Reece 🚇 Olivia Chow
Day one of asking for King Street to become a pedestrianized transit mall like George Street in Sydney

If you want to understand a huge divide in Toronto and WHY people are so hyped about the Ontario Line look at the main transit project Toronto built in the 2010s (Eglinton Crosstown) vs. the main one for the 2020s (Ontario Line). Not to mention we needed the OL for decades!

What a shambles. Christie Pits, one of the busiest parks in Toronto. City of Toronto PFR

A visualization of multiple things I yammer on about all the time:
Population growth along line 1 1996->2021 (left)
Average family income (right)
-rich areas systematically prevented growth despite sitting on top of a subway.
-the lack of growth drove further segregation.

The emphasis on housing supply is literally an emphasis on policies that lower prices of new housing, therefore lowering the prices of existing housing.

The policies needed to ensure people don’t see housing as an “investment” are the same ones as needed to boost supply.

A shortage of qualified people to work in skilled trades is making rising costs of living even worse, economists and trade industry veterans say. cbc.ca/radio/costofli… .

The TTC under Rick Leary is “revenue first” “passenger second” agency and it shows with the unfair fines, poor service.

The future is now 🥴

Hot take: I hate graffiti/vandalism so freaking much.

Part of me wishes the fines were absolutely exorbitant as a deterrent.

I know that's a reactionary position, and likely stupid.

But, it just makes my blood boil to see our city trashed by pointless adolescent doodles

Canadian provincial and municipal governments have become addicted to taxing new housing.

Speaking out of one side of their mouth on affordability while raising the price floor of new housing, making it impossible to build at reasonable prices.

Two very, very long years.

Reminder that it takes a ridiculous number of buses to not even come close to temporarily replacing a subway.

Let's hope that there's serious attention to getting the ground level right. Lots of towers don't necessarily deliver the urbanism needed in this context. Pedestrian-oriented design - with emphasis on short blocks, wider sidewalks and a rich mix of primary uses - is crucial.

The Cherry trees at the corner of Cherry Street and Villiers Street are in bloom! Best kept secret in the Port Lands, IMO!

Urban progressives have decided that functioning markets, restoration of property rights, and competition are totally non-solutions when it comes to housing.

Except that everywhere real pro-supply reforms are tried, they work. (Austin, Minneapolis, Auckland etc).

it’s wild that coastal cities have spent years debating if YIMBY policies will lower rents, and Austin just… did it

they streamlined permitting, upzoned most of the city, and eliminated parking mandates. Tons of housing is going up and rents are plummeting.

YIMBY policies work

Planting grass on light rail track beds should really be the new gold, I mean green, standard for surface light rail construction. It’s beautiful. Now, can we open Line 5 please? #Toronto

Zoë Coombes Why does the media continually platform career academics with absolutely zero experience in economics/policy to talk about the economic effects of land use reform?