Chad Leddy
@chadleddy.bsky.social
Random Torontonian, litigator, dad, transit enthusiast and climate hawk #electrifyeverything
New Bloomberg piece providing a helpful overview of how much speeding has increased in Ontario cities since the Ford government capitulated to angry speeders and removed cameras
David Zipper@davidzipper.bsky.social · yesterdayA story of cause and effect: Last November, Ontario banned cities from using speed safety cameras to issue tickets. Reckless speeding immediately surged in Toronto, Ottawa, Guelph, and cities throughout the province. A 🧵 about my latest in Bloomberg (gift link)
Edmonton leads the way, showing new infill neighbours means lower taxes for existing residents
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...
We should levy a small payroll tax on every PR / communications role and use the proceeds to set up endowments to support local journalism
Josh Sternberg@joshsternberg.com · 2d agoThere are 7 PR people for every journalist in the US. www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...
Great piece by Cllr Matlow that lays out the impossibility of 10 million passengers flying through Billy Bishop without a huge expansion of the airport footprint. Also rightly says huge public costs - both public funds & degrading the public waterfront - would not be offset by any public benefit.
Josh Matlow@joshmatlow.bsky.social · 2d agoPlease read my latest in today’s Toronto Star about why we must prepare for what comes next for Billy Bishop Airport and our city’s waterfront. www.thestar.com/opinion/cont...
Parts of Spokane now under evacuation orders due to fast approaching wildfire I hope we can send help @kellyrichmondbc.bsky.social @davidebybc.bsky.social I again urge @eleanorolszewski.bsky.social to invest in speeding 🇨🇦 CL-515 production to save lives, homes, & as a priceless diplomatic asset
Spokane Rising@spokanerising.com · 4d agoHoly crap. Level 3 (GO NOW!) zone now includes urban Spokane, south of Francis to Wellesley. Level 2 (GET SET!) zone now extends east of Division. Not to be alarmist, but at this rate, it’s not inconceivable that the Old Trails Fire merges with the Fairview Fire.
A remarkable chart from Justin Taylor showing the steady decay of TTC streetcar speeds from 2000 to 2025 on all routes with available data
justin taylor 🚄🎵🔋🌈@nottaylorx.bsky.social · 7d agoHere you go
Here are the % declines in streetcar speed, broken down by route, from 2000 to 2025
A remarkable chart from Justin Taylor showing the steady decay of TTC streetcar speeds from 2000 to 2025 on all routes with available data
justin taylor 🚄🎵🔋🌈@nottaylorx.bsky.social · 7d agoHere you go
Good to see investment in passenger rail and having Stadler build a factory here should be good news over the long term in terms of creating more choice for buyers and shifting away from US production www.thestar.com/business/cp-...
Feds to spend $1.9B to replace Via Rail locomotive fleet, build plant
The deal will create 1,200 new full-time jobs and the hybrid trains will be built with Canadian-made batteries, according to Transport Minister Steven MacKinnon.
thestar.com
This is silly, of course, but if the province wants to try and use Alto as a bargaining chip (despite a weak constitutional hand over railway regulation) here’s hoping the feds offer to extend it to Kitchener or for the Ontario portions to be sped up www.cbc.ca/news/politic...
Ontario rethinking support for high-speed rail after feds reject Billy Bishop expansion: source | CBC News
The federal government's rejection of a plan to allow commercial jets at Toronto's Billy Bishop Airport is threatening a wedge between the Ford government and Ottawa — and potentially strengthening op...
cbc.ca
A thoughtful piece to which I would add only one thing: Beyond a general dislike of this plan, the greenbelt debacle has conditioned many of us to be especially allergic to surprise regulatory changes that - wouldn’t you know it!- stand to enrich private assets owners with well-connected lobbyists.
John Michael McGrath@jm-mcgrath.bsky.social · last wk.New from me at TVO, about the demise of Doug Ford's airport dreams. www.tvo.org/article/anal...
The core of housing NIMBYism is setting a nearly illusory private benefit (having fewer neighbours) above the very real public cost of blocking new homes The opposite is true for the airport plan: It would impose huge costs on the public with nearly all the benefit going to the private proponent.
John Michael McGrath@jm-mcgrath.bsky.social · last wk.not the core of the column but this bit is important to me personally
Edmonton continues to show it's possible to have newly built, ground-oriented housing for families in existing neighbourhoods at a reasonable price. You only have to make it legal and feasible. Here's a 3bed for $1,895 with a $500 lease signing bonus.
Irritating 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.
A central lesson of the island airport debacle, like that of the Greenbelt before it, is that when private owners of assets like greenbelt farmlands, small airport terminals, etc., can achieve windfall gains from the removal of regulations, they will have a very strong incentive to lobby regulators…
Biidaasige Park makes a beatiful template for what Billy Bishop Park could look like in a decade or less Let’s turn the Port Authority into the Toronto Island Park Authority or fold it into Waterfront Toronto Until we irrevocably close the Airport the TPA plans for its expansion remain a threat
Alex Bozikovic@alexbozikovic.bsky.social · 2w agoBiidaasige Park West, Toronto, opening day. MVVA and waterfront toronto win again.
Tonight let’s party but tmrw the plan should be to make the Toronto Port Authority into the Toronto Island Park Authority, and to shut the airport down before a different federal govt can pick up this absurd plan and run with it Thanks to @spacing.bsky.social for helping show how bad this would be
As everyone celebrates the defeat of the Ford plan to expand the Island Airport, spare a thought for how this may also make Pierre Poilievre sad, as he approved of this absurd plan while opposing high speed rail. Sorry Mr. Poilievre, but the downtown jet plan is dead and high speed rail is alive! 🎉
Oh The Urbanity!@ohtheurbanity.bsky.social · 4mo agoConservative leader Pierre Poilievre has come out against Canada’s Alto high-speed rail project. “The Liberals want to blow $90 billion on another Liberal illusion that will come late, go over budget and leave taxpayers stuck with the bill, if it even gets built at all.”
Spent this evening biking on the Island and was worried an industrial expanded airport might mean we only had a few years of unspoiled waterfront left — but tonight thanks to everyone who fought this absurd plan we can count on keeping the waterfront for people ❤️
Remarkable new study shows that replacing gas stoves with electric stoves reduced indoor air pollution & greatly reduces ER visits and lost days off school or work for asthma sufferers - please consider switching away from gas for cooking
Dr. Aaron Thierry@thierryaaron.bsky.social · 2w ago"On average, participants went from having moderate asthma symptoms to having mild symptoms. Emergency room visits & hospitalizations for asthma fell by 70%. Missed days of work or school because of asthma dropped by about 80%. At the same time, indoor levels of nitrogen dioxide decreased by 70%" ⚕️
A good task of any scientific theory is how well it can predict the future. @leonsimons.com ‘s prediction that increased controls on shipping sulphur aerosol emissions in the Mediterranean (which came into effect May 1 2025) would contribute to increased regional warming seems to have been bang on
Leon Simons@leonsimons.com · last yr.This is no joke! One month from now, sulphur emissions over the Mediterranean will be reduced by another 80%. This will further accelerate regional warming and lead to more extreme droughts, heatwaves, and flash floods.
Frequency is freedom when it comes to transit and driverless trains make very high frequencies affordable Transit expansion in English-speaking countries would in a better place with more shameless copying of the Skytrain
Kristian@kristianblais.bsky.social · 2w agoHey Vancouver people, what is up with these insane headways on the Expo Line?! A train departs and in 30-60 SECONDS another one rolls in!! And it’s only 3PM. Is this normal??
Thinking further about what an expansion taking Billy Bishop from 2 million to 10 million passengers per year would mean, it’s likely we are underestimating how much the footprint of the airport would to expand. It’s not just the runway that would be lengthened. The terminal will likely need to grow
Ian Darragh@iandarragh.bsky.social · 3mo agoJet Dreams on Toronto Island. Read Part 1 of my investigation in @spacing.bsky.social into what would it cost, who will pay, and who benefits? With a new custom-made graphic showing what the runway would look like. lnkd.in/e_wxVixc
New data from June is now out to test whether near or farside stops are faster for 510 streetcar riders N/B route on lower Spadina (with 3x farside stops) is still slower than S/B (with 3x nearside stops) by 2+ minutes This suggests Transit Signal Priority is not activated yet (or not working)
Chad Leddy@chadleddy.bsky.social · 5mo agoFortunately, there is a natural experiment that lets us test both claims - Data exists showing average travel times on the 510 Spadina streetcar between the middle of Richmond Avenue and the south threshold of Lakeshore Blvd, where there are 3 nearside stops going S/B & 3 farside stops going N/B
The Canadian higher education system as its flaws, but it's probably the most accessible, affordable and democratic of the anglosphere. Honestly, something to be proud of.
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%.
The Canadian economy generates GDP of about $2.5 trillion (USD) so these tariffs - while outrageous - will directly impact less than 1% of Canadian GDP. We can take this pain and more, whatever it takes to stay independent & free.
Jennifer Robson 🇨🇦@jrobson.bsky.social · 2w agoI will need to add in the booze/wine/beer list, but so far it's about $19.3B in imports -- which would then cost US consumers an additional $9.65B. Helluva way to address inflation as you head into the midterms....
Oil demand destruction in China is real, pre-dates Hormuz crisis, and looks like it’s picking up speed
Lauri Myllyvirta@laurimyllyvirta.bsky.social · 3w agoNEW from us: China's traffic-related air pollution levels dropped sharply after the Hormuz crisis, as fuel consumption fell and EV use surged. This is more evidence that the fall in China's oil import isn't just inventory drawdown but real consumption cuts. 🧵
