Geoffrey Singer

Hey, @SUBWAY. That sure is one expensive can of @bublywater!

Disappointed to discover @Esri has removed @ArcGISUrban and @CityEngine from the ArcGIS for Personal Use program. I appreciate these are niche products, but as an urban planner I found them useful for training and skills development. @esricanada

@RM_Transit @eddrass @StephenWickens1 I think five of the lines were dropped. The goal of connecting suburban priority neighbourhoods was largely not realized, or at best remains a work in progress.

@eddrass @GeoffreySinger @StephenWickens1 Again, two of the three big projects proposed as the first phase literally got built. We spent billions on these projects. Just because the brand got killed doesn't mean the project got killed

I really do believe post Eglinton opening a lot of people are going to be asking "Why did we put a streetcar in a tunnel?"

@StephenWickens1 @eddrass @RM_Transit I was about to say the same. It was very much about road space.

@eddrass @GeoffreySinger @RM_Transit I think they were mostly focused on keeping transit infrastructure or operations from taking space or priority away from cars ... during construction and after project completion. If anything helped to get 'damned streetcars' off the streets, so much the better in their view.

@RM_Transit @eddrass @StephenWickens1 Perhaps you didn't reside in Toronto at the time, but Rob amd Doug Ford absolutely killed off the majority of the Transit City plan. Had Mayor Miller stayed for another term, it would have likely continued. Can we not agree on well established facts?

@GeoffreySinger @eddrass @StephenWickens1 Just because someone says something (especially RF) doesn't make it true? Finch West is 0% subway and Doug Ford could have killed it. He did not. The rest of the plan ranged from dubious to destructive in the case of Sheppard and Don Mills.

@RM_Transit @eddrass @StephenWickens1 This misses that Transit City was by design a non-subway plan. We already tried that, and Mike Harris made us fill in the hole. TC was an attempt to extend decent transit to much more of the city, and though it was flawed, it tried to do it in a financially responsible way.

@GeoffreySinger @eddrass @StephenWickens1 4) And then finally, making the eastern leg of Eglinton a surface tramway creates a weak link in the whole network, since it has <50% the capacity of the subways to the east and west, it impairs network function.

@RM_Transit @eddrass @StephenWickens1 Scrapping Transit City was one of Rob Ford's first actions as incoming mayor of Toronto. It absolutely was abandoned. Eglinton was only spared because parts of it resembled a subway. "Transit City is over, ladies and gentlemen." - Rob Ford, 2010 cbc.ca/news/canada/to…

@GeoffreySinger @eddrass @StephenWickens1 It's also not the case the Transit City was "abandoned" the only projects in it that made some sense ended up getting built. But Eglinton in particular has now locked us into a super low capacity tram line where we should have rapid transit.

@RM_Transit @eddrass @StephenWickens1 Subways have their place, but they aren't the answer to everything as I, too, once believed. Great cities around the world have built extensive LRT systems and rely on both heavy and light rail for different parts of their network. I'm not sure what makes Toronto so exceptional.

@GeoffreySinger @eddrass @StephenWickens1 This is not at all true. We are getting a subway option that accomplishes this! Most people in suburban Toronto combine rail + bus, and thats ok! Instead of putting the buses on rails with minimal if any speedup we are shortening the bus rides.

@eddrass @RM_Transit @StephenWickens1 EC was just one piece of a bigger plan to link priority neighbourhoods on the periphery with the existing rapid transit network and employment opportunities in the City's core. Even though it was abandoned, there was never a subway option that would have accomplished this.

@GeoffreySinger @RM_Transit This aligns with my memory of the situation. What’s your view, @StephenWickens1 ?

@eddrass @RM_Transit Yes, those of us who were there back then remember how impossible it had been to get any new major transit projects going. For a time, Transit City had political momentum for its equity component, a way to get rapid transit to more people across more parts of the city quickly.

@RM_Transit @GeoffreySinger Imagine you were there at the time, privy to the political realities of the moment: would you have tried to sell a full subway if you believed there was a risk it wouldn’t fly and nothing would get a green light for years?

@AlkebulanVi @Concreteisland2 @richimedhurst Yiddish literally uses the same alphabet as Hebrew and has many other elements that are borrowed from it.

@Concreteisland2 @richimedhurst How come your language Yiddish bears no similarity to Hebrew?

Even if you are a Zionist, how do you explain that a group of Eastern Europeans have a right to the land, but Palestinians, who are the closest living descendants to ancient Israelites, Hebrews, and Canaanites do not?

@JoshMatlow Here's my map of where Toronto's laneway homes and garden suites are located. It's a bit dated (Fall 2024), but there's currently a problem with the City's open data feed, so I'll update it when that gets fixed. arcg.is/1vTDSz

Walking down Croft St, near Harbord and Bathurst. A laneway that once was only a place to put cars is now also a place to house people.

@plaffin The issue is that you are paying for the labour, not the data and some purchasers might object to free riders who wait for someone else to order the custom table they want. Still, I'd like to see civil society take this on. Something like communitydata.ca, but for all.

Did you know that some Census data funded by taxpayers is only accessible to those who pay for custom tables. I propose that all custom tables produced from Census data be published on the Statistics Canada website. My letter to the Chief Statistician here printforgood.ca/blog

@CurtTruland @singlekey_com @david_krstevski Really feels like SK is dropping the ball on this one. No proactive communications to affected users. No explanation of the source of the problem and the steps they're taking to address it. No anticipated resolution date. Result: Confidence in SK severely shaken.

@singlekey_com @david_krstevski @singlekey_com rent collection program is very late this month. Estimated deposit date changed from 9th to 11th to 13th and now 14th (Saturday?) Customer support blames VoPay (financial services). What is happening?

@CraveCanada How do I watch "One Life" in English? I can only find the French version.

This makes me nostalgic for Toronto's Eglinton Theatre, which sadly was converted to an event space many years ago. How fortunate I was to grow up a couple of blocks away and be treated to such spectacles as 2001: A Space Odyssey in all its 70 mm glory. indiewire.com/features/gener…

This is an absurd situation the City of Toronto has needlessly created, one that works counter to its own #EV adoption policy targets. Instead of a nonsensical statement about an "equitable distribution" of parking, it should have committed to a quick fix. cbc.ca/news/canada/to…

@MikePMoffatt The 1995 Projection Methodology Guideline provided some amount of direction on this but desperately needs updating, particularly given recent changes in upper-tier planning responsibilities. The Province should either disaggregate the CD forecasts itself or provide the tools.

2. Currently population forecasts are created at the Census Division level. Will forecasts be provided at the municipal level, as most cities (all except Ottawa, Toronto, Hamilton and Chatham-Kent) are smaller than a Census Division?

@LarryDClay x.com/GeoffreySinger…

After 20 yrs of steering growth across the GGH the Growth Plan is ending, folded into an updated PPS-a move that while simplifying the Planning process a bit, abandons a comprehensive approach to consistent and integrated planning across the GTA and beyond ontario.ca/laws/view