No street is a major street by default. It's all the result of traffic planning decisions. It was in Prague, it could be in Toronto. Nothing but political will prevent those streets from being transformed from major throughways into local streets via circulation arrangements.

The idea that there is a standard for accessibility that requires close stop spacing is one that was made up to oppose stop consolidation. Nobody ever analyzes transit based on this metric outside of this discussion. You would come to bizarre conclusions if you tried to quantify it, since transit…

Can confirm. As Gabe posted this I'm in beautiful Prague riding trams that are nearly 10km/h faster on average than Toronto's, despite having large sections in mixed traffic. Let's catch up with the rest of the world, reduce emissions and boost the economy!

Gabe Blanc@gabeblanc.bsky.social · 3d ago

Grateful to have the support of transit researcher @jedwinmok.com. When someone who studies this for a living says fixing the 506 is achievable, you listen. Let’s make College St. 2.0 a reality 🚈💨

Grateful to have the support of transit researcher @jedwinmok.com. When someone who studies this for a living says fixing the 506 is achievable, you listen. Let’s make College St. 2.0 a reality 🚈💨

Edmonton has traditionally retained a more sane housing market by Canadian standards. Most recently by legalizing townhouses/multiplexes up to 8 units broadly across the city. And they get prices people in other cities would love to have, like a *new* 3-bedroom for $1,900. (Americans: USD$1,350.)

Jacob Loo Dawang@jacobdawang.com · last wk.

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.

I've just published this article, Part 1 of 4 about the choices that will enable San Francisco to finally build a Geary metro. medium.com/@infrastruct...

Plan the Geary metro right, right now

Part 1: Strong corridor; tight station spacing; frequent trains

medium.com

I can’t get over the fact that our post-war roads are just *enormous*. Even random residential streets like this one, which has a dead end at a park behind me. And then people complain about taxes and the quality of roads!

Honored to be featured in Building Beautifully’s latest video about transit construction costs! Sharath puts it best: “We keep treating cost blowouts as inevitabilities instead of looking to the rest of the world out of misguided notions of exceptionalism.” Watch now! youtu.be/iIET6M3phqA?...

The English-world is TERRIBLE at building transit. This is why.

YouTube video by Building Beautifully

youtu.be

Neuperlach in Munich would give any Canadian planner a heart attack… - suburban transit has to be fast and well integrated - the indoor mall does not suck all life away from the street - suburban towers can have good street-level activation - cheap street experiments can work in the suburbs

Just a reminder that this is about the same per/km cost as the Finch W LRT.

JRUrbaneNetwork@jrurbanenetwork.bsky.social · last mo.

On 1 July 2026, Hefei Metro Line 7 Phase I opened. The fully underground southern tangential line is 18.9km with 14 stations. The line uses fully automated 6 car Type B trains and costs 240 million INT$/km to construct. The 9 year old Hefei Metro is now 276km long.

On 1 July 2026, Hefei Metro Line 7 Phase I opened. The fully underground southern tangential line is 18.9km with 14 stations. The line uses fully automated 6 car Type B trains and costs 240 million INT$/km to construct. The 9 year old Hefei Metro is now 276km long.

Yonge Street regularly has over 10x more pedestrians than cars, even in the rain. Yet cars get 2x more space. This video faces west at Yonge/Edward, and only captures the west sidewalk, and peds still out number cars. YongeTOmorrow with wider sidewalks & more dedicated pedestrian space is overdue.

Rodney 🚧🚇@chanface.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Concerning new documents out for YongeTOmorrow that seems much less focused on pedestrianization. The project originally envisioned having portions of Yonge between College and Queen be at least partially pedestrianized. www.toronto.ca/wp-content/u...

This is an interesting example of design trade-offs and of the concept of "future proofing". Signaling-wise, Rennes's VAL could theoretically already get to 60 sec, but it was limited by the fact that, to save money, the JFK terminus was scaled diwn to built single-track back in the 1990s.

Yonah Freemark@yonahfreemark.com · last mo.

Rennes, France will increase frequencies on its Metro A Line to every 60 seconds (down from every 80 seconds), perhaps making it the most frequent metro in the world. The automated light metro line has 140,000 daily riders, in a city with a population of 230,000 (Line B carries ~80,000/day).

Montreals embarrassing Blue line extension, which officials has said costs a normal amount (in reality its ~10x the global median) portends a country which cannot build the transit it needs. See my new blog for more. www.thetransitbrief.net/p/everything...

Everything is not all right with subway construction.

Montreal needs to get its act together.

thetransitbrief.net

There is really something in the "design-by-comment-on-spreadsheet" culture of Canada and the US that makes imitating Metro Madrid's model culturally impossible

I just watched Hoog's video on Madrid vs NYC SAS, and my favourite bit is about Metro Madrid's engineers keeping the discussion going over beers and tapas I can't imagine this in the Canadian context, where being passionate is highly discouraged in the public sector www.youtube.com/watch?v=utt-...

Why Madrid's Metro is Insanely Well Designed

YouTube video by Hoog

youtube.com

I had a great time hanging out with three amazing transportation advocates / designers: @fernkhahn.com, @auguststreet.ca, and @jedwinmok.com

Transit construction costs are the “price of living in a democracy today, as opposed to an autocracy”? Maybe versus the 1960s (poetically). But we were even building much more cheaply in 2007! Are France, Spain, and Korea (lower cost countries today) dictatorships?

Montreal Gazette@mtlgazette.bsky.social · last mo.

Costs of public transit projects are out of control, experts say montrealgazette.com/news/costs-o...

eating bubble waffle and reminiscing about the brutal autocratic dictatorship that built us the canada line for $100m/km back in late 2000s canada 🫩😔

Oh The Urbanity!@ohtheurbanity.bsky.social · last mo.

Transit construction costs are the “price of living in a democracy today, as opposed to an autocracy”? Maybe versus the 1960s (poetically). But we were even building much more cheaply in 2007! Are France, Spain, and Korea (lower cost countries today) dictatorships?

I wrote this article 12 years ago. Nothing has changed. Horodniceanu and Prendergast are gone, but new transit leaders across the US and Canada are still playing dumb (or actually are??) about this. It’s very depressing if you care about transit! nextcity.org/urbanist-new...

Does New York Know It Has a Transit Cost Problem?

The MTA is breaking world records on costs, but its top officials won’t even acknowledge the problem.

nextcity.org

Blair Lorenzo / The Fox and the City@thefoxandthecity.com · last mo.

It's not new that North American has an extreme cost problem when it comes to building transit. What is always shocking to me is just how in denial decision makers are about it. I can't tell if this person is lying to glaze the project, or simply doesn't care to know if what they're saying is true.

New things, when proposed, feel scary. Once they exist, they usually seem much less scary. Pedestrian streets, bike lanes, new housing developments.

Rodney 🚧🚇@chanface.bsky.social · last mo.

Staff recognize the “growing demand” for pedestrian streets but it “seemingly fell through the cracks.” 😐😐😐

I'm always quite amazed by the capacity of RFI designers to find non orthodox solutions when upgrading platform height from 30 to 55 cm.

It's not new that North American has an extreme cost problem when it comes to building transit. What is always shocking to me is just how in denial decision makers are about it. I can't tell if this person is lying to glaze the project, or simply doesn't care to know if what they're saying is true.

Jedwin Mok@jedwinmok.com · last mo.

Montreal’s Blue Line Extension believes they are building at “competitive” costs. The project is over $1B/km… Italy, Spain, and South Korea (democracies with environmental laws!) are building underground metros for ~$150M/km. The global average is ~ $300M/km! montrealgazette.com/news/costs-o...

Canada has some of the highest per-capita GHG emissions on earth, higher than even the US and Russia, but their soooo strict environmental norms are the reason they have to build so little new transit for their money and pour so much embodied carbon into the stations. Checks out.

Jedwin Mok@jedwinmok.com · last mo.

Montreal’s Blue Line Extension believes they are building at “competitive” costs. The project is over $1B/km… Italy, Spain, and South Korea (democracies with environmental laws!) are building underground metros for ~$150M/km. The global average is ~ $300M/km! montrealgazette.com/news/costs-o...

Montreal’s Blue Line Extension believes they are building at “competitive” costs. The project is over $1B/km… Italy, Spain, and South Korea (democracies with environmental laws!) are building underground metros for ~$150M/km. The global average is ~ $300M/km! montrealgazette.com/news/costs-o...

It’s surreal seeing it come full circle. The people stuck in the crowded Church Street sidewalk are now free to roam the streets! (At least during the 2 month pedestrianization pilot) Streets are for the people!

Rodney 🚧🚇@chanface.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Was on Church Street last night to celebrate the pedestrian pilot passing at City Council and saw what originally inspired me to propose pedestrianizing it in the first place—sidewalks so crowded that spill into the parking lane!

Metrolinx will soon “set up a procurement to think through how to best procure 1400 rail cars - specifically EMUs” Disappointed that we need a procurement for the procurement for a world-standard technology, but 11 years after GO RER, a decision has been made. baby steps, baby steps…

Mort d’auteur but I don’t think Henry George would agree with Patrick Condon that we should tax housing development instead of land rents to address housing affordability.

Jason@jrock08.bsky.social · 2mo ago

"These people agree with me" Condon says about Henry George........

Not RMTransit, but a podcast-video thing from me and Jonathan English! This time on the Eglinton Crosstown. youtu.be/wgAlgu7BCoI?...

The Eglinton Crosstown Podcast Episode | RMTransit Off-Script

YouTube video by RMTransit

youtu.be