Amazing thread and analysis! Really interesting to read through. I think for many urban design failures, including these 'modern parks', a lot of the problems come when the designers focus more on what it looks like from the air, rather than what it looks like from street level. You see this...

Of course the land is not free to take. But just because the land is privately owned doesn't mean the government can't buy or expropriate it. Purchasing slivers of properties and/or moving heritage buildings out of the way is not rocket science. It was literally done on Davis Dr in Newmarket, in...

I really don't understand why you are so annoyed when someone running multiple businesses is trying to expand/promote those businesses. That's literally what capitalism is and how capitalism works. If you don't like that then you can move to North Korea, or maybe Antarctica. And really, doing...

Heritage buildings can be moved. Even in Newmarket on Davis Dr they actually moved a heritage house to make way for the BRT to nowhere. Heck, even the massive Kodak building got moved for Mount Dennis on Eglinton.That’s why I said “demolished or relocated”. Probably not cheap, but 100% worth it...

Notice it's talking about the "Paris-Galt Moraine" which is proposed to be added to the Greenbelt. For reference, that's this: Completely irrelavent to 413, more a distraction than anything else. (when talking about 413)

No, I'm not saying they should have expropriated all of Downtown Richmond Hill to put in bus lanes. That would be ridiculous. All that needs to be done to make Major Mack station at Major Mack instead of 200m away is to have the buses merge into Yonge St. north of Major Mack instead of south of...

??? This is literally completely false, unless you consider a bunch of area beside Guelph and Cambridge to the greenbelt as "covering the highway"...

Yeah no. That was a complete joke, even more so than Brampton’s laughable LRT tunnel. And besides, even if a tunnel were to be built in 30 years, moving a stop like that is basically a nothing cost in a ~1.3 km tunnel project. And in the meantime, every single person who transfers at that...

Mined stations are super expensive. It's only ever worth it if there's an insane amount of utilities or buildings above making it difficult or impossible to do cut and cover. Besides, using station aesthetics as the rationale for using a particular construction method is just not a good rationale.

But.. why? Unless you mean an elevated metro line, which would make some sense.

For sure. The value of this project is allowing buses to stop easier at stations. I wouldn’t be surprised if a bus wasted several mins getting off the highway to stop at 407 station or RHC, especially in traffic. Stopping at Unionville GO or Bramalea might waste even more time, maybe 5-10 mins...

I really don’t think this is such a big deal. Four tracks is still quite a lot of capacity, and it’s definitely possible to run a very good amount of service - see Berlin’s Stadtbahn for example, which deals with S-Bahn, regional trains, and intercity on four tracks. If modern signalling is...

Although I definitely agree with your post, and part of the desirability of single family definitely stems from space for outdoor activity, I don’t think that’s the main reason for most people. It’s more because SFH is what people are used to. Everyone they know lives in SFH, they’ve lived in...

What is with this hate on Elon Musk?? Say what you want about what he says on Twitter, but implying that he and his companies have no experience or knowledge is ridiculous. Do you really think the companies that have gone from nothing to creating the best EVs and rockets in the world in 10-15...

I find this attitude extremely unhelpful. Maybe instead of immediately dismissing one of the best examples in the world because it is in a country we don’t like, we should be looking at what they are doing, filter out the best parts, and use that to identify what we are doing wrong and what...

Welll.... maybe they shouldn't trust the DRT bus stop, because the service is probably somewhere between nothing and never .... Jokes aside, I think unified signage is a good idea, but the "T" specifically is not. I've said this many times, but it just doesn't convey information that is useful...

I'm not sure what you're getting at here. A GO platform is like, 2x the length of a TTC subway platform. ML has indicated in the GO expansion IBC that they intend on having something like 7-10 minute frequency, excluding express services, on most lines. On the double track lines, if we just...

Pretty sure some jurisdictions like Florida and California have already legalized autonomous vehicles. Most jurisdictions, even backwards/reluctant ones, will legalize them very soon after they see autonomous vehicles working somewhere else.

If SRT closes in 2023, stuff needs to start happening ASAP lest we have a complete disaster in 2023. (I have a feeling that TTC might be pressured to do another refurb, but this is assuming that doesn't happen) What must get done before 2023: - People have mentioned this a bunch of times but...

Yeah, "Smart Track" is basically just a couple of GO stations at this point. The original plan of running separate services was basically a joke.