Canadian Transit Thread II

[P'tit Renard]

Originally Posted by Kilgore Trout

I don’t think anybody is disagreeing with you or NJB on those points. It’s undeniable that the Netherlands has much better infrastructure than Canada in almost every conceivable way.

But it was NJB’s Montreal video that got this discussion started and the more I watch it (or think about it), the more it annoys me. His analysis is correct but very superficial, and he likes to grind his ideological axe just to score points with his viewers. For instance he complained a lot about urban expressways and… ok? It’s not very insightful to point out they’re bad because people have been saying that since the day they were built. And it’s not like Montreal is building new expressways.

Which brings me to another problem I have with the video: Jason adopts a kind of ostentatiously naïve persona. He ambles around aimlessly making judgements on what he sees, without going into any depth about why those spaces are they way they are, or how they’re changing. A perfect example is how he bashed Ste-Catherine without seeming to notice the giant placards announcing exactly how it is being rebuilt. I would have liked to see a more specific critique of the five blocks that have already been reconstructed, because they’re an improvement but still flawed. Instead he had some hand-wavy generic comments.

There’s also his obsession with comparing everything to the Netherlands. This was particularly egregious in his video on Copenhagen which was rather dogmatic and iconoclastic in its dismissal of the Danish approach to cycling infrastructure, even though Copenhagen has a higher modal share of cycling than Amsterdam. Another example is where he dismisses Bixi in the Montreal video. His argument seems to be that bike share is silly because bike share doesn’t exist in Amsterdam, where everyone has their own bike, and people who don’t cycle take trams. That’s just a really dumb line of reasoning. It ignores what Bixi actually is, including the fact that many of its users have their own bikes, and yet they still find bike share useful. He certainly doesn’t mention that 25% of the fleet is electric, which makes cycling accessible to a much wider range of people, given Montreal’s hilly topography. You can use electric Bixis for many years before you reach the cost of buying your own e-bike, and of course you don’t need to worry about maintenance or theft. All of this seems lost on him because he has a prejudice against bike share that seems rooted simply in the fact that it isn’t something done in Amsterdam.

Agreed, and NJB misses the point that the infrastructure for Amsterdam and other Dutch cities are well designed for their relatively small size (and the Dutch want to keep it that way). The infrastructure of Dutch cities would be absolutely swamped and overwhelmed if they were servicing metropolis volumes like Paris or London, and probably would have to sacrifice some cycling allotment to accommodate. Surprisingly, it's not even that quick or easy to move around Amsterdam, have to rely heavily on trams and metro network isn't ideal.

Montreal and Toronto are targeting to become metropolises (there's no indication Canada will be willing to accept the Dutch model of slow growth), and given the different growth trajectories, has to better manage the balance between roads, freight rail, cycling and transit as well as other infrastructure that's more akin to the experience in London, NYC and Paris than any Dutch city.

[Truenorth00]

The criticisms are now getting absurd.

Amsterdam small? It's a metro of 2.5 million. And the wider Randstad conurbation is slightly smaller and a bit more populated (8+ million) than the Golden Horseshoe in Ontario. To say these places are small and not very populated or large cities is pretty ridiculous.

[P'tit Renard]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

The criticisms are now getting absurd.

Amsterdam small? It's a metro of 2.5 million. And the wider Randstad conurbation is slightly smaller and a bit more populated (8+ million) than the Golden Horseshoe in Ontario. To say these places are small and not very populated or large cities is pretty ridiculous.

The economic equivalent of the Randstad conurbation sized in the Canadian context would be the Quebec City - Windsor corridor, which would be way higher than 8 million people.

[chowhou]

Originally Posted by P'tit Renard

It may be easy to bash Hong Kong for not having the ideal urban form at every corner, but Hong Kong is a global metropolis and global financial centre that needs an efficient transportation network to service APAC commerce. Vancouver on the other hand is just a lifestyle resort city and does not have the same demands for function over form. Hong Kong's port alone handles as much cargo as Long Beach, whereas the Port of Vancouver receives way less tonnage. You have to remember that Hong Kong also has insufficient space to build an efficient freight rail network (it's much more land restricted than even its peers Seoul and Tokyo), so pretty much everything has to be delivered by trucks. Given the physical limitations of Hong Kong's geography, IMO it has already balanced quite well walkable urban form (i.e. the much loved 15 minute city) versus critical infrastructure to let commerce flow.

Designing infrastructure to separate cars from people is not "bad design" if it promotes safety and is worth the efficiency gain, as your Connaught Road example alludes to. Connaught Road is literally one of the few arteries servicing the north end of Hong Kong Island, and traffic is consolidated there so the old towns of Hong Kong island do not get flooded with car traffic. What I think is bad design is the Gardiner Expressway in Toronto, where you have continued pedestrian and road traffic conflicts at every intersection, causing congestion, tons of accidents, countless injuries and wipe outs just because the government doesn't care about separating pedestrians from traffic.

Respectfully, as you mentioned Hong Kong is a port. On top of that, the area we're talking about, Hong Kong island, is also an island with the bulk majority of economic activity happening at or near the waterfront. If moving freight efficiently around the harbour was so important (which it is), don't you think there's a high capacity form of transportation which might be a bit better than a truck? Even if ships and barges don't get you everywhere you want to go, if Hong Kong had the room to build multi-lane expressways, Hong Kong certainly had the room to build freight rail which would take up a fraction of the space.

But that's all beside the point, the expressways in Hong Kong are not there to move freight around. Hong Kong isn't the same type of port as Vancouver or Long Beach. It's a logistics hub for APAC not an importing/exporting gateway for China so freight for the most part doesn't leave the port before being shipped off somewhere else. As Canada's primary Pacific gateway port, Vancouver probably has more freight physically moved through the city than Hong Kong does. You will never see a container moved on the expressway, they're by-and-large for personal vehicles.

No one forced Hong Kong to cater so strongly to cars, it was just a political decision.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by P'tit Renard

The economic equivalent of the Randstad conurbation sized in the Canadian context would be the Quebec City - Windsor corridor, which would be way higher than 8 million people.

This is just trying to ignore the actual geographical context, to justify the ignorant idea of Amsterdam being small. Some basic geography:

Golden Horseshoe - ~ 10 000 km2 , 7.8M
Randstad - ~ 11 000 km2 , 8.4M

Sure, the national context is similar to the Quebec-Windsor Corridor. But we're not talking about their politics or economics. As far as urbanism is concerned, it's only the geography that's relevant here. And the Randstad is pretty close to the size and population of the GTA. Instead of trying to argue that Amsterdam is a small city, how about asking why our conurbations don't function as well?

[Luisito]

Originally Posted by Kilgore Trout

But it was NJB’s Montreal video that got this discussion started and the more I watch it (or think about it), the more it annoys me. His analysis is correct but very superficial, and he likes to grind his ideological axe just to score points with his viewers. For instance he complained a lot about urban expressways and… ok? It’s not very insightful to point out they’re bad because people have been saying that since the day they were built. And it’s not like Montreal is building new expressways.

Which brings me to another problem I have with the video: Jason adopts a kind of ostentatiously naïve persona. He ambles around aimlessly making judgements on what he sees, without going into any depth about why those spaces are they way they are, or how they’re changing. A perfect example is how he bashed Ste-Catherine without seeming to notice the giant placards announcing exactly how it is being rebuilt. I would have liked to see a more specific critique of the five blocks that have already been reconstructed, because they’re an improvement but still flawed. Instead he had some hand-wavy generic comments.

.

His complaints about namur metro were also ridiculous. No one absolutely no one has trouble crossing decarie. There are many apartment buildings and working class people in that area , do they not deserve a metro because there is also a freeway near by? He really really exaggerates. Specially his comments about freeways downtown. His video reeked of privilege and quite frankly he seems out of touch.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Luisito

His complaints about namur metro were also ridiculous. No one absolutely no one has trouble crossing decarie. There are many apartment buildings and working class people in that area , do they not deserve a metro because there is also a freeway near by? He really really exaggerates. Specially his comments about freeways downtown. His video reeked of privilege and quite frankly he seems out of touch.

Weird. I took away that he was criticizing the highway being there. Not the metro.

[Luisito]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Weird. I took away that he was criticizing the highway being there. Not the metro.

He complained about the location. Either way the freeway is not a hinderance. There are alot of apartment buildings going up in that area.

[Kilgore Trout]

Also, criticizing the highway being there is a bit weird. It's been there for 60 years. Was he surprised to find it? This gets to the drawbacks of his Montreal video, which is that every bit of insight he offers is accompanied by some very obvious and useless statements. At the very least he could have proposed some ways to mitigate the awfulness of the Décarie instead of just complaining about it.

For example: the trench highway is very unpleasant but the real problem is Décarie Boulevard. Widen the sidewalks, plant trees, reduce traffic lanes and create a protected bike path on each side.

(It also speaks to his deliberate ignorance of how Montreal developed, because in the Namur metro section of the video he complains about how quickly urbanism drops off in Montreal, and yet the areas around the Orange Julep was farm fields 60 years ago, whereas other areas more than 10km from downtown were much more urban. Another example of cheap ragebait.)

[GreaterMontréal]

Montreal can be divided into 3 areas, the very urban central core, the West Island and the eastern part of the island.

The central core is about 155km², 1,125M people , 7,200/km², 11 boroughs

infrastructures found inside the core.

65 Metro stations + 5 future stations (Blue Line extension)

4 REM stations, including 3 intermodal stations
-Gare Centrale (Orange Line)
-Mcgill (Green Line)
-Edouard-Montpetit (Blue Line)

Pie-IX BRT , 15 stations, + 3 future stations

Highways
A-10, A-20, A-15, A-40, A-25, R-136 (A-720)

Express bike network
completed and under construction: 24km, projected 184km
The Saint-Denis axis, 1.5 million riders in 2023.

There is always room for improvement, but the core has a very advanced transit infrastructure.

[Truenorth00]

Montreal's perfect. Clearly no criticism is warranted.

NJB should start making videos comparing other cities to Montreal instead of Amsterdam.

[abbymk]

Its been interesting reading the discussion about the NJB video. I have seen his videos before but I usually find self not being able to finish them.
One reason is the way he talks up The Netherlands like the greatest place ever created. He never really looks into the context of areas and compares everything to the Netherlands.

But anyways Citynerd, an American YouTuber, also visited Montreal. So here’s a video from him on the city and see his perspective.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44WjnCYFPpw

[niwell]

Originally Posted by Kilgore Trout

Also, criticizing the highway being there is a bit weird. It's been there for 60 years. Was he surprised to find it? This gets to the drawbacks of his Montreal video, which is that every bit of insight he offers is accompanied by some very obvious and useless statements. At the very least he could have proposed some ways to mitigate the awfulness of the Décarie instead of just complaining about it.

For example: the trench highway is very unpleasant but the real problem is Décarie Boulevard. Widen the sidewalks, plant trees, reduce traffic lanes and create a protected bike path on each side.

This is probably my main gripe with criticism of highways in the online urbanist crowd. The talk is always just "remove them! Have you heard of a little thing called 'induced demand'??" - very little about mitigating what's hostile about them. Unless there's a truly massive shift in how goods are distributed the existence of freeways isn't the issue. Sure, there are portions that can be removed - mostly spurs that originally were designed to funnel traffic into downtowns. But through-routes do have their place. Given that they are completely separated from the rest of the city the situation often presents the ability for creative solutions to improve adjacent areas.

Similar to the Decarie the problem in central Toronto isn't really the elevated section of the Gardiner in my mind, but Lakeshore blvd. Tearing it down and putting in a 10 lane "urban boulevard" (one of the proposed solutions oft championed) isn't going to create a pedestrian paradise. But there's lots of creative solutions to be done with the spaces under the Gardiner and mitigating what's hostile about Lakeshore - we've already seen it in portions near Fort York where the Bentway is.

While far from perfect an example like this (in a developing country no less) doesn't feel like much of a barrier to the surrounding urban fabric: https://maps.app.goo.gl/79gZFqCdWUHuxsMn9

On this forum at least I don't think anyone would reasonably claim that Montreal is perfect.

[Truenorth00]

Removing highways isn't realistic. But minimizing their impact can absolutely be done. Especially in places where they are already trenched. Montreal really has not gotten around to dealing with this in any substantial way. And I don't blame them for that. Lots of low hanging fruit they can deal with well before that. And arguably the best ways to deal with highways are going to be stymied by the regional governance issues that NJB pointed out. They need regional transit. But Exo is terrible for a city of that size. And since the REM, they really aren't even investing in Exo. So what's going to provide the transit capacity that reduces highway demand? Hard to see.

I'd argue that Toronto's ambitious plans with GO RER are well ahead of this. Post RER and Ontario Line, Toronto might arguably have the transit capacity to let them take down the Gardiner.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Montreal's NJB's perfect. Clearly no criticism is warranted.

There. Fixed that for you.

But seriously, you can't actually be complaining that people aren't open enough to criticisms of Montreal when you're unable to acknowledge a single shortcoming of the NJB channel? Sure, there will always be invalid or weak criticisms that are best to brush off. It's a strong channel and I don't see all the criticisms that others are seeing myself. But nothing is perfect, whether cities, people, or youtube channels. So when someone reflexively rejects every and all criticism, that rejection no longer has much weight. People will assuming you're just simping rather than raising a substantive defense and won't listen as closely. Whereas when it comes from someone who's actually capable of recognizing both strengths and shortcomings, people take the pushback more seriously.

Now if your position is that the NJB channel actually is flawless and actually is literally above critique, then fine. But you can't complain about people taking an equally irrational stance about a city.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

There. Fixed that for you.

But seriously, you can't actually be complaining that people aren't open enough to criticisms of Montreal when you're unable to acknowledge a single shortcoming of the NJB channel? Sure, there will always be invalid or weak criticisms that are best to brush off. It's a strong channel and I don't see all the criticisms that others are seeing myself. But nothing is perfect, whether cities, people, or youtube channels. So when someone reflexively rejects every and all criticism, that rejection no longer has much weight. People will assuming you're just simping rather than raising a substantive defense and won't listen as closely. Whereas when it comes from someone who's actually capable of recognizing both strengths and shortcomings, people take the pushback more seriously.

Now if your position is that the NJB channel actually is flawless and actually is literally above critique, then fine. But you can't complain about people taking an equally irrational stance about a city.

No issues with saying NJB is wrong at times. But I find the majority of people don't do that. They whine about his "tone" or complain about how he doesn't get the nuance of xyz place. Not many complaints about actual facts presented. Or we get to some really weird nonsense. I mean we're now at the absurd point where people are saying Amsterdam and region are not very populated and they'd never have to deal with issues of big cities like Montreal. How much more absurd can the reactionary butthurt get?

And let's be honest, most of the whining (from other online urbanists) has really come about after (and because) of his comments where he argued that people who really wanted good urbanism should leave North America. Since then, everybody gets up in arms about his "tone". Personally, I don't care enough about urbanism right now to move to another continent. But I don't think he was wrong either. Does anybody honestly expect the kind of transformation that Amsterdam saw over the last 40 years to happen in any North American city over the next 40 years? So I guess the question is whether it's better to be honest about what can be achieved or better to keep making some cheery videos and pretend change is right around the corner? For this part, every interview or podcast he does, Slaughter is honest about his view that advocacy is fairly futile (because he believes these are cultural issues) and he directs anybody who wants to fight to Strong Towns. He isn't claiming to be an advocate and has always claimed (from his very first video) that his videos are aimed at the 22 yr old version of himself. Compare his approach to say Alan Fisher who loves talking about small town urbanism in the Northeastern US. Super accessible to the majority of the American population if Alan is to be believed.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

No issues with saying NJB is wrong at times. But I find the majority of people don't do that. They whine about his "tone" or complain about how he doesn't get the nuance of xyz place. Not many complaints about actual facts presented. Or we get to some really weird nonsense. I mean we're now at the absurd point where people are saying Amsterdam and region are not very populated and they'd never have to deal with issues of big cities like Montreal. How much more absurd can the reactionary butthurt get?

There's no issues with making any type of critique, not just saying someone is "wrong" at times. People don't need to limit critiques to one area in order for them to be valid. In NJB's case, his biggest weakness is in focus and delivery rather than being factually incorrect. That's why the majority of people have the critiques they do. Not that there's a lot of factual errors as much as that the communication style isn't as effective as it could be at conveying the message.

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

And let's be honest, most of the whining (from other online urbanists) has really come about after (and because) of his comments where he argued that people who really wanted good urbanism should leave North America. Since then, everybody gets up in arms about his "tone". Personally, I don't care enough about urbanism right now to move to another continent. But I don't think he was wrong either. Does anybody honestly expect the kind of transformation that Amsterdam saw over the last 40 years to happen in any North American city over the next 40 years? So I guess the question is whether it's better to be honest about what can be achieved or better to keep making some cheery videos and pretend change is right around the corner? For this part, every interview or podcast he does, Slaughter is honest about his view that advocacy is fairly futile (because he believes these are cultural issues) and he directs anybody who wants to fight to Strong Towns. He isn't claiming to be an advocate and has always claimed (from his very first video) that his videos are aimed at the 22 yr old version of himself. Compare his approach to say Alan Fisher who loves talking about small town urbanism in the Northeastern US. Super accessible to the majority of the American population if Alan is to be believed.

The critiques on tone are not dependent on his statement about leaving NA. I didn't actually know he made such an explicit statement but picked up on that attitude from the general tone. But if there was a correlation between those comments and people's critiques then it's safe to say that his comments helped them realize the problem. Kind of like your experience of noticing problems when visiting Montreal but not being able to fully articulate them until someone made it explicit.

But at least you acknowledge his negativity (despite mischaractizing legitimate critiques as "whining"). The fact that he isn't an activist comes across very clearly. And for someone like me who wants activism, that's always going to be a downside. It's less of a downside for creators with less potential in terms of production value since there's less of a lost opportunity. But at least he has actively acknowledged the critique himself which is good since I don't feel like I'm being gaslit like I was just based on your earlier denials. Of course someone choosing to double down rather than rethink doesn't erase the problem. You can say anyone is "being honest" or "just being themselves" by refusing to improve. Someone's writing has a lot of spelling errors? Well they acknowledged they're bad at spelling and are just being themselves by not proof reading. The comedian wasn't that funny? Well they were just being honest about what they personally find funny. But that's certainly preferable to someone claiming the spelling was perfect when it wasn't or that the comedian was hilarious when they bombed.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Personally, I don't care enough about urbanism right now to move to another continent. But I don't think he was wrong either. Does anybody honestly expect the kind of transformation that Amsterdam saw over the last 40 years to happen in any North American city over the next 40 years? So I guess the question is whether it's better to be honest about what can be achieved or better to keep making some cheery videos and pretend change is right around the corner?

I think that this central strawman is the main source of the problem. Most urban enthusiasts in NA already like their cities (or at least some parts/aspects of them) and simply want them to get better. And for those who don't like their current city, there are many alternatives in NA. They don't want or expect them to become Amsterdam, and any improvement is, by definition, an improvement. Most of us are exactly like you in that other factors such as money, family, language or culture outweigh the benefits of stronger urbanism on another continent. You can do a lot to make cities more sustainable, safer, more beautiful, etc. and there are already many people living happy lives in urban parts of NA . There are many improvements that could increase that number of people and/or their degree of satisfaction with their cities while also helping the environment but the "all or nothing" of approach of "become Amsterdam or move to Amsterdam" as the only valid goals is actually an obstacle to increasing that number of people. It makes people disheartened by an impossible goal and likely to give up and wallow in hopelessness rather than feel energized to do real positive things. And that could result in cities being worse than they need to be over the long term.

I remember when Toronto livestreamer, flâneur, and urban commentator Johnny Strides spent some time in Amsterdam maybe a year ago. He enjoyed his time there and appreciated aspects of the city which he'd like to see Toronto adopt but said he wouldn't want to live there. He missed Toronto's size, energy, and eclectic style, etc. I think that sums up a lot of people's feelings about their cities. For most of us, the only time we ever think about Amsterdam is when we look to its bicycle infrastructure for best practices.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by niwell

This is probably my main gripe with criticism of highways in the online urbanist crowd. The talk is always just "remove them! Have you heard of a little thing called 'induced demand'??" - very little about mitigating what's hostile about them.

It's really just trivial thinking. It's obvious that if you remove roadways eventually you'll cut traffic and that as you increase the supply of roadways you make them more attractive, thereby increasing demand, all else equal, but the real question is how you find the right balance that serves the gamut of trip demand (including commercial deliveries) while keeping areas attractive and minimizing capital costs and maintenance. Tearing down all freeways isn't necessarily optimal and there's path dependency to think about.

I think P'tit Renard's point about city size and growth is relevant too. Yes, Amsterdam had some postwar demolition, but it wasn't on the same scale as the Montreal 60's-era works that were designed for much greater growth. There is that Weesperstraat story, sure, and it's sad that that street now has ugly modern buildings instead of quaint old Amsterdam houses, but it's got a metro line underneath, it's fairly small and benign, and it seems to be the only route like that apart from some waterfront freeway development that is likely built on modern fill. And Montreal has been tearing down some of those old urban freeways while the Ville-Marie is partly buried.

Amsterdam used to be roughly on a Vancouver scale but I think even that is starting to become a little strained. The need for new infrastructure there is going to be quite a bit smaller than what's needed in Montreal or Toronto these days. Toronto probably added more people than the NL last year.

[Kilgore Trout]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Montreal's perfect. Clearly no criticism is warranted.

NJB should start making videos comparing other cities to Montreal instead of Amsterdam.

Said no one ever. Not sure why you're taking this so personally.