Chris Ferris

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Demand based zoning – Mountain Doodles What if zoning was responsive to underlying demand to live in an area? A simple model to estimate demand-based zoning in Vancouver.

When discussing reforms like multiplex zoning, demand estimates rarely enter the discussion (except as a force to be countered).
@lausterna.bsky.social and I think that’s unfortunate and we run some simple estimates what it would look like to zone for the demand to live in an area.

All Hail the Humble Speed Hump These simple, cheap traffic-calming devices are both effective and wildly popular with (most) residents. Here’s why more cities are going all-in on speed humps.

Infrastructure tech, no really

www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

If you've ever wondered what I've been up to over the past two years, all shall be revealed soon.

📢 Announcing the 1st keynote for our upcoming conference, Industrial Policy in Tumultuous Times: @noahpinion.blogsky.venki.dev, a leading voice on economics and global trends!

Join us Sept 16 in Ottawa for a full day on the future of Canada’s economy.

🔗Details & registration: irpp.org?p=20760

It seems like the US wants to eliminate tourism, foreign students, and business travel. A great opportunity for all other tourist destinations, universities and businesses I guess.

More speed hump or speed tables would be good in a number of residential areas to slow down road racers. Better than signs, and a heck of a lot cheaper than a complete reconfiguration of the road. cc:@scottgillingham.bsky.social , @stateofthecity.bsky.social .

All Hail the Humble Speed Hump These simple, cheap traffic-calming devices are both effective and wildly popular with (most) residents. Here’s why more cities are going all-in on speed humps.

Let us pay tribute to the speed hump, an unsung hero of street safety.

These prosaic protrusions of pavement can work wonders -- and at minimal cost.

My deep dive, in Bloomberg 🧵

In their PLOS One paper (journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...), Spears et al. say their historical population data are "taken from" this PRB source (www.prb.org/articles/how...). In their new book they say the historical data are "based on" the same source. /1

Why not take log of population?

"When political leaders meddle in government data, it rarely ends well." www.nytimes.com/2025/08/03/b...

For six months, I've said that threats to economic data have been more collateral damage than intentional harm.

No longer.

Firing the head of the BLS is five-alarm intentional harm to the integrity of US economic data and the entire statistical system.

“The National Association for Business Economics (NABE) strongly condemns the removal of Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Commissioner Erika McEntarfer and the unfounded accusations leveled against the work of the agency…

A totally apolitical group.

files.constantcontact.com/668faa28001/...

Lol

It does not matter your politics (left, right or centre). Pretending something like this is true usually just drives an economy into the ground.

US transit costs and how to tame them Alon Levy explains how the US can build cheaper, better public transit by learning from the rest of the world.

Today on Volts: I talk with the brilliant researcher @alonlevy.bsky.social about why it's so expensive to build public transit in the US, how countries like Spain & Italy do it better/cheaper, & what the US could do if it learned those lessons (eg, high-speed rail in the Northeast!).

Perhaps they will need to spin the firm off in a public listing?

This is quite the ruling in this case. @cycletoronto.bsky.social .

What’s a technology that you think is overhyped? I’m going to give a sideways answer to this, which is that the venture capital business model needs to be understood as requiring hype. You can go back to the Netscape IPO, and that was the proof point that made venture capital the financial lifeblood of the tech industry. Venture capital looks at valuations and growth, not necessarily at profit or revenue. So you don’t actually have to invest in technology that works, or that even makes a profit, you simply have to have a narrative that is compelling enough to float those valuations. So you see this repetitive and exhausting hype cycle as a feature in this industry. A couple of years ago, you would have been asking me about the metaverse, then last year, you would have asked me about Web3 and crypto, and for each of these inflection points there’s an Andreessen Horowitz manifesto. It’s not simply that one piece of technology is overhyped, it’s that hype is a necessary ingredient of the current business ecosystem of the tech industry. We should examine how often the financial incentive for hype is rewarded without any real social returns, without any meaningful progress in technology, without these tools and services and worlds ever actually manifesting. That’s key to understanding the growing chasm between the narrative of techno-optimists and the reality of our tech-encumbered world.

Stand by this: www.politico.com/newsletters/...

I spent seven years writing a book on this and she just… said it in three succinct paragraphs to politico.

www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/en/catalo... other source of FSA, since the ArcGIS one I posted is an Ontario one only. :(

I am also looking to get a better commuter bike to tie in with the bus system and get more exercise while I am at. More degrees of freedom.

I have been using the full Blue line and feeder buses since 2020, so I love the new system. It is substantially better than the old system. I am just looking to sort out how the on demand part works to tie things together now that my route does not run quite as late as it used to.

to group old stop data and new stop data as a way of understanding origin - destination flows and changes in flows. It would make a good project. I had dreamed something like this up the other day, but without the detail of a specific grouping.
@bjornradstrom.bsky.social.

Given that a ton of stops have changed, I think an interesting way to get at understanding trips would be to use some sensible grouping (possibly the neighbourhood characterization areas (NCA) data.winnipeg.ca/dataset/Map-..., or Forward Sortation Areas (FSA) www.arcgis.com/home/item.ht...

I had noted that my home route stops running after a certain time of day. I have noted that there are on demand buses out there that are supposed to fill current gaps. So I intend to use my newly downloaded app to experiment with using this system over the summer so I understand how to use it.

This is why I typically do my own shopping in person. If it is a special order I get it sent to their store so if I reject it, it is easy to return on site. Had enough of crappy order fulfillment.

REPORT | Planorama: How the English planning system can learn from abroad 🌍

This report looks at the commonalities between France, Germany and Japan's planning systems, and how the English system differs.  

🧵👇
buff.ly/aiJzIL9

First – local planning.

We re-frame the ‘zoning’ vs ‘discretionary’ debate. When you look at how other planning systems work, it is clear that they exercise discretion.

But they do it BEFORE, rather than after, planning applications are submitted.

NEW @centreforcities.bsky.social REPORT OUT TODAY!

In Planorama, Luka and I argue that if we want English planning to perform more like its international peers – Germany, France and Japan - it needs to BE more like them.

🧵 on what that means...