The Eglinton East LRT, Toronto's Planning Problems, and Five Better Projects. Keeping bad projects around is bad.

My ideas for Scarborough transit - that's hopefully better than the Eglinton East LRT.

open.substack.com/pub/nextmetr...

Why do you complain about transit media coverage in Toronto Reece?

Better than the Ubers that are already on the road

Thats banning them is a mistake? That having safer cars is a net benefit for the city and that the real negative externalities have existing *broad* policy solutions that we should apply to all cars.

I see no reason why they would not make things better

I think its pretty clear that banning Waymo is not the best path forward for Toronto

Toronto is good, all things considered. A much needed dose of reality. And a good place to build a life. (And maybe a bit of cope?)

My latest, pretty optimistic post about Toronto.

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

Its not so simple.

Waymo reportedly plans to test robo taxis in Ontario. Toronto’s mayor has her doubts about its technology The California-based company said Friday only that it has met with officials in Toronto to explain its technology and advocate for a legal framework suitable for its autonomous ride-hailing service.

Waymo in Toronto. The TTC and City Need to get serious about transit lanes and priority.

www.thestar.com/news/gta/way...

LibTwitter

In some measures :)

Hahahahaha

Two thoughts I was having.

Ah, what if I made videos again?
Oh, I could not take the stress with the way people are talking about high speed rail. . .

Aspirationally São Paulo. What should North America strive for?

Instead to looking to Asian or European cities, North American cities should look closer to home — to São Paulo for some transit inspiration.

open.substack.com/pub/nextmetr...

Well that’s too bad. As the first TTC-controlled project in a while, Waterfront East could be a flagship for lower cost design & construction. I just don’t get why the TTC could build 2.5 km of track on Queensway in 2017 for ~$9m but now budgets $2+ billion to do <4 km.

cdn.ttc.ca/-/media/Proj...

ICYMI

I think the chance it is built cheaper is basically 0 now

"Waterfront East Transit". Governments come together to disappoint me.

I have thoughts on the Waterfront East LRT.

open.substack.com/pub/nextmetr...

!?

This is Twitter

Making a Masters. Is it time to go back to school?

Making a Masters Degree for myself.

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

Broadway Subway Construction - March 2026 YouTube video by StainerTheFirst

In this video is their main subway project, which is running just a little late and over budget, but cost significantly less per km than anything Toronto is building, and will be hugely busy from day 1.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-9E...

One of the most frustrating side effects of the "everyone in Canada is now an expect in high speed rail" is the extremely Toronto-centric "We couldn't get the Eglinton line done, so Canada is incapable of building transit!"

Vancouver has been better at this since '86.

Yeah, but color me skeptical we are going to effectively use digital twins for maintenance when IIRC the overhead maintenance department was writing everything on paper even recently and was having tons of problems. Sometimes you really do need to walk first.

Its one organization with only so many people and resources. While streetcars currently continue to atrophy ridership and are slower than ever, having people trying to "innovate" things for trams that are better done elsewhere feels like a poor utilization of resources.

What can I say, I'm not the CEO

Like I get that nobody wants to be the person to say things like this. But really, can we crawl before we run?

It feels hard to justify spending effort on "drone-based digital twins" when we aren't using switches from this century and streetcars are often 30 minutes apart for no good reason.

High-Speed Rail and Canada's Lost Conservatives. A sad pairing.

Yet another look into Alto in light of yesterday’s… news.

open.substack.com/pub/nextmetr...

With the Liberals not having delivered intercity rail in the last 11 years, and the Conservatives solution being "we just won't build stuff! for *those* people in Ontario and Quebec (the majority of the countries population)" I'm reminded that what I really want is pro-rep.