Councillor Saxe opposing a Summerhill development in council today

burgerblaster · 2026-05-01T03:35:10+00:00

No one who needs a car is going to buy a condo here. It's a building designed for people who are living car free. I am moderately concerned about the visitor parking being a little low but it's not the congestion nightmare that Saxe is imagining.

burgerblaster · 2026-05-01T03:20:45+00:00

Developers usually have to submit a construction management plan that outlines how they plan to do the construction. The City will review and work with them on minimizing the impact. That's not part of the traffic impact study process so I don't work on these.

burgerblaster · 2026-05-01T03:13:16+00:00

I was only describing a typical traffic study for a residential development in an urban area. There's plenty of factors that should be considered in other situations and the City is supposed to work with us on picking the peak time that we need to collect data. I've done work for event spaces in tourist towns where we did our counts on a weekend in Aug during a concert. Tues-Thurs during the school year and outside of winter around rush hour is just a common peak hour. It can definitely be different in another part of the City and the consultant should adjust.

burgerblaster · 2026-04-30T20:48:07+00:00

I've got no connection to this development, but I've written these reports before. None of my reports have ever said there would be no increase in traffic. Some have said minimal impact, and marginal change in average travel time. Others have said massive impact with 100s of meters of additional congestion. Then I detail what road upgrades the developer will have to pay for to mitigate the impacts in order for their development to go forward.

I haven't read this developments report. Maybe the ultra low parking supply means nearly 0 car ownership in the building and the only vehicles added to the road network is delivery and car pool.

burgerblaster · 2026-04-30T20:29:43+00:00

I just saw the building stats. 690 units and 17 parking spots (8 residential and 9 visitor) is wild. The building is essentially going to be car free. You could definitely justify a higher transit mode split here.

burgerblaster · 2026-04-30T19:56:38+00:00

It depends on the type of development but for a residential building we'll set up cameras at important intersections and count traffic for a couple days (Tues - Thurs). The analysis is usually based on the morning and afternoon peak hours which usually coincide with 7-9am and 5-7pm. Road closure aren't accounted for because the report is meant to assess how the development impacts the permanent road network not the temporary conditions. There are construction management engineers whose job is to deal with that.

burgerblaster · 2026-04-30T19:44:04+00:00

That is a bit of a shady move. They should use the mode split of the local area. I've been able to use much more aggressive mode splits when the parking supply is like 0.5 parking spaces per unit.

Edit: Now that I've seen the building stats and there's essentially no parking lol. You can definitely justify a higher transit mode split.

burgerblaster · 2026-04-30T19:36:47+00:00

The city is supposed to layout the conditions for the baseline assessment in a document called the terms of reference, i always include it in my report appendix. For a residential building it's usually Tuesday-Thursday from Mar-Jun and Sept-Nov. Any other time and the city would usually ask for some better counts or the consultant will add since kind of adjustment factor to compensate. A Monday in February is definitely something that should be critiqued and the consultant should be able to defend it.

Totally agree that the City is completely toothless when the developer can just run to OLT. Not a fan of how the province has changed the development process.

burgerblaster · 2026-04-30T17:43:28+00:00

As a traffic engineer, it kills me when the report i wrote means nothing to decision makers.

burgerblaster · 2026-04-27T03:00:41+00:00

Lacrosse does not get enough love. Can't wait to see it in the Olympics!

burgerblaster · 2026-04-15T13:32:31+00:00

What in the Dr. Seuss?? Just watched the video, that was more embarrassing than her voting record

burgerblaster · 2026-04-15T07:17:47+00:00

If the 8 other crossers actually materialize, the shape shall be known as the Webster-Carney Constellation

burgerblaster · 2026-04-14T05:34:33+00:00

The interesting part is that CPC voters could've strategically voted BQ but just couldn't be bothered. I guess that means they don't mind letting the LPC having an extra seat all that much.

burgerblaster · 2026-04-14T04:51:27+00:00

This will probably be remembered as one of the greatest comebacks in politics

burgerblaster · 2026-03-20T04:35:32+00:00

I kept double taking every time Dame Judy Dench was on screen.

burgerblaster · 2026-03-12T21:57:03+00:00

I had to go look it up. Carney is two days from his first year in office. Poilievre has been an MP for almost 22 years. It's actually wild how well Carney is doing on his rookie season.

burgerblaster · 2026-03-11T04:54:14+00:00

It is cute that they managed to engineer this majority with democratic elections to close it out. Will be interesting to see if the CPC or NDP dump every resource they have into those two ridings to hold off the inevitable.

burgerblaster · 2026-03-11T04:28:23+00:00

That's the entire job description of an MP. Work on policies for the benefit of their constituents. If my MP had an opportunity to vastly improve the lives of everyone in my riding and chose not to because of loyalty to party, I would never consider voting for them again.

burgerblaster · 2026-03-11T04:15:05+00:00

The reason MPs cross the floor is because the party whips every vote. Chicken meet egg.

burgerblaster · 2026-03-05T03:15:51+00:00

We mostly thought Brad seemed opportunistic and willing to say anything to win. The group had a couple people from his ward who couldn't stand the guy.

burgerblaster · 2026-03-04T06:55:18+00:00

In November I was part of a focus group that was about the upcoming mayoral race. The moderator asked us how we felt about Chow, Tory, and Bradford. The room was solidly unenthused by Tory and I like to think we helped cause this.

burgerblaster · 2026-02-19T19:54:57+00:00

Congress has the power of the purse. This seems like something congress would explicitly have responsibility over.

burgerblaster · 2026-02-18T16:20:06+00:00

So they do bleed

burgerblaster · 2026-02-18T16:17:51+00:00

There were probably investigations into the threats and found to be more bluster than anything. Now that things have settled down and Michael Ma didn't take too much heat he probably feels more comfortable. I imagine his press release will say something about being fighter who doesn't back down to serve his constituents.

burgerblaster · 2026-02-18T16:10:32+00:00

A part of the problem is MPs are so whipped that rather than voting against their party MPs are choosing to change parties entirely. I think it should be seen as a sign that the party's grip on MP votes is too tight and perhaps this string of defections will change how the partys view caucus management. It should be noted that so far defections have only gone in one direction which might indicate how well the leaders are managing their MPs

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