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The Ontario Line will be taking up space for the other 2/6 tracks. Steve Munro points out that there historically was 3 tracks along the Bala sub (Richmond Hill Line) right after it splits from the Union corridor before it reaches the more flood prone areas at Pottery Rd. Metrolinx has yet to...

A large chunk of the 2nd track for the Stouffville line has already been laid, including a fully functional double track section just south of Unionville Station where northbound and southbound trains actually pass each other as part of the regular hourly service (doesn't happen during rush...

What drives me nuts is the Riverside people are conflating GO Expansion with the Ontario Line. They seemed to have been completely oblivious to the impacts of GO Expansion which quadruples the number of huge heavy trains through the corridor. They only clued in once the OL was announced because...

I think there needs to be an NJB thread on UT. This has gone completely off the rails (he he). We should be debating transit in London.

I thought that was a sidewalk. I'm impressed to see the bike path! Too bad it abruptly ends at 9th Line, but it's a start at least.

I said "most" urbanists to leave space specifically for Jacobs :) Getting back on track, I'm skeptical about frequent suburban bus service being a high priority solution. I'll admit I don't know the London suburbs well, but presumably they're the same as every other suburb here, and in that...

Yes it does. 1) Bike access - you can see the connecting bike paths that parallel the arterial road in Utrecht. In Markham good luck surviving on 16th Ave on a bike. 2) Density - look around on street view. I can't find any single detached houses in that area in Utrecht. I also don't see any...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modal_share Amsterdam (municipal population 875,000) has a modal share of 40% cycling, 29% transit, 27% driving. London isn't on that list, but for Canadian cities < 1,000,000 the lowest driving modal share is 70% in Victoria. Keeping the NL and London comparison...

That's the whole point of his channel, to show North Americans why the Netherlands is the best at city design, which is why he moved there. If our planners here knew how to design cities well since before he was born, then they sure did a poor job executing it. Yes there have been urbanists who...

He has the made the point time and time again that the difference in good urban design between most European cities and North American cities isn't their age. Cities like London ON were built *before* cars became the dominant mode of transportation. Cities like London are the way they are now...

There's a (albeit crappy) paved trail immediately south of Tam O'Shanter. I don't know what they're talking about with "exploring the feasibility of installing multi-use paths/trails on site". You can't have people going out for a Sunday stroll with golf balls flying overhead. The city should...

Transit spending is finite. Spending $1 billion on a project that is under-utilized for a decade takes money away from another project which is approaching capacity today. That is why that German transit infrastructure axiom was created - to spend money efficiently. Take the Sheppard Subway for...

^^^ This. The germans got it right when they said "organization before electronics before concrete". A lot of the Viva Rapidly is concrete first. Would you prefer a bus every 5 minutes, or a BRT every 20 min? I know which I'd pick. Credit to the TTC where I think they nail this with their...

I think it's definitely still a stroad in its new configuration. It's both a thoroughfare and a centre for destinations. It's been mentioned a couple times that there was no way a car lane could be taken away as part of the project. One of my original points and complaints is that private car...

Again, if that's the approach, then why invest hundreds of millions of dollars in a busway that gets stuck at red lights? The development pattern on Hwy 7 isn't purely market driven. Zoning laws control things like parking, and can force a shopping centre to create a large amount of parking due...

I felt that I consistently hit more than 50% of the red lights from the 404 to South Town Central Blvd. I would joke to myself that the street was called Highway 7 red lights. It was pretty clear that the north/south streets were being favoured, but still the light timing was garbage. I bet...

I appreciate the feedback! I kinda made this argument above, but you don't need to widen a street like that to get better sidewalks. While it may be no big deal for you to cross it, that may not be true for other slices of the population. The way I think of it is that every second that I'm...

I definitely agree that all the landscaping/lighting etc. help a lot, but my view is that the width of the street negates that because that many lanes cars travelling at 60km/h is quite loud and personally I'd rather be on a quiet street than a green street. I drove on Hwy 7 from the 404 to the...

I didn't mean the bus lanes make it less pedestrian friendly, I meant 9 lanes of traffic do, including 2 bus lanes. I totally agree about the width of lanes being an issue, because on such a straight street it makes it so easy to drive fast.

I said it used to be 6 lanes, I didn't say Markham used to be a suburb. It 100% is a suburb, and downtown Markham isn't an actual downtown, it's a property development owned by Remington. I don't think 9 lanes categorizes as urban growth under any definition, and it's the opposite of progress...