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ohtheurbanity.bsky.social
Oh The Urbanity!
@ohtheurbanity.bsky.social
More housing, bikes, and transit.

https://youtube.com/@ohtheurbanity

📍 Montreal, Quebec
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The Best Cycling City No One Talks About

with (among many others) @burgundavia.bsky.social and @ryanjabs.bsky.social
The Best Cycling City No One Talks About
YouTube video by Oh The Urbanity!
youtu.be
“There is limited signal priority permitted by the City of Toronto.” - Metrolinx
Not just months. It's been decided since at least 2020.
December 7, 2025 at 9:09 PM
Reposted by Oh The Urbanity!
It’s insane that within just a few weeks, two of Canada’s major cities opened polar opposite transit systems.

REM - An extension to a high frequency, fast, fully automated metro system

Finch West - A many years late, over budget, disastrously slow light rail line
December 7, 2025 at 7:27 PM
Not sure if the US is similar, but in Canada there’s an interesting split.

Soccer/football is the #1 organized sport for kids to play. Adults often play too.

But then it’s far behind hockey in terms of sports people watch.

(Rugby is another game that seems more common to play than to watch here.)
Americans don't even like football. From what I read and heard, the only Americans who managed to build an authentic and genuine football club culture, are the African American fans of a club in Atlanta.
December 7, 2025 at 7:18 PM
Montreal uses a white bar to give an advanced signal to buses.

When I first moved here, I actually didn’t realize what they meant (until I thought about it for five seconds).
December 7, 2025 at 7:09 PM
Reposted by Oh The Urbanity!
The reason I'm very pessimistic about aggressive TSP in North America is that we have an engineering profession that is stuck in outdated practices and very entrenched. It's not just the car lobby. It's the very isolated professional world that fear innovation like it's cholera.
December 7, 2025 at 3:51 AM
Reposted by Oh The Urbanity!
Toronto making their new light rail signals look identical to traffic signals is deranged, and it's not even universally a Canadian thing. Check out these very MUTCD-lookin' signals in Edmonton (left) compared to the standard variety on SEPTA (right).
December 7, 2025 at 4:52 PM
Reposted by Oh The Urbanity!
Finch
REM
December 7, 2025 at 1:42 PM
Reposted by Oh The Urbanity!
#PlowTheSidewalks field trip to Montreal.
December 7, 2025 at 5:35 AM
Reposted by Oh The Urbanity!
Montréal plows it sidewalks
Sidewalk snow plow in Montréal
This is "Sidewalk snow plow in Montréal" by Steven Vance on Vimeo, the home for high quality videos and the people who love them.
vimeo.com
December 7, 2025 at 4:54 AM
Reposted by Oh The Urbanity!
Two years ago, Montreal’s bike share stayed open over winter for the 1st time as a limited pilot project (150 of ~1,000 stations).

Last year it expanded to 200 stations.

This year it’s up to 234 stations, mainly in off-street locations that don’t disturb snow plowing/removal.

See the progression!
December 7, 2025 at 12:49 AM
Reposted by Oh The Urbanity!
Winter city, 💯
December 7, 2025 at 3:28 AM
I like living in a place where renting is common and normalized and homeownership culture is not as strong.

Specifically, I dislike the common idea that you’re a “failure” if you rent (or you’re being “exploited”). And the culture that glorifies rising house prices.
December 7, 2025 at 2:14 AM
Two years ago, Montreal’s bike share stayed open over winter for the 1st time as a limited pilot project (150 of ~1,000 stations).

Last year it expanded to 200 stations.

This year it’s up to 234 stations, mainly in off-street locations that don’t disturb snow plowing/removal.

See the progression!
December 7, 2025 at 12:49 AM
Reposted by Oh The Urbanity!
My 5 year old came home from kindergarten a couple days ago asking if anyone was going to come to her school and take her, or take other kids.

She wasn't able to articulate where she got this worry or what she'd heard. But many of her fellow students are Somali.

I hate this so much.
December 5, 2025 at 1:23 AM
Reposted by Oh The Urbanity!
Tell City Council to make the best of billion-dollar LRT lines by enabling full transit signal priority, including over left-turning vehicles so we can have the fast, reliable, and frequent service that rapid transit promises.

Sign here: www.ttcriders.ca/greenlight
Give Transit the Green Light
www.ttcriders.ca
December 6, 2025 at 9:04 PM
Is anyone else noticing the iOS keyboard getting worse?

From stupid recommendations (“ABS” instead of “and”) to automatically adding extra spaces whenever I try to fix its errors.

It reinforces my old person opinion that phones are an awful substitute for real keyboards on a computer.
December 6, 2025 at 10:45 PM
Reposted by Oh The Urbanity!
The fact that the US and Russia don't like the EU makes me like it more
December 6, 2025 at 9:29 PM
The Washington–Moscow–Budapest Axis
Elon Musk and his Russian friends call for the abolishment of the EU
December 6, 2025 at 8:56 PM
Reposted by Oh The Urbanity!
What are we doing here? 170m between streetcar stops. It makes the service borderline unusable.
December 6, 2025 at 5:37 PM
Reposted by Oh The Urbanity!
One of the biggest drivers of high housing costs is that a small, highly motivated group of incumbent homeowners block new housing in their neighborhoods and almost no one is organized to push back.

Young people bear the brunt of that imbalance.

Be a housing fan.
December 6, 2025 at 4:22 PM
Reposted by Oh The Urbanity!
They should build them taller. Buildings can be taller than six stories.
December 6, 2025 at 4:01 PM
Reposted by Oh The Urbanity!
Honestly think This Hour has 22 Minutes is way better than SNL:
December 6, 2025 at 1:06 PM
Snow build-up on the sides of a bike lane (inevitable to some extent) is one of the big reasons Montreal has been preferring wider one-way bike lanes over the two-way designs that used to be standard here.

They’re also better for cargo bikes and higher rush hour volumes.
Because of the snow, I was thinking this was a bi-directional bike lane & when I realized it was just a really wide one way bike lane, I was sad for us in #yycbike with our bi-directional lanes. Don't get me wrong, better than nothing, but this just looks so pleasant.
December 6, 2025 at 3:31 PM
Sidewalk snow plow in Caledon, an outer suburb of Toronto.
December 6, 2025 at 2:00 PM
I wish every single article on gerrymandering would include this disclaimer:

“This is a unique aspect of the American political system. Most other countries don’t allow politicians to draw electoral maps. Many even go further with proportional representation to ensure outcomes match votes.”
Indiana state house Republicans just approved a new 9-0 gerrymandered map ousting two US House Democrats, giving Republicans 100% of seats in state where Trump got 58% of vote
December 6, 2025 at 3:06 AM