We built car dependancy starting in 60, though about 80 in ernest.

We fucked our cities over 40-60 years, and we’re seeing the turning point happen in real time right now. Most cities have the policies in place now, or coming in the next 5 years.

On the roads side there’s a 45 year lag for recapitalization. On the construction side, harder to tell.

It won’t happen in my lifetime, but it will happen in my kid’s.

Stay the course and we can do it.

Because we tax ~0.44T on our 2.2T GDP. Or about 20%.

How so?

On a bicycle in Ontario I can get stopped roadside and forced to prove I can stop from 20kph in 30m on flat pavement, have a working head and tail light, have two separate functioning brake systems, have a bell, and have reflectors on forks.

There’s another tranche of rules for ebikes.

No similar rules exist for cars, with maybe the exception of the stereotypical busted tail light.

Canada total spending is $450B

But $120B of that is discretionary excluding transfer payments.

So we’re looking at a whole of government reduction of $18B for 15%. Transport Canada spends $25B on roads.

Stop subsidizing inefficient personal vehicles by making people absorb the real costs of them and we can make that cut in seconds.

Here the charge is nothing.

https://www.thewhig.com/feature/kingston-ontario-cyclist-fatality-police

Thankfully, lessons from Europe seem to be penetrating Canada now; at least in the more urban areas. I saw some fantastic progress living in Montréal. Ottawa has the right ideas despite the master plan not being clear to people yet. Toronto was on the right path, but we’ll see what provincial pressures do. My current town of Kingston is late to the party, but we’ve got momentum in the right direction.

We spent 50+ years changing our built environment to “optimise” for the car, even with the best intentions it’s going to take time to change again.

Roads should be designed so that it’s uncomfortable to drive above the targeted speed limit.

Things like road narrowing, speed bumps, bulb outs, lane adjustments, speed humps, pavement decorations, one way chokepoints, etc.

Current the Ontario road geometry supplement requires streets and roads to be geometrically designed to be at least 20kph higher than the posted limit. Well guess what, you want to naturally drive the design speed instead of posted.

Lower design speeds and target the remaining maniacs.

Quick video explaining speed of the measures I brought up (and why they work): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmxBcrXpClg

I live in a suburb of Kingston, I’m with you. City says it wants to increase transit and active transportation modal share, but the budget jsut goes to… more care lanes.

That said they have been putting in protect bike lanes as they redo streets, so there are some positive things happening here.

Kingston utilities is rolling out internet for business. I’m really hoping residential is next.

Motor vehicle deaths are the leading cause of death for children in Ontario.

How about policing drivers? Or reducing the number of trips by cars?

There’s nearly 300 credit unions that use Interac.

Where in Canada are you that you don’t see Interac?

My corner homeless person tales Interac…

They solve the average driver. A certain number of drivers are jsut shit that need their licences removed, there’s no question about that.

But let’s consider the majority, myself for example.

I’m keenly aware of vulnerable road users, and active at the municipal and provincial levels in improving road safety, I take active and public transportation whenever practical.

When I lived in Montréal, I rarely sped, logs of questionable accuracy show somewhere around 10% of the time. Now that I’m in Kingston it’s around 80% of the time.

I’m even a less aggressive driver in Kingston, but the geometry of the roads here leads me to unconsciously speed a lot.

Bike fits on a train much easier than a car at least.

There are more design choices than just roundabouts…

Fun thing about design changes, the motorists get less frustrated.

A big part of our frustration whole driving is that (at least in Ontario) design speed MUST be at least 20kph higher than posted speed.

So yeah, you get frustrated doing 30kph on a road designed for 60kph. You get less frustrated on a road with no posted limits anywhere that jsut naturally nakes you want to drive a speed that feels safe, and happens to be 30kph.

Replace speed cameras with road diets and other geometric choices that restrict traffic speed without relying on drivers following rules (they don’t)

The S in IoT stands for security

Just make wide mobile lanes and it’s not a problem.

Cars got pedestrians, bikes, and others fighting for scraps of right fi way while consuming 80%+ of it.

FML 🫡