Andrés Valencia 🚅🌇🚲

Light Rail: Toronto's Struggles With Speed The irony of Toronto’s transit politics and a hope for future projects.

📑🏙️ First article is out! 🙌 Today, we're on the news! Discussing Toronto's Finch West LRT opening, how we can learn from Waterloo's ION LRT success, and the bigger conversation of prioritizing speed in our generational transit investments!

Take a look below!🚈6️⃣

open.substack.com/pub/urbanplu...

Urban: PLUS ULTRA What does it mean for cities to go 'further beyond' (plus ultra)?

Hey Everyone! I’m super excited to share a new project I’m working on. Urban: PLUS ULTRA is a space for discussion on Transport, Infrastructure, and Urbanism on a roughly weekly basis. Take a quick read at the link below! 😄

open.substack.com/pub/urbanplu...

Canada is getting high-speed rail The Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, today announced that Canada is developing a high-speed rail network in the Toronto-Quebec City corridor.

With the announcement of 300km/h high speed rail in Canada my only true hope is that political infighting doesn’t kill it… for now, CANADA IS GETTING HIGH SPEED RAIL!!!

www.pm.gc.ca/en/news/news...

Trudeau government to announce high-speed rail plans from Toronto to Quebec City: sources Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Transport Minister Anita Anand were slated to make an announcement Wednesday which two sources confirmed to the Star will be to build high-speed rail from

Could it be?? IS IT HAPPENING?!?
Please let Canadian high-speed rail happen 🤩🤩🤩

www.thestar.com/politics/fed...

Nothing says the US shouldn’t be able to achieve this. It’s about priorities.

China’s success with high speed rail has led to the meteoric rise of CRRC to become (by some metrics) the largest rail car/tech manufacturer in the world. Surpassing much older giants like Alstom (🇫🇷) & Siemens (🇩🇪).

After all… America did loose the Budd Company decades ago due to the disinvestment into rail. Right when European and East Asian countries were first developing their HSR systems.

It begs the question, how far could a country like the US get if they truly double down on high speed rail? Should Siemens’s concept for high speed rail tech in the US become a reality, this could be the genesis for a US passenger rail tech industry revival.

Nevertheless, Korea has taken great advantage over the years to develop their own standards and technologies for HSR. I have to say the new KTX-청룡 (Cheongryong) are lovely vehicles capable of 320kph.

Seoul’s Central Station is probably the most European style High Speed Rail station in all of east Asia… you can really see SNCF, and Alstom’s influence. And not just because their first gen trains are literally adaptions of the French TGV. (🧵👇)

… And yes, both the trains and station have that sweet sweet new station smell! 🤩

With more lines (GTX D,E,F,G) it’s amazing to see Seoul set ambitious goals fit for a metropolitan region of over 26 million people. A reminder of how much more we could be doing in North America (and elsewhere)

Once again, high speed regional metro networks are changing the landscape throughout major cities is Asia, it’s crucial to understand that much of what has driven the development of the GTX plan is a serious concern for quality of life.

With both the northern and southern legs of GTX A opened, the central tunnel from Suseo to Seoul station is expected to open in the next couple years. Construction is also underway for GTX lines B & C, planned to open the first 3 lines fully by 2030

With an average commute time of 82 minutes, the Seoul region sorely needs this investment, this section of GTX A will reduce travel times from up to 90 minutes down to 22 minutes.

This section is part of the greater GTX master plan that the government is building out to create an express regional network to reduce travel times across the metro area. Trains have a max speed of 180kph! (110 mph).

Yesterday (Dec 28), Seoul’s GTX High-Speed metro/regional rail line opened its section from Seoul Station to the Northwest at Unjeongjungang. A🧵👇

@jrurbanenetwork.bsky.social @jedwin.bsky.social

📍2) Seoul

So tell me, is your Asian city rail network in it’s “brand new and rapidly growing” phase or in it’s “old but perfectly maintained” era?

📍1) Xiamen

Every time I come to Hong Kong I end up loving it more 🤩

And as if that wasn’t enough, the airport is served by several cross border ferries and buses allowing it to serve the greater pearl river delta region with multimodal efficiency.

Don’t live near an Airport Express station? Prefer a one-seat ride to your home? Hong Kong Airport’s bus station is served by over 80 (!!) routes that together offer 24hour service across the city, many use special buses with luggage racks and spacious layouts.

And for what? A fast (130kph) comfortable, frequent (every 10 minutes) service connecting to the city centre in less than 30 minutes. Departing passengers can also check in their bags from the AirPort Express stations.

Want to talk about seamless transit? Airport transit riders don’t have to bother with fare gates as the ride is paid at the end (all payment methods accepted btw), making the plane to train experience fast and efficient.

It says a lot about a city when the primary front entrance to your major world class airport is almost completely dedicated to an Airport Express train for both arrivals and departures… Hong Kong is just on another level🤩

Wait why is this so cool?!😭

Wild that Rio de Janeiro Metro Line 2 used to be be a pre-metro using LRVs in the 1980s. As time passed the line was slowly upgraded and grade separated into a full blown metro line using third rail. LRVs drawing overhead power were used on the line well into the 2000s.

Some fantastic work on a hidden but extremely controversial problem.

Infrastructure costs ballooning is not normal everywhere, and it genuinely might be more damaging to building a better future in the Anglosphere than any NIMBY. We need change👇👇

Gonna have a hard time believing we are taking the housing "crisis" seriously when we keep putting shadows as a higher priority than affordable homes

New Expert Report: Ending Restrictions on Mid-Rise Apartment Buildings Necessary to end Housing Shortage - Environmental Defence New report spells out the steps all levels of government should take immediately to clear obstacles to deliver 1.5M new homes by 2031.

There’s a SHOCKING amount of urbanists/YIMBYs who make the argument of high rise vs midrise housing.

WE. NEED. BOTH.

Toronto is never going to get better housing if we rely solely on skyscrapers. Loving this new report by EnviroDefence 👇👇

environmentaldefence.ca/2024/11/13/n...