Jedwin Mok

NEW PUBLICATION: “Understanding the Drivers of Transit Construction Costs in Canada” The first from me, Balthazar Crane, @chittimarco.bsky.social, and Amer Shalaby. So why are transit projects so expensive in Canada? Here’s what we found: 1/🧵 stateofcitiessummit.ca/files/041224...

He says adopting the international standard would be like speaking another language “and we don’t know what that language is yet but we’re gonna operate that way soon,” which he calls “very scary.” Well sure, if you purposefully maintain ignorance, you’ll be ignorant.

the UK is just cooked. seems like every boomer there has taken up NIMBY as their retirement hobby because god forbid people have access to affordable groceries

This is a 17-storey apartment in the heart of the Plateau in Montreal. I’ve never heard anyone complain about it or say it ruins the neighbourhood. Why? It was built in 1965. People just got used to it. Many I think don’t even notice it (“there are no towers on the Plateau”).

Want “Paris density”? Let’s legalize six-storey single-stair apartments on every residential lot in every major city.

Lorne Gunter, Oct 8th: Danielle Smith was right to stop Edmonton’s mad rush of poorly controlled infill Lorne Gunter, Oct 17th: Carney Liberals fall pathetically short of their own housing-start goals

Election night is only one week away! Over the coming days, we’ll be posting vote compasses for each ward, so that you can stay informed on which candidates support our 10-point plan! Beginning with Ward 10 - Spadina-Fort York:

In Toronto again, having a lovely time here as usual 🏙️

We had decades to densify areas like Bloor West in more gentle ways and the residents always said no. It drove a housing crisis so bad that the province stepped in and required towers be allowed near transit stations. I doubt the residents will understand it that way. www.thestar.com/real-estate/...

"there hasn't been adequate consultation" ie. I was consulted multiple times over many years and the outcome isn't exactly what I wanted www.youtube.com/watch?v=isW0...

Remember, when it comes to complex techno-social systems like the railways: "It's all path dependency" "It always has been"

In 2016, Leuven made a bold decision: instead of trying to accommodate ever-increasing car traffic, it would change the rules of the road entirely. A decade later, the Dutch-inspired traffic circulation plan has drastically improved the city’s accessibility, liveability and quality of public space.🧵

We could have both pretty parks and affordability, if we were willing to tell people they don't get a veto over everything.

But I thought Toronto is full!

The idea that planning should mandate, through regulations, an urban form that mimics market forces (higher demand induced by better accessibility along high-capacity rail, which translates into higher densities) is one of the silliest yet most persistent tropes our profession has produced.

the scarborough busway should inspire the city to look into longer, more permanent busways on available right-of-ways that can produce rapid transit speeds at cheaper cost and timelines. the one with greatest potential, i think, is finch east. this would transform east-west travel in scarborough.

Excellent article on the emerging field of high speed metros, which are blossoming across China with operational systems in Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Chongqing, Chengdu, Ningbo, Nanjing and Beijing while Shanghai, Shenyang, Changsha and Wuhan are planning theirs.

Asian cities are experimenting with an entirely new high speed transport technology. Today's collaboration with @infrastory.bsky.social is on high speed metros. Read now: www.thetransitbrief.net/p/the-future...

Bike lanes on Adelaide yesterday morning. Over a dozen cyclists taking up the same space as one or two cars.

Same thing on housing. Zoning reform is “just a band aid” — real affordability comes by overhauling how housing is built/owned. Ok, but when can we expect this to happen? 5 years, 10 years, 50 years? If we’re holding off on zoning reform for this revolution, can you guarantee me that it’ll happen?

my bad, I'll start the world socialist revolution this monday instead of petitioning against transit service cuts🥀

Joel Young is at a rail transit conference in Europe tonight (AC Transit has 0 railroads) and I am in Oakland waiting for a bus that has been 0 minutes away for 10 minutes

A Milton GO line stub into Square One would be the move but of course we can't even run full day service let alone double track and electrify it before 2075. www.thestar.com/news/gta/may...

Yesterday, Sep. 21, we sent out pledges to a total of 175 city council candidates running in the 2026 Toronto municipal election. Candidates were asked whether they will work implement the policies from our 10-point plan if they win on Oct. 26 🙋

As a comparison, Lombardy, which has "only" 10 million inhabitants, way less than the population served by Metrolik, run between 2,200 and 2,500 trains per day.

It always blows my mind how much faster electric trains are than diesel

How much faster would GO trains be if they used electrical multiple unit (EMU) trains? Today, a 33.7km trip from Pickering to Union station makes 6 stops and takes 45 minutes Our proposed local EMU service would make 13 stops, and take only 36 minutes.

Finally some good news for the dysfunctional circumvesuviana. With the new Stadler trains progressively entering service, EAV will introduce a 30 minutes clockface timetable starting October 17th (it's now 36') on all it's limes. www.ferrovie.it/portale/arti...

I want Canada to have more mobility with Europe. Not because I think vast numbers of people will use it initially. But having it as an option opens your mind for the future. “Maybe I should pay attention in that language class?” “Maybe there are more places in the world than just the US?”

Another episode of the RMTransit podcast is here! You can subscribe to The Transit Brief (for free!) to get these episodes a week early! youtu.be/eNIzHndQQsU?...

Auckland has officially opened Aotearoa New Zealand’s longest and first true underground railway: the City Rail Link! The former terminal station Waitemata (formerly Britomart) is now a through station with additional underground CBD stations at Te Waihorotiu and Karanga-a-Hape serving all lines.

I love this so much. Ridership in Burlington up 49% since 2019, after they improved service on a bunch of bus routes. That's at a time when many cities were experiencing post-pandemic stagnation. This is a notably affluent, low density suburb. burlingtonpublishing.escribemeetings.com/filestream.a...

Shocker: people love pedestrian spaces and want it to return next year—including residents, visitors, businesses, and councillors. www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

Just as the school year begins, GO Train service is being cut. One fully-loaded GO Train can take up to 2,000 cars off the road. Doug Ford is allowing train service cuts while throwing money at new highways & bike lane removals, worsening traffic congestion. Details + how to take action!⬇️

People want the “empty apartments” thing to be real so badly. Article about “thousands” of empty luxury apartments in Montreal. Comments everywhere online: I knew supply and demand wasn’t real! I knew no one lived in those! You read the article: vacancy rate of 12%. So, 88% occupied.

A new collaborative post with Reece on their excellent public transportation newsletter The Transit Brief. In this joint effort, we propose a more focused perspective on normalizing transit costs by using ultimate capacity of a Metro project’s design.

Too often the North American response to escalating transit costs is to aim lower - hydrogen instead of electric trains, low- instead of high-speed rail. We need to fix the root cause of high costs - onerous permitting, weak state capacity, unreliable funding - not settle for less.

We live in a world where every part of the political spectrum is committed to building the worst transit idea in the city.

I’ll believe it when I see Canada accept the European elevator standard, *like every other country on earth except the US and Japan already does*

The latest post on The Transit Brief comes from Chinese transit aficionado @jrurbanenetwork.bsky.social and myself and discusses how transit might be costing even more than we expect. www.thetransitbrief.net/p/subways-ar...

The California Environmental Quality Act is bad for the environment because it gives litigious busybodies the power to delay and block environmentally friendly projects like bike lanes on the grounds that the government has not sufficiently analyzed the bike lanes’ “environmental impacts.”

They are blocking a bike lane to a middle school on grounds that it would remove parking for Monterrey Market. As if the market didn't already have a giant parking lot, a bus stop in front, and shoppers couldn't ride ebikes in the new bike lane.

Streetcar ops taking over bus ops is basically an apocalypse level event in Toronto. TTC actually went, “what if we took North America's best bus network and made it more like the world's slowest streetcar network?”

This is the escalating application of building code brain to Toronto's transit ops. "Well logically having the bus slow down around stations and lights is safer so we'll just do that. No, we didn't estimate benefits, costs, or consider adverse consequences, why do you ask?"

FastTrackTO has learned that the posted speed limits for buses on the brand new Scarborough Busway will be 30 km/h near stations and signals. 🐌 This is disappointing, and reduces travel time savings that the busway is meant to provide. Especially re: any express buses.