Erik de Vries

What a slanted piece. These kids who don’t drive are walking, biking, and bussing, yet the entire story is about how they’re losing their independence. And the reason Colton doesn’t know how to get anywhere is because he’s been exclusively ferried by car his entire life.

Now, let’s not be hasty. Is it really worth investing all of that effort for this? Before we venture that far, it would be prudent to get some consultants to study the question and give us some advice. Now, let’s get started with a nice, easy procurement.

The city initiated a study of all of those unused reports back in 2018, but haven’t yet published the findings.

Cecilia Bartoli even more so. Possibly I’m a bigger fan of Italian singers than of Olympic pageantry.

Goddamn Bocelli sounds fantastic.

Holland is, as always, stunning.

Ireland: nice sweaters

Luckily the Germans look even worse. Their uniforms look like a sci-fi fantasy about futuristic electronic jigsaw puzzles.

Having athletes enter in multiple locations is probably great for somebody, but makes everything take longer, and the traditional gathering of all the athletes in one place is replaced by a bewildering spiral populated by a few inexplicable figures next to a DJ. I have no idea what’s happening.

Watching the Olympic opening ceremonies as a dutiful husband. I enjoy the sports, but dread the opening, which clicks in at over four hours. The Canadian uniforms look like they’re dressed as 1970s maple syrup bottles. 2/10.

I would be OK if we cancelled all wars, funnelled the resulting savings into social housing, and pressed on with baseball.

Look, I know everything is going to heck in a heckbasket, but spring training starts in six weeks.

One thing I'll never not find funny is how so many "trust the science" folks will quickly dismiss out of hand, without reading it, any study that finds that high housing costs reduce the birth rate.

A group of local whiners held this tiny project up for seven years because it would slow down their drive by a minute.

They might as well just use stock photos of the public meetings for this. They all look exactly the same.

This was my winter ride in Ottawa! A great bike. If the Gates belt is the original, it may break on the first cold day (my brother and I both bought the same bike, and that happened to both of us when it went below -15C.

She is nothing if not committed to the bit.

Oh, I see you and Maureen from Fairfield are already acquainted.

I mean this in the nicest possible way, but doesn’t it bother you that Maureen from Fairfield is now cut off from downtown and is forced to drive to Oak Bay to visit the library

Oh man. I had no idea that idea had been floated. What a priceless vision.

I don’t understand why we’d stop at making sure everyone can drive downtown. If we were truly inclusive, we’d be extending facilities to those who helicopter, parachute, or submarine to downtown.

Oh, please,no.

Why the city continues to entertain these stupid and obviously bad faith arguments is beyond me.

You’re hilarious! The point was how people arriving here behave. If no transit is available, they will use cabs, resulting in higher road maintenance, slower traffic, and environmental degradation. Yeah, if existing 72 travellers suffer, that’s bad. Add a cost-recovered transit route? Sounds good.

Yeah, fair. Me neither.

Or maybe just charge a toll on the highway for drivers from both the airport and the ferry.

I noticed that in Montreal there’s a premium fare added for airport users that is both more than the rest of the transit system charges but less than a taxi. Would this approach enable preservation of service to existing users?

You’re right. Ruining existing service for the airport is a bad idea.

My point was so much less than this: only that opposing airport transit service on the grounds that airport people don’t deserve it is silly. Pax, friend.

Yeah, this. As my friendly debater has pointed out, compromising existing service to make this happen is no help. But that doesn’t detract from the value of bus service for airport and ferry users.

Weird that you can read what I’m saying through the mute filter