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Marcus P.

@reluctantaxe.bsky.social

92 followers 110 following 810 posts

Tabletop gaming enthusiast, urban planning & transit advocate, and Kamcon gaming convention organiser.

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Marcus P. @reluctantaxe.bsky.social · 12h

What if we added drivers, ignored doing any maintenance or modernisation, went with an at grade lrt instead of extending it on the provinces dime, and spent a decade and billions to replace it with a subway

Reposted by Marcus P.

august 🍂 @auguststreet.ca · 14h

7pm on a sunday in vancouver.

just missed a train while going up the escalator. the next train is now, 2 min, and 5 min. i love being in this city 💜

busy skytrain station platform at night

Marcus P. @reluctantaxe.bsky.social · 20h

I wish someone would collect the ridership totals of all agencies in each metro area to improve comparisons. Back of napkin calculations put major Canadian CMAs closer to the NYC MSA on a ridership per capita basis than most would assume. Canadian expansions may even put them on par.

Marcus P. @reluctantaxe.bsky.social · 1d

I'm more commenting on the urban form of the towers, mega tower complexes surrounded by large arterial roads leaves a lot to be desired. I'll take the density but I am not a huge fan of how the city has shaped the growth. Maybe I will be proven wrong when the buildout is complete though

Marcus P. @reluctantaxe.bsky.social · 1d

I had friends who moved out to what was one of the villages turned suburb outside of Edmonton. Their new build neighbourhood is almost entirely SFH on 25' frontages or townhouses and has a multi-use path all the way to the centre of town. Even the areas of Canada we consider sprawly aren't that bad

Marcus P. @reluctantaxe.bsky.social · 1d

The CMA seems to include a lot of rural Gatineau which seems to have quite a bit of rural acreages on top of the rural outlining areas of Ottawa itself.

Marcus P. @reluctantaxe.bsky.social · 1d

Even low density suburbs of Metro Vancouver have enough density to justify at least half hourly busses allowing residents to get anywhere in the metro area, even if it's not convenient. We also don't have the giant HOA developments with only one way in and out so it's easier to get to transit too

Marcus P. @reluctantaxe.bsky.social · 1d

For sure the high density in the GTA suburbs, Vaughn and Mississauga in particular, are pretty bad. The only saving grace is the density makes transit a viable alternative to diving unlike low density sprawl

Reposted by Marcus P.

Marcus P. @reluctantaxe.bsky.social · 1d

A Redditor made a graph of the percent of population of US and Canada metro areas over 1 million that live in a given density. When they ordered them by average density the lowest ranked Canadian metro area, Edmonton, was ranked 14th between Miami and Washington. 6 of the top 15 were Canadian metros

Graph of Canada and US metro areas with a breakdown of percentage of people that live in density density bands

Marcus P. @reluctantaxe.bsky.social · 1d

Really it should be handed across the province by a provincial agency or contracted out by the province. It's not complicated to implement, as to why there are dozens of different apps and some lots accept multiple.

Marcus P. @reluctantaxe.bsky.social · 1d

The suburban form in Canadian metro areas are usually much denser than US suburbs. Tighter SFH spacing, ADUs are commonplace, and low rise apartments/condos are common to see in the suburbs. Not to mention the high density in city centres that is much less common in the US

Marcus P. @reluctantaxe.bsky.social · 1d

A Redditor made a graph of the percent of population of US and Canada metro areas over 1 million that live in a given density. When they ordered them by average density the lowest ranked Canadian metro area, Edmonton, was ranked 14th between Miami and Washington. 6 of the top 15 were Canadian metros

Graph of Canada and US metro areas with a breakdown of percentage of people that live in density density bands

Marcus P. @reluctantaxe.bsky.social · 2d

Just vibes but I believe that Australia didn't have nearly as much cargo traffic compared to Canada and it was probably easier to transition the network's over to passenger service.

Marcus P. @reluctantaxe.bsky.social · 10d

They should start having tow truck drivers on standby like at the bridge and tunnels at rush hour to just immediately tow double parkers no questions asked and no warnings

Marcus P. @reluctantaxe.bsky.social · 10d

I'm honestly surprised with how many are taking the 49 though I assume that between not dealing with Kerrisdale and getting onto SW Marine Drive quicker it's probably not that much slower between UBC and the Canada line than the R4

Marcus P. @reluctantaxe.bsky.social · 10d

Yeah but the justification is usually don't build past Steeles since it's overcapacity, not don't extend the line it's overcapacity. And in imho the extension to highway 7 seems needed on a network connectivity level on top of using the Richmond Hill line for capacity relief and long distance travel

Marcus P. @reluctantaxe.bsky.social · 10d

I can live with Metro Vancouver not getting in on the low floor street level LRT fad that the rest of the country seems to have fallen for. Outside of Waterloo, the rest of the country seems to have not understood where street level LRT really works

Marcus P. @reluctantaxe.bsky.social · 10d

I'm also tired of seeing people arguing that line 1 shouldn't be expanded to highway 7 and should stop at Steeles Ave, an idea that would never come up if you didn't know the municipal boarders.

Marcus P. @reluctantaxe.bsky.social · 10d

I'm waiting to see TTC apologists handwave the speed issues with the Finch West LRT when it opens and is slower than express buses it replaces and only slightly faster than streetcar lines with their own RoWs. The fantasy that Transit City was going to be some transit utopia will hopefully go away.

Marcus P. @reluctantaxe.bsky.social · 10d

Like yeah a short stub line in the suburban part of Toronto doesn't perform well compared to other Toronto lines but still outperforms most American RT. If Toronto could actually build lien 4 to some useful length, to McCowan, Shepard west st. or both, it would outperform most US systems on its own.

Marcus P. @reluctantaxe.bsky.social · 13d

The only reasonable sized truck these days is the Maverick but they don't sell a 2 door version with a reasonable length bed

Marcus P. @reluctantaxe.bsky.social · 15d

Spending elevated SkyTrain money to build a LRT that just improves capacity and maybe beats the old bus at rush hour travel is an achievement.

august 🍂 @auguststreet.ca · 15d

painful to see slow zones on the finch west LRT before it even opens. this portal has been speed limited to 10 km/h.

thanks to unplanned slow zones and weak, passive signal priority, trains are taking longer to complete trips, and gaps are wider.

multiple cases of 12-15 min waits on line 6 😒😒

Marcus P. @reluctantaxe.bsky.social · 15d

I'm really curious what the average travel times end up being when it goes into full service, as it stands the current scheduled travel time of 38 minutes is straight up anemic

Marcus P. @reluctantaxe.bsky.social · 16d

The end cost at the end of the supply chain is quite a lot for what is a few drops of lactase

Marcus P. @reluctantaxe.bsky.social · 16d

There are only two real alternatives to MV either the province takes direct control or major amalgamation of some sort. Neither of those is going to go over well.