then Montreal has good options and the outer suburbs won't matter to you.

His comments about London ON are kind of similar. It's not much of a destination for people who want vibrant urbanism or are upset by stroads. If you don't mind driving and like to live in a big house with access to occasional city-ish stuff it might be a good place for you. If you want it to be Amsterdam you should probably move, because it ain't gonna be Amsterdam anytime soon. And it's just silly to rail against a city for being idiotic when what's really going on is you want something different from 90% of the inhabitants.

[Kilgore Trout]

If you spend any time reading local media, or local urbanist/development forums like Agora MTL, you'll see that nobody in Montreal is under any illusion the city doesn't have huge challenges, especially with regards to transit. The idea that it's some kind of paradise basically comes from people on Reddit who are stuck in the suburban US and who are looking for some city to idolize that isn't in Europe. When Jason expresses amazement that "nobody mentions" horrible 1960s-era streets like Berri, he's talking about a very small and particular group of urbanist YouTubers who don't live in Montreal.

NJB's video is fair enough, but I disagree with his notion that Montreal has a handful of "walkable islands." The walkable neighbourhoods occupy a solid 80km2 block and are home to about 750,000 people. In other words, the same size as Amsterdam. But NJB's standards are also impossibly high. I mean, just look at his video where he shits all over Copenhagen. He seems offended by Ste-Catherine Street (!) and the three-block stretch of St-Denis that hasn't yet been improved, and while they're certainly not ideal, they're also not stroads lined by strip malls.

[someone123]

The American urbanista videos on Montreal can be funny. Occasionally you even see jealousy issues (how do those Canadians get off thinking they are different) or weird comments around French (ooh-la-la, they are so fancy with their baguettes). I can't really relate to them.

To me Montreal is a somewhat typical larger older city in North America with a lot of historical endowments and some special cultural aspects that visitors from the USA who don't speak French probably aren't really engaging with (IMO it's a good thing that Quebec has its own media that are somewhat firewalled from the USA due to language). I do think Montreal is better at building nice public spaces than average, but a lot of the lifestyle stuff isn't a function of modern urban planning per se. For example the pattern of people living in rented flats is very old and you're not likely to establish a similar thing in San Diego. I tend to think Montrealers are more culturally active than West Coasters as well and go out more including when they're older, not just as partying students, while life here revolves somewhat more around outdoor activities.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by someone123

There are different views and goals. If you're looking at comprehensive social engineering then sure, modal share in the suburbs matters. If you want to live in a nice neighbourhood that is urban then Montreal has good options and the outer suburbs won't matter to you.

His comments about London ON are kind of similar. It's not much of a destination for people who want vibrant urbanism or are upset by stroads. If you don't mind driving and like to live in a big house with access to occasional city-ish stuff it might be a good place for you. If you want it to be Amsterdam you should probably move, because it ain't gonna be Amsterdam anytime soon. And it's just silly to rail against a city for being idiotic when what's really going on is you want something different from 90% of the inhabitants.

Yeah that tends to be my take as well. In my experience, he isn't an urban enthusiast; he's a "specific style of European city" enthusiast. Managing to out-complain and out-snark actual urban enthusiasts who enjoy a wade range of cities isn't a commendable achievement imo. It just means you're a negative person with very narrow tastes.

Although I don't agree with the idea that it's social engineering to reform suburbs (which tend to make up the majority of metro areas) such that they're more sustainable and safe/accessible to non-motorists. Nearly everyone's living situation is shaped by decisions made by other people. Few individuals in urban and suburban areas decided or even influenced things like where to locate the roads they live on or how the land in their area was zoned. They were mostly made by governments and/or developers, often before residents ever lived there or in many cases were even born. That's just the nature of living collectively in shared settlements. So wanting governments to reverse past decisions or make new ones going forward is just called planning. It isn't social engineering any more than was the original decision one wants to alter.

[Truenorth00]

I think Jason Slaughter (NJB) criticizes urban design quite well. The reason people think he's Eurocentric is because that's where the examples come from. And who can blame him? North America isn't exactly leading in that field.

And all his criticisms are valid. I've noticed them all. Had the same reaction as him last time I went to Orange Julep. And I have noticed how weirdly placed and disjointed bike lanes were. I figured it was some kind of parallel network. Didn't realize it was because of all their local political divisions.

I love that a whole lot of other (especially American) urbanist YouTubers don't like the guy. Good. He's succeeded where they haven't at raising awareness of urbanism. And he's succeeded exactly because he's unapologetic and doesn't qualify his criticism. His fans appreciate that he doesn't pull punches. It's hilarious to see how quickly the critics start qualifying his criticism every time their city is in his sights.

His podcast with interviews is even better and less filtered. And he's had guys like Reece Martin on there.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

I think Jason Slaughter (NJB) criticizes urban design quite well. The reason people think he's Eurocentric is because that's where the examples come from. And who can blame him? North America isn't exactly leading in that field.

And all his criticisms are valid. I've noticed them all. Had the same reaction as him last time I went to Orange Julep. And I have noticed how weirdly placed and disjointed bike lanes were. I figured it was some kind of parallel network. Didn't realize it was because of all their local political divisions.

I love that a whole lot of other (especially American) urbanist YouTubers don't like the guy. Good. He's succeeded where they haven't at raising awareness of urbanism. And he's succeeded exactly because he's unapologetic and doesn't qualify his criticism. His fans appreciate that he doesn't pull punches. It's hilarious to see how quickly the critics start qualifying his criticism every time their city is in his sights.

His podcast with interviews is even better and less filtered. And he's had guys like Reece Martin on there.

I haven't finished watching that video since it's almost an hour long (I'm about 1/3 through) but I've definitely encountered cases in different videos where his negativity lowered the quality of his critiques. Overall the problems are more with his tone and delivery than the facts of the critiques but not always.

But really, the whole "His fans appreciate that he doesn't pull punches" thing is more of bug than a feature because it means he does a great job of preaching to the choir but not in persuading people who disagree. In many cases it makes them less agreeable since they become defensive. Not being apologetic and not qualifying one's criticism means it's harder to reach people who are very different since they write off the critiques - including factually valid ones - as being based on having a different world view. You need to convince many people that you're on their side and that you understand and empathize with their concerns before they're open to considering opposing arguments. That's just human psychology unfortunately.

Overall he's not terrible or anything and choir preaching can be comforting to many. But I'm reluctant to recommend him to anyone who I want to persuade of anything.

[zoomer]

/\ good points.

I don’t know if the snarkiness and aggressive superiority complex helps even though his technical explanations are excellent and he’s a glass half full guy, which I do respect to a large degree. But man, London Ontario seriously f’d this guy up and it’s as if his life’s mission to seek revenge against it and North America. I mean yah, if I lived in London and then moved to Amsterdam, for sure I would be pretty excited and jazzed about good urbanism. I get it - it’s his channel, he’s popular and sharing his personal experiences, he’s the ‘star’ of it and his success likely means he won’t/shouldn’t change. However, the endless references to ‘Fake London’ are tiresome and if you watch the full video it really does start to off the rails in terms of his emotional reaction and petty comments and jabs. I mean does anyone really believe Montreal has the worst downtown of any major city in Canada?

And yet, we’re talking about him and his videos, he’s getting his points across that you can’t really argue with so I guess NJB for the win.

[ssiguy]

Slaughter does make some very valid points when it comes to urbanism, I have never stated he doesn't. The issue is his insulting tone that the entire planet is a write-off unless you live in the Netherlands. Even his comments about other European cities have a big caveat behind them except Amsterdam.

I admit I have my own bias having been born and raised in the London area and the city certainly has it's challenges but he makes it seem like it's just one notch above the slums of Calcutta. Truth is that London is actually quite a handsome city with beautiful downtown neighbourhoods with historic homes along tree lined streets with a park system that most cities with give their left nut for. For the vast majority of people, London offers a high quality of life in a very pleasant city.

Whenever he makes reference to London he always shows the lovely corner of Oxford & Wonderland and then compares it to the urban utopia of downtown Amsterdam, a city that predates London by 500 years, is 10 times the size, is a world financial centre, and a capitol city. He shows suburban London but he sure as hell doesn't show all the suburban concrete ethnic ghettos bunkers that surround Amsterdam.

He displays modern urban development problems and that's good but his unfair analogies and condescending tone distract from the valid points he is trying to make.

[thebasketballgeek]

Watched the whole video and he does raise a lot of good points in that Montréal doesn’t receive its “fair share” of criticism. Especially in regards to the Downtown being bordered by the stroady natures of René Lévesque and Sherbrooke on the South and North side respectively.

But he missed a crucial point in what makes Montreal special. I just had a layover at Garé Central on my way to Toronto and decided to take a walk for an hour. Immediately after exiting the station I located this.



Well NJB briefly glossed over it, but not to the extent it should have been discussed based on how important these moments and stoppages of time is to quality of life and urban delight. It’s just a small installation in the grand scheme of things, but it made me stop what I was doing, take a picture, and my mind became preoccupied with a subtle feeling of happiness.

When people say Montréal is comparable to European cities, imo it’s referring to the public realm and public installations plastered around with the city. Montréal has the best public realm I’ve seen in North America which comes from its abundance of urban furniture. It creates these little moments throughout one’s day that from personal experience can even change the trajectory of my day depending on if I was in a bad mood beforehand. From the 2 European cities I’ve visited which are Amsterdam and Paris I can say Montreal more then holds its own in this regard.

Imo he just wanted to spend the majority of his time criticizing Montréal because the other YouTubers (not living in MTL) haven’t done it.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by zoomer

/\ good points.

I don’t know if the snarkiness and aggressive superiority complex helps even though his technical explanations are excellent and he’s a glass half full guy, which I do respect to a large degree. But man, London Ontario seriously f’d this guy up and it’s as if his life’s mission to seek revenge against it and North America. I mean yah, if I lived in London and then moved to Amsterdam, for sure I would be pretty excited and jazzed about good urbanism. I get it - it’s his channel, he’s popular and sharing his personal experiences, he’s the ‘star’ of it and his success likely means he won’t/shouldn’t change. However, the endless references to ‘Fake London’ are tiresome and if you watch the full video it really does start to off the rails in terms of his emotional reaction and petty comments and jabs. I mean does anyone really believe Montreal has the worst downtown of any major city in Canada?

And yet, we’re talking about him and his videos, he’s getting his points across that you can’t really argue with so I guess NJB for the win.

His engineering career had him live in a dozen places in Asia and Europe and visit something like 30 cities. That's what prompted his urban enlightenment. I don't think this is unusual because I went through the same thing with the few travels of my military career. And once you see it, you can't unsee it. And once you understand the history you start to get sad or even angry.

I think his real anger comes less from "Fake London" which he sees as tragic (look at the old photos of London), than it does from Toronto, which he sees as wilfully ignorant. He lived in Toronto during the Ford years. His wife was on the board of Cycle TO. Imagine trying to campaign for urbanism during that time period. But also, I share his annoyance with just typical excuses that people give. Urbanism is just seen as something foreign. Rather than something that our cities did well before cars. How many times have you heard, "This is not Europe." ? Instead of being open to improvements, there's always an excuse to oppose some urbanism and Stockholm Syndrome has Canadian and American urbanists basically accepting any crumbs they get. I'm glad he calls it all out.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by thebasketballgeek

Imo he just wanted to spend the majority of his time criticizing Montréal because the other YouTubers (not living in MTL) haven’t done it.

Montreal is routinely portrayed as almost flawless among North American. YouTubers. One of the biggest Canadian urbanist channels is a couple who moved from Ottawa back to Montreal and made a whole video of why they left Ottawa and why Montreal is so great. Nobody ever talks about the flaws.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by zoomer

/\ good points.

I don’t know if the snarkiness and aggressive superiority complex helps even though his technical explanations are excellent and he’s a glass half full guy, which I do respect to a large degree. But man, London Ontario seriously f’d this guy up and it’s as if his life’s mission to seek revenge against it and North America. I mean yah, if I lived in London and then moved to Amsterdam, for sure I would be pretty excited and jazzed about good urbanism. I get it - it’s his channel, he’s popular and sharing his personal experiences, he’s the ‘star’ of it and his success likely means he won’t/shouldn’t change. However, the endless references to ‘Fake London’ are tiresome and if you watch the full video it really does start to off the rails in terms of his emotional reaction and petty comments and jabs. I mean does anyone really believe Montreal has the worst downtown of any major city in Canada?

And yet, we’re talking about him and his videos, he’s getting his points across that you can’t really argue with so I guess NJB for the win.

Well... we're talking about him and his videos on an urban enthusiast web page. So it's definitely a win if his attempt is to preach to the choir. I do see a value in content that urban enthusiasts enjoy and that market is big enough to allow a few creators to become successful. My problem is that I want more than to nod along with satisfaction as someone affirms my views. I want to see real world changes. Even if I moved to Amsterdam, I'd still want to see other places cultivate more sustainable cities because it has real world implications for the environment, energy usage, etc which affect everyone. Local matters of aesthetics and pedestrian safety are far from the only important issues. But real world change requires influencing a lot of people who aren't on SSP and who aren't NJB fans. And given the technical quality of the videos I believe he has the skill and talent to do that if he so chose.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Montreal is routinely portrayed as almost flawless among North American. YouTubers. One of the biggest Canadian urbanist channels is a couple who moved from Ottawa back to Montreal and made a whole video of why they left Ottawa and why Montreal is so great. Nobody ever talks about the flaws.

I find the Oh The Urbanity! channel does a good job at balancing the positive and negative and it quickly became one of my favourites. They definitely aren't afraid to criticize; they just don't fixate on nitpicking flaws and they always are careful to acknowledge different tastes. For instance, they had a fairly recent video where the man talked about his experiences with winter biking in Montreal. He didn't give every street an A+ but rather found there was a mix of bike lanes that were cleared poorly, moderately, and well. It also mentioned that the woman doesn't bike ride much in the winter so they can understand that it isn't for everyone.

It was just an honest realistic depiction of what one can expect to find when winter biking there. It could have been an entire video lambasting the city for the sections that were poorly cleared, complaining how much worse it was than Europe, etc. but that would have just discouraged people from trying winter cycling themselves and distorted their perception of it. And it wouldn't have been very interesting to the average person who tends to think winter cycling is nuts to begin with while portraying cyclists as being unpleasant loud mouths.