Reece Martin

So weird, the city just seems to love doing peculiar anti-transit stuff. I’m sure roads aren’t gonna be closed to drivers!

Montreal’s Municipal Election has Generated a Fantastic Transit Idea. Projet Montreal has another mobility trick up its sleeve.

Montreal’s Municipal Election has Generated a Fantastic Transit Idea. Read my latest article now:

nextmetro.substack.com/p/montreals-...

Tram

"metrolinx tried to build a skytrain" is the best thing I've ever heard aboutthem

New York is also dysfunctional

What’s wrong with the TTC? Possibly who they look to . . .

Making the Eglinton Crosstown elevated through Scarborough would have made it immensely better

Please don't call it LRT

I think I've been fully won over to the need for pro-rep in Canada

What is possible and what happens in practice are wildly different

A blue background graphic reads: “Don’t agree with this? Well too bad. Doug Ford’s PCs have been elected to three majority governments even though almost 60% of voters chose another party. When one party can rule with only 40% support, corruption thrives.” Below is a tweet from Colin D’Mello describing executives and owners of organizations that received Ford government funding and then donated money back to the PC Party, followed by the caption: “With proportional representation, no party can win a majority unless they actually earn one. That means accountability and collaboration instead of corruption rubber stamped by a phony majority.”

Doug Ford’s donors give millions. Doug Ford’s friends get millions. All while his party wins “majorities” with only 40% of the vote.

When power is handed to a minority, accountability disappears.

It is time for proportional representation in Ontario.

FYI, the whole point of "revenue service demonstration" is to demonstrate a revenue service, which includes stopping at stops.

It doesn't have to be, they test

A tramway seems really nice and fashionable when you get into a car every day but when you actually use public transit you just want what’s gonna get you to your destination fastest

Went up to Finch Avenue, a long fear I have had is that the new light rail would be slower than the buses it replaced, and it seems like that may well be the case.

So many decision makers in Toronto are drivers that they don’t realize that people might take public transit because it’s fast

Those midday trains enhance not only the all day usefulness, but also mean you can commute in late, or come home early. It gives you the optionality you get with a car, a bus, or skytrain!

Poor ridership is the excuse to not run more trains, but a train that runs a few times in the morning and evening is a crappy service. Even just running 1 train per hour in the midday like some GO lines in Toronto do would be a game changed.

Toronto has already shown you can run frequent regional train service along freight lines by building more infrastructure (obviously), but also I think its important to remember ridership is circular.

YouTube video by CBC British Columbia Why is it so hard to make Metro Van's only train line better?

Good little vid on the West Coast Express from @jmcelroy.bsky.social www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hry3...

The service can and should be so much better, but it really suffers from the "every jurisdiction must reinvent the wheel" problem in Canadian transport

YouTube video by Radio-Canada Info Le tronçon Deux-Montagnes du REM devrait être mis en service le 17 novembre

I think we underestimate how appreciated the existence of non-car alternatives is for the layperson. The mayor of Deux-Montagnes says that he loves the REM, and recognizes that mobility has changed, that car- & bike-sharing are picking up even in his far-flung suburb.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCxW...

The High Speed Rail and the city - part 2 More tracks, but for whom? The case of the Bologna-Castel Bolognese fast quad-tracking and the problem of disentangling mixed traffic.

I finally completed my second long form post dedicated to the problem of High Speed Rail and the city, or "who goes with whom in the puzzle of traffic separation around large urban areas?"

I hope you enjoy.

open.substack.com/pub/marcochi...

For sure, thus why I'm looking for someone!

Anyone in Montreal / Quebec want to write a piece with me for the Gazette or similar on making sure the Eastern Structuring Project isn't terrible? Anyone following me working at a Montreal outlet who wants to do something on this?

Life with AI. My History and How I'm Living With The Biggest Technological Revolution in Decades.

My thoughts on AI as a former technologist.

open.substack.com/pub/cinqpers...

I hate to say it, but a lot of places are pretty good at handling collective action! I mean, hell even New York has congestion pricing

It’s not the same as Uber and we all know that!

Outside of exurban and rural areas I don’t think you’re going to ever see Waymo be that cheap because I just don’t think it will have the carrying capacity. In a place like Canada I mostly see it as a solution for places that are pretty deep in suburbia, but I think that’ll be a gradual transition.

I think this is actually pretty clear!

1) Auto buses surely aren’t that far behind auto cars (once widely deployed)
2) Bus lanes are deeply underrated, if Waymo costs four dollars you are definitely going to have enough congestion to make that differentiator for the bus.

I think this highlights the problem. You're reading stuff I haven’t said in things I’ve said

what was said?