Nick Shaw

Screenshot of LinkedIn post from Yellowknife Mayor describing the costs and consequences of trucks having gotten so much bigger. In the link, he explains the backlash he received for his post.

This is good —the Mayor of Yellowknife NWT in Canada’s far north weighs in on “Car Bloat” (truck bloat actually) and its many big costs & consequences (thanks @davidzipper.bsky.social for heads-up). And like most who dare tell the truth about that, he’s taking flack.
www.linkedin.com/mwlite/feed/...

You know what I like about trains?

Everything.

They take you nice places, and don’t mess up the world getting you there.

#Lugano #Switzerland #railsky

Map of the Eglinton East Light Rail Transit project—a proposed 27 stop, 18.6 km light rail transit line (future Line 7) spanning across eastern Scarborough. This is one of the City of Toronto’s two priority transit projects.

“Business as usual” is not free. Yet in transit investment decisions, BAU is often seen as “do nothing”—a non-choice.
On Eglinton East LRT in Toronto, we showed that buses couldn’t absorb projected growth. A higher-capacity line isn’t just better—it’s the only viable choice.

In Canada, risk management in transit delivery focuses on cost overruns + schedule delays.
What’s missing? Risk to benefit realization.
If benefits aren’t protected in delivery, you don’t just slip the schedule—you chip away at why the project existed in the first place.

Income and risk adjustments to the fines would probably close the gap in the still high % of drivers operating dangerously. Vehicle weight and hood height are all linked to the plate. As a proxy for income, estimate the car value from the make and year.

If North America wants to implement effective transit priority in its legacy gridded neighbourhoods, it needs to understand that many lateral streets will need to stop to be through streets

Congrats to Ana Bailão. As her former constituent, I watched her work closely as she was consistently the voice of housing reform looong before the political establishment realized there was a crisis.

Also, this fund to acquire “at-risk” apartment buildings seems like a big deal

Always feels risky to critique fire depts—I have deep respect for those on the ground. But orgs like LAFD pushing myths against single-stair design & safer streets show a blind spot: planning is about trade-offs, not black/white thinking. Stakeholders need to know their lane.

Existing: 4-lane collector
Proposed: centre running LRT with sod track bed, 1 general purpose lane per direction between the LRT guideway and new raised cycle track.
Their concern was response times. The unprofessional shaming was a response to a challenge to their all-or-nothing position.

A colleague of mine, an experienced senior planner, was once told point blank by a FD stakeholder that they’d have children’s blood on their hands. Why? For suggesting that the bike lanes they opposed could actually improve response times because they were wide enough to accommodate their trucks

In my transportation planning work, goods movement sometimes feels like that cousin who moved to cross the country to Vancouver when you were a kid and now you’re not sure you really know them anymore. Time to pick up that phone, lots to discuss.

Your Comeback Guide to all the Anti-Cycling Arguments You’ll Hear This Year Anti-bike arguments aren’t just frustrating—they’re outdated, inaccurate, and often repeated without a shred of evidence.

“We can’t all be expected to bike.”

Fair. But that’s not the point.

“Not everyone can or wants to bike. But some people can & do—and they deserve a safe, efficient, affordable way to move through the city. It’s about freedom of choice.”

This & other useful comebacks, in @momentummag.bsky.social.

Axonometric hand drawn illustration of Bloor-Yonge Station in Toronto by Sigmund Serafin commissioned by the TTC. Source: City of Toronto Archives (1957, Fonds 16, Series 2449, Item 1)

Rendering: Future Exhibition Station aerial view looking east, featuring shared GO/Ontario Line station building and platforms in foreground. Source: Metrolinx (2022)

The art of storytelling in transit planning is under appreciated. You can have all the quantitative proof your project is great, but if you can’t inspire it will be at risk.
Graphics are key and I love the evolution in Toronto from 1950s hand sketch to shiny renderings in the 2020s.

What's the best way to get to a major car-event? By train!

Thanks to great efforts of the Dutch Railways (NS), which ran a train every 5 minutes, last weekend thousands of Formula 1 fans were able to travel to Zandvoort for the Dutch Grand Prix in a sustainable way.

📽 by Tijmen Voet on LinkedIn.

Better get started on that ephemeral sketch animation now

Image of a fire station in Paris, France showing small fire trucks in the background and two firefighters in spandex shorts scrubbing floors in the foreground

Paris fire station: where the trucks and uniforms fit the form. A gay transportation planner’s dream.

A fun design tweak in Tbilisi flipping the travel direction of their BRT system. Allows island platforms without the need for specialized bus fleet with driver-side doors. Save capital and O&M costs while allowing interlining with routes that run curbside part of the way. Probably slows traffic too

Nap shame is real tho, maybe because after kindergarten suddenly it was like “big kids don’t nap.” Let me have a guilt-free Power Nap at the office and I think some of the RTO resistance will be pacified (pun intended)

More e-bikes = more, longer trips via active modes. It’s a win-win for me & the city: Per ride subsidy is less than half the TTC & $0 subsidy on the horizon

As the city continues to grow the fleet and upgrade docks for e-bike charging, the benefits will grow and costs will shrink 💚 /fin

Toronto Bike Share’s growing e-bike fleet is a promising addition to the city’s mobility landscape.

Loaded with groceries from the St. Lawrence Market, I only chose bike share for the 6.5km uphill trip home because of an available e-bike. Reliable 29 min $2.10 vs 42+min $3.30 on streetcar /1

As EV sales surge and China's economic structure changes, its oil demand is set to reach a peak in 2027

As a result, global oil demand growth is on track to slow to a halt by the end of this decade.

Read more in our Oil 2025 report 👉 iea.li/4lmN0l0

This fundamentally changed my view of P3s; I don’t fall for the trope that private sector is evil. The private sector will do exactly as you ask with the right carrots and sticks in place. It’s time think topdown—decide the outcomes and design our P3s to achieve that. //fin

When I visited the Skånetrafiken bus control centre during my 2008 undergrad exchange in Sweden, I learned payments withheld when customer satisfaction goes below a threshold but they got huge bonuses when going above and beyond. Which they did and it showed. /3

I boarded a bus in Oslo and it felt like I had gotten into a Tesla. Smooth, quiet, comfortable. This isn’t a mystery, nor inherently european; we get what we ask for. And in N. America we don’t ask for much. Hence the rattles. Putting the rider satisfaction in performance based procurement is key /2

I think it’s time for N. American transit agencies to get serious about bus passenger comfort. You can’t even savour the “new bus smell” before the sensory onslaught begins. Close your eyes and imagine what astronauts must feel like when reentering the earth’s atmosphere.
It’s about procurement /1

Same. In my experience when this happens it means something is about to break in me, in a good way. Let it flow !

A pansy squeezing between a cinder block and gravel to grow and bloom

Good morning to everyone over coming obstacles to beat the odds.

Photo looking south down Avenue Jean Médecin in Nice, France in July 2025 showing arcade sidewalk on the sides with two tram tracks running down the centre. (Credit: Nick Shaw)

Looking west on Queen Street West from Yonge Street c. 2021 pre-temporary closure for Ontario Line subway construction. Four travel lanes, two centre lanes shared by general traffic and streetcars. (Credit: Google Street View)

In downtown Toronto, Queen St is closed to all traffic for 2 blocks for Ontario Line construction. When evaluating alternative closure options back in '21, I was struck by how person-trips by transit riders and pedestrians dwarfed auto trips

When this reopens in 2027, let's be like Nice, France 💖

The station is still important but I totally agree: to delay electrification breaks an implicit contract with the community—for noise & emissions but for the promised subway-like service levels. Hoping Mx is considering battery electric dual-mode locomotives as a stop gap

Map showing the conceptual location of a multiuse path alongside the Barrie GO rail corridor connecting to the Davenport Diamond Greenway at Bloor Street West and the West Toronto Rail Path at Dundas Street West.

Map showing the project footprint of the future Bloor-Landsdowne GO station. The footprint extends north and south of the station to encompass the multi-use path construction.

The future Bloor-Landsdowne GO station in Toronto’s west end is advancing. I found out at yesterdays public meeting that the scope includes a multi-use path connecting the Davenport Diamond Greenway (under construction) and West Toronto Rail Path. Finally some good cycling news! youtu.be/hGjlcdBnA34