Phil Pothen 🇨🇦

Screenshot from zoom meeting with Hamilton residents about how to defend their city's plan to build tens of thousands of family-sized homes inside existing neighbourhoods rather than squandering their construction and infrastructure on inefficient sprawl.

With Hamilton 350 and Environment Hamilton, briefing Hamilton residents on how to defend their city's plan to build tens of thousands of family-sized homes inside existing neighbourhoods rather than squandering their construction and infrastructure on inefficient sprawl.

With every year I find myself falling ever further into the stereotype of an Indo-Canadian dad.

While it's a bit much to expect that my kids, their spouses and my grandkids will all live with me, it's reassuring to know there will be LOTS of options in my neighborhood.

To each of the 8000 new families who'll soon be moving to my neighbourhood: Welcome home!

To our governments: it's long past time to get cracking on new and expanded community centres, public squares, and much expanded public schools on OUR "side of the tracks".

image @futuremodelTO

Councillor offers compromise in the Bathurst bus lane battle On Tuesday, Dianne Saxe offered a compromise between transit advocates seeking faster commute and small area businesses anxious over the loss of their livelihoods with the removal of parking spaces

We’re now hearing rumors that Transportation Services, in their collective fear, will recommend further abandoning the RapidTO plan on Bathurst, North of Bloor. Councillor Saxe wants to delay the project until AFTER the election.

A tremendous disservice to the people of Toronto. Shame! 13/

Now onto GO Expansion - enough has been said about this terrible tragedy.

This project would’ve served as the backbone of our network, bringing suburban cities like Oakville, Brampton, & Markham closer to downtown than the city’s inner neighbourhoods. That dream has largely been de-scoped. 14/

And because of a few loud NIMBYs, Toronto’s spineless municipal politicians (Perruzza, Nunziata, and Pasternak) have now effectively killed the Jane RapidTO project, starving their wards of better transit service.

This is all while they concern-troll the community with excuses. 12/

To date, only one corridor has been built, with the rest being stonewalled by countless political delays and endless rounds of community consultation. Remember - this is for a project that consists ENTIRELY of RED PAINT!

If you're wondering why soft costs are so high even for simple projects... 11/

RapidTO Plan

Unfortunately, as we know, two pillars - RapidTO and GO Expansion - are currently in a sorry state.

RapidTO originally consisted of 5 initial corridors - Jane, Dufferin, Bathurst, Steeles, and Eglinton East - which by my rough math would’ve served more than 272,000 RIDERS PER DAY. 10/

Ontario Line boardings by station per hour (incl. transfers), Preliminary design business case

This is a common misunderstanding about the project: OL provides network relief precisely because it makes 2nd order connections to the bus network through GO - not just because it connects to the existing subway at Pape!

Our 3 pillars MUST work together to deliver the new transport paradigm. 9/

RapidTO: Eglinton Avenue East As part of RapidTO: Eglinton Avenue East, 8.5-kilometres of priority bus lanes were added along Eglinton Avenue East, Kingston Road and Morningside Avenue from Brimley Road to the University of Toront...

By rolling out bus lanes quickly with cheap RED PAINT, these corridors instantly gain better service - higher frequency, reliability, capacity, & speed.

The first iteration on Eglinton East has been a smashing success - delivering nearly ALL the benefits of the $4 BILLION EELRT for $4 MILLION. 6/

Our first pillar, RapidTO, capitalizes on this. Toronto’s wasteland suburbs have many of the highest ridership bus lines on the continent - busier than frequent bus lines in central Manhattan!

Currently, packed suburban busses are stuck in traffic, giving way to a small minority in cars! 5/

Ontario fare integration program used 35M times in 1st year | Globalnews.ca In February last year, the Ford government launched its OneFare plan and promised to eliminate the barriers for commuters switching between transit systems in and around Toronto.

With fare integration - that number is growing, with more riders transferring from the GO network.

This is why Toronto’s subway has been successful despite being small; although the vast majority of riders DON’T live on the subway, they DO live on a frequent bus that takes them to a station! 4/

The Yonge Street corridor - lined with towers

Toronto's frequent connecting grid of suburban busses

Take the Yonge subway - the city’s most important transit artery.

Many people think that its crowding comes from all the dense development along the line - this is FALSE.

The vast majority of trips on the subway - 77% - come from Toronto’s world-class grid of connecting local busses. 3/

It's a depressing time in Toronto - a city that once had the continent's most ambitious city-building initiative.

This transformation had 3 KEY PILLARS:
1. RapidTO
2. GO Expansion
3. Ontario Line

Two pillars have been watered down beyond recognition - DEVASTATING for the region. Here's why: 1/🧵

Bill C-5 grants ‘superpowers’ never before seen in ‘environmental law history’: Bloc critic Patrick Bonin The One Canadian Economy Act is being rammed through the House via a ‘non-democratic’ process and would result in governmental overreach, say the Bloc Québécois, who plan to vote against the bill.

Bill C-5 is being rammed through the House via a ‘non-democratic’ process and would result in governmental overreach, say the Bloc Québécois, who plan to vote against the bill.

www.hilltimes.com/story/2025/0...

@brenttoderian.bsky.social hope you'll add me to your starter pack. Ontario Environment Program Manager and lead on land use and land development at Environmental Defence

It's amazing how the federal Liberals to seesaw between two, ideologically very different identities, while maintaining the loyalty of the same people. A centrist party espousing sympathies w progressivism... vs. European-style *right-leaning* classical liberal part (as under Chretien & now Carney).

e.g, Quebec succession, while retaining the Crown and maintaining association with Canada as against the U.S.) which was the proposal in 1995 was much less of a threat to Canada as a whole N's a breach of the goal of Confederation (keep Canada out of the U.S.) than any annexation by the U.S.A.

Ordinarily the mechanism would be consent of other provinces... But we're not talking about succession alone, but annexation by a foreign republic - which triggers a more restrictive process - AND makes everyone else consenting much less likely.

Ontario: neighbourhood character is very important if you’re adding a four-storey apartment building into a de-populating established area, but if you’re building a key transport hub to anchor a new neighbourhood of thousands of people who gives a shit what it looks like

The centrepiece of a $30 billion transit system. Absolute bottom of the barrel crap designed by an engineering firm.

ooh neat.

Mexico President: 🇲🇽 "US Customs and Border Protection data show that 80% of those arrested for fentanyl trafficking at US ports of entry were US citizens" #cdnpoli

Justin Trudeau is cool to the idea of a "middle ground" settlement and will reject any scenario where Canada has to rescind all its counter-tariffs to get partial US tariff relief, a government official tells Bloomberg. Trudeau is set to speak to Trump later this morning.

This is utterly idiotic. Douglas Todd is plainly not proposing it in good faith. The challenge in Ontario & BC is to shift the KIND of housing we build to more EFFICIENT formats & infill locations where you don't waste much of your input building new streets etc. Opening GREENFIELD is the opposite.

Amazing. He has published *numerous* columns arguing that housing supply is not a useful goal. Utter hypocrisy.

A big shout out to Derek from Ottawa Police.
He was my "liaison" when OPS heard I was supporting the Ukraine protesters.
When the convoy crew showed up to confront me Derek said "Oh these are local journalists. You won't need me here anymore."
And he tiptoed away.
Classic Ottawa police.

YouTube video by Charlie Angus Charlie Angus Takes on Troll Mob at Russian Embassy, Ottawa

Unlike the Maga-Maple Conservatives I don't feed coffee and donuts to trolls.
Especially when they show up to harass peaceful protesters at the Russian Embassy.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=yF6N...

I think it's partly that we've forgotten what a *normal* winter looked like. Thanks to climate change, it takes an extreme La Nina year to bring NORMAL winter back.

This!