Colleen
@cbailey6.bsky.social
Scientist, cyclist, knitter. But only 2 out of 3 at any one time. 🔰 📌 Toronto
What if the multi-use path is too popular and busy? Maybe one more lane? Hardly any cars in those lanes in the photo. Probably could take away one of those.
Peter Flax@pflax1.bsky.social · 18h ago"It kind of started as a joke, but here we are.” www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...
Your choices: 1. Support infill development in your city because you care about other people being housed 2. Support infill development in your city because you can have access to better services (including fewer potholes if that’s your thing) without having to pay more in taxes yourself 3. Both 1&2
Growth pays for growth (complimentary)
Jacob Loo Dawang@jacobdawang.com · yesterday🧵 NEW POST: Edmonton’s $15M infill property tax dividend Matching permits to assessment data shows that small-scale infill from just 2024-26 will grow the tax base by $1.8B, and revenues by $15M. That's equivalent to a 0.7% property tax rate increase! #yegcc www.jacobdawang.com/blog/2026/pr...
These crazy wildfires in Spain and France have only destroyed “hundreds” of homes? LA’s 2025 fires destroyed 18,000. Noncombustible materials and a tight wildland-urban interface are probably a better strategy than clearing vegetation and spacing out houses. www.nytimes.com/live/2026/07...
I get that some of Eglinton has bike lanes now (although I found it very confusing what was sidewalk vs multi-use path in places and eventually gave up and went the long way home through Sunnybrook), but Don Mills does not and putting this decal here just feels like a huge insult.
Fortunate to get to choose between checking out the new part of Biidaasige Park and the new part of the Don Valley East trail. Chose the latter and made a detour to see Bear-braham Lincoln up close. She's beautiful.
Two paragraphs that don't seem like they belong to the same Official Plan. And yet...
Matt Elliott@graphicmatt.com · 6d agoChernos Lin's motion to refuse a 7-storey building planned for Millwood Road CARRIES 12-11.
I'm giving it all I got over here in Don Valley West. Not enough. Heritage Longo's should be for everyone. 😔 secure.toronto.ca/council/agen...
Matt Elliott@graphicmatt.com · 6d agoAnd we're back. Councillor Rachel Chernos Lin moves to REFUSE an application for a 7-storey building on Millwood Road in her ward. "The building is simply too large for the site.” She points to more than 80 letters of opposition received on this item. secure.toronto.ca/council/agen...
This is why many of us were always skeptical of demand-side housing solutions. It is ultimately just an excuse to move the goalpost and build less housing.
Colleen @cbailey6.bsky.social · 6d agoMany said that we had to cut immigration so governments could "catch up" on housing. I tried to explain, based on my experience in housing advocacy, why I thought that was unlikely. Immigrants were just a scapegoat for governments who didn't prioritize new homes. I wish that I had been proven wrong.
Many said that we had to cut immigration so governments could "catch up" on housing. I tried to explain, based on my experience in housing advocacy, why I thought that was unlikely. Immigrants were just a scapegoat for governments who didn't prioritize new homes. I wish that I had been proven wrong.
Jacob Loo Dawang@jacobdawang.com · 7d agoSurely they made Alberta agree to the conditions of the program right? Right? www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...
This is, as always, Toronto's fault for finding stupid new ways to try to dictate who should get to live where and inspiring others to follow. You can say that people zoning is illegal but you don't have to mean it.
Deny Sullivan@denysullivan.bsky.social · last wk.It's a funny part of Halifax planning that a side goal is to reduce the amount of family-sized units, because they also encourage roommates to live there and that's bad?
Going to take a page from Sam and let all of these people know that they can take the train. UP Express is a thing we successfully built already. Use it!
Toronto Star@thestar.com · last wk.Toronto’s business community is “disappointed” the Billy Bishop airport expansion isn’t moving forward, with several saying it would have been a boon for the economy.
Turns out people are a lot more fond of European-style mid-rises when they’re opposing high-rises — than when it’s actually time to broadly legalize mid-rises.
Justin McElroy 🇨🇦@jmcelroy.bsky.social · last wk.For as long as I’ve been a reporter in this city the complaint has been that we build too many giant luxury condos in a few places and not enough medium density housing across neighbourhoods. But this week reaffirmed why that approach is so baked into the DNA and political culture of Vancouver.
not the core of the column but this bit is important to me personally
Sometimes I reflect on the fact that the largest zoning change Toronto has seen in decades, in terms of the land area being upzoned, was done at a time when we didn't have a mayor. I like many things about Chow, but her tendency to compromise on housing policy instead of lead is not my favourite.
Damien Moule@damienmoule.bsky.social · last wk.In May 2023, City Council allowed multiplexes with 4 units and 3 stories on all residential land. This was expanded with a 6 unit study in Ward 23 in February 2025. 6 units was planned to be rolled out to the rest of the city in June 2025 but was limited by Council to the old city and ward 23. 2/
I knew in the abstract but, reading the specifics, it's so telling that Trump sided with the rent-seeking bridge owner instead of opening infrastructure with such clear benefits to Americans (and Canadians), particularly truckers themselves. www.thestar.com/business/tru...
If I were a provincial government, I would be embarrassed to leak to the press that I was planning to hold high speed rail hostage to get an airport. Maybe consider spending some time doing any work at all to convince voters instead of expropriating land and demanding to get your way?
Toronto Star@thestar.com · last wk.Premier Doug Ford told Prime Minister Mark Carney how “disappointed” he was that Ottawa is abandoning the Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport expansion to allow commuter jets, the Star has learned.
The authors of Abundance were pretty clear that it didn't just mean build anything. They had a fairly constrained list of concerns, one of which very prominently was high speed rail to have an abundance of intercity travel without using jet fuel.
Alex Bozikovic@alexbozikovic.bsky.social · 2w agoIrritating to see the Toronto island airport battle framed as NIMBYism. This was a project with zero business case that would have destroyed economic value and soft power – and stopped homebuilding! It was a terrible project that deserved to die. When people say no, sometimes they are correct.
Played Jet Lag's Hide & Seek game across Toronto yesterday (very fun) and one of my friends figured out where we were from this photo of a bus stop. Some people are too online but I worry that some of you are too "on transit".
It's a big day. The original post was in response to e-bikes being taxed while the gas tax got lifted. Making e-bikes more affordable through tax policy likely improves the government books in the long run because of health and congestion benefits. 100 days of pointing this out.
Alex Freeman@northernnerd.bsky.social · last wk.Day 100 of reminding @mark-carney.bsky.social we still don't have a zero-rating for bikes. #BikeSky
A few people in Dan's replies at the other place seem to think that demanding a business case for ALTO is some sort of gotcha instead of a normal part of the process for any large project. Truly cooked.
Reposting to get credit for my wise political insights.
Colleen @cbailey6.bsky.social · 3mo agoYes, the next provincial election is not for a while. But lower popularity makes it less likely that the federal government will want to support, say, an airport expansion with a poor business case. This has been your cynical politics "take of the day." ✨
Thanks to everyone who emailed and responded to the survey, to @roboliphant.bsky.social for your thoughtful response to my letter and to the LPC for listening.
Ben Spurr@benspurr.bsky.social · 2w agoBig news: Federal government grounds Billy Bishop airport expansion www.thestar.com/politics/fed...
Does price affect parking availability? Finally we'll get some answers on this question.
Kareem Allam@kareem42.bsky.social · 2w agoWithin the first year of a Vancouver Liberal Government, we're going to get rid of every single parking meter in front of beaches and community centres throughout the entire city.
Toronto took down all these signs to install this new gate, but made sure that the first one that they put back up was the no bicycles sign. Important because this path is still listed as a "multi-use trail" on their cycling map, despite years of people pointing out that bikes aren't allowed.
Colleen @cbailey6.bsky.social · last yr.What the map should actually look like, by my accounting. (Red are just suggested roads where you can bike. There are no bike lanes).
New park opened in my Yonge-Eg neighbourhood. Like the parkette 1 block North, full of parents & kids. This is a real mystery because I'm informed by the expert commenters at every development meeting that children can't live in apartments and that we only build shoeboxes, not homes for families.
Attention single-stair/missing middle people: as part of OBC review, the Province has opened a consultation on the Building Code, seeking to “identify ways to reduce unnecessary costs, delays, complexity, and administrative burden”. Runs to August 14. ero.ontario.ca/notice/026-0744
Consultation on Reducing Regulatory Burden in Ontario's Building Code | Environmental Registry of Ontario
ero.ontario.ca
Peak City of Toronto self-sabotage. The city is trying to turn a partially collapsed warehouse at 53 Strachan into supportive/affordable housing. In March, it put the site on the heritage register, which then had to be modified. It is also delaying the affordable housing over concerns about height.
Letting very large numbers of students study at Canada’s best and highest demand universities is an unambiguous win for equality and productivity Now if only we could somehow apply this lesson to letting more people live and work in the most productive and highest demand cities
Alon (they/them)@alonlevy.bsky.social · 2w agoTIL 4.3% of university-age people in Canada are University of Toronto students. Relative to just Ontario, it's 11%. In the US, all Ivies+, near-Ivies like NYU, Public Ivies, and elite LACs combined are around 3% of the cohort depending on which flagships are included. In the UK, Oxbridge are 1%.
