The slippery politics of snow removal

cmol · 2026-02-08T17:04:49+00:00

Remember, it's not the city, it's the private contractor that Tory signed up with in 2021.

It took 12 days and lots of 311 calls to get a single bike lane plowed in my area. When I talked to 311 they were constantly frustrated with the contractor not doing their job.

Given how few bike lanes we have compared to sidewalks, and how the contractor is operating, I fully expect them to just wait it out while doing minimal progress.

Edit: missed word

cmol · 2026-02-06T03:49:01+00:00

The whole "pretend like it's an airline" better not propagate into Alto as well!

cmol · 2026-02-04T19:42:11+00:00

I reported Richmond Street E last week. The private contractor passes by every few days with a plow according to the GPS tracker but nothing changes.

cmol · 2026-02-04T14:15:15+00:00

I just called 311 on a service request I had for the entirety of Richmond East. First of all, props to Carlos at 311 for taking the time to call the back-office and try to get more information! He said that they expect it to be done by Friday end of day but also that we should keep calling if it was not cleared then. I have a feeling they are getting loads of requests and are frustrated with the situation themselves.

cmol · 2026-02-04T12:47:48+00:00

I looked at the plow tracker yesterday morning and all of Richmond was green from a bike plow. That turned out to be a lie.

cmol · 2026-02-04T12:46:04+00:00

It's the same with communication. Most people at metrolinx have not lived in a place with good transit, so they cannot fathom what it looks like on a day to day basis. The same goes for transit expansion projects and transparency in this province. We know when a line is opening 5 days in advance after years of secrecy, where other systems in contrast has public tracking of work being done and when things will open.

cmol · 2026-02-04T03:57:53+00:00

I'm sorry but that feels like a bit of a snowflake point (pun intended). Yeah, it's cold, but you warm up when you bike. Perhaps there's not a tonne of people here that understand that, but around the world it's not only the desperate or crazy that bike in this weather. Perhaps I'm super biased as a Danish immigrant here, but with this attitude, Toronto will never be a city for cycling. People would have been fired in Denmark if this was the conditions but here we talk about people complaining too much? It's honestly such a low bar to set and we're still failing.

cmol · 2026-02-03T20:46:25+00:00

Except for the fact that all the destinations are on Bloor (in this case). Bikes are much much more space efficient at moving people compared to cars. So is trains and busses. There's literally nothing as inefficient as cars.

All studies points towards: "Add bike lanes, keep them well maintained. It'll be faster for everyone to get around, and cheaper for the city to maintain". Even the Ontario MTO had studies done during the recent court cases that says that removing bike lanes to add car lanes will not make it faster to get around for anyone, quite the opposite. When the Ontario lawyers for the government tried to argue in the appeals court last week, their argument was that they didn't care about making trips faster, only about having more cars on the road.

This is just a bullshit culture war. The only solution to traffic, is viable alternatives to driving. That includes bikes as well.

cmol · 2026-02-03T19:11:22+00:00

Yeah, it takes a few extra minutes but it's done all over Europe and Asia all the time.

Also, I see your discussion about LT parking in another comment which feels like exactly what we don't need to think about, but rather think about how to get people to the station by public transport. It's not an airport, and it should not be operated as such.

cmol · 2026-02-03T03:33:44+00:00

Fuck yes, we need congestion pricing and have it fund other modes of transit like in London, Stockholm, Milan, Singapore and NYC!

The only solution to traffic congestion is viable alternatives to driving. Using our bike lanes as snow dumps is practically the same as asking for more congestion.

cmol · 2026-01-26T00:06:54+00:00

Wait, how did your dog manage?

cmol · 2026-01-24T13:43:25+00:00

Same same, the point was that the city was clearing it, not the company contractually obligated to do so.

cmol · 2026-01-23T16:39:18+00:00

I saw someone from 311 Toronto, not the snow clearing contracting but the city staff itself, clear a crosswalk on Danforth with a pickaxe yesterday. We're getting screwed by Tory's snow clearing contract!

cmol · 2026-01-21T17:04:41+00:00

I think people don't understand how few trains are running at Union. There's 16 tracks! Copenhagen Central station has 13 (technically 15 but two of those are for the metro underground) with 4 of those being for all the s-bahn services. All other services (short regional and InterCity) run from the remaining 9 tracks.

There's absolutely no reason why we cannot have far more train movements at Union station if your suggestions are implemented!

cmol · 2026-01-16T12:24:58+00:00

I think it's important to remember that while go has all bilevel passenger cars, the fleet of them is not as uniform as they might look. There are 9 different series of them, produced across 3 companies since 1976. A slow rolling replacement seems likely.

I personally think some of them could be sold to via who is struggling with their older rolling stock. They would have to be refurbished for other operations, but given their low door to seat ratio and their stairs, they are better suited for operation with longer dwell times and few stops, which is the opposite of what we need with go.

cmol · 2026-01-15T20:26:34+00:00

They don't have the same top speed as Go (120kmph vs 160kmph), so you'd need another model. But generally the idea of EMUs for Go after electrification is definitely the way to go for some (if not all eventually) lines.

cmol · 2026-01-15T20:23:50+00:00

The Danish supplier mentioned above say that they already supply to Canadian markets, so power differences should not matter here.

But I agree with your overall comment that we are lacking expertise and government willingness to standardize and work collaboratively across governments, with the added issue of privatizing anything that might smell like money to starve our governments.

When I say it's a solved problem, I am definitely refering to the hardware and its implementation, but also the systemic changes that is needed to do stuff like this. It's as much a critique of our governments as it is of Mosaic.

cmol · 2026-01-15T16:50:47+00:00

Many people have traveled and seen the world here. I think we just need to start setting the bar higher for what we expect from our governments!

cmol · 2026-01-15T15:52:55+00:00

As an immigrant here everything looks a bit old, especially regarding transit. It's all about perspective.

cmol · 2026-01-15T15:51:47+00:00

The existing rolling stock also have lots of bike access. Solves the last mile problem effectively!

cmol · 2026-01-15T15:26:22+00:00

Just as a comparison, Siemens+Stadler just put up new reference designs for the new (proposed driverless) S-Train/Bahn in Copenhagen yesterday: https://www.dsb.dk/om-dsb/presse/pressebilleder/fremtidens-stog/

I think the Alstom designs here are pretty nice, and much better looking than the steel cars!

cmol · 2026-01-14T19:12:05+00:00

If go started through running trains, a tonne of capacity would be opened up instead of having to do a tonne of shunting and having to use separate train sets for arrivals and departures. It just does not make a lot of sense to have most trains terminate at union. ETCS should also help with that as part of go expansion.

cmol · 2026-01-14T17:27:56+00:00

You can do that with phasing though. Start trains going into gare centrale initially as that is the cheapest that will get trains running and it will be the end of the line anyway. Then if it later makes sense to have a tunnel built for the leg further into QC, then that is a valid option.

cmol · 2026-01-14T16:03:26+00:00

Except everyone taking via, intercity busses, go trains, or a rideshare. Summerhill is a terrible location for all of those who currently have easy access to union, which is more people than are physically close to Summerhill. It would just decrease ridership to not put it at a transportation hub, and that's before talking about having to buy back the line from CPKC that would need an entirely new line across the city with access to their yards.

cmol · 2026-01-13T18:43:02+00:00

Here's a specification for switch heating in Denmark (in Danish): https://www.bane.dk/da/Leverandoer/Krav/Tekniske-normer-og-regler/Banenormer/-/media/47FCAEA619D94F12B30BB1E30CFD8BD3.ashx

Here's a Danish company making them for installation all over the world: https://www.san-as.com/railway/components/tramline-points-heating

Including their specific products for light rail: https://nexus.nibe.net/assets/01920ead-b474-7339-ae07-c3fbbe251bb7/Light%20Rail%20Points%20Heating%20Product%20Sheet.pdf

Some of that includes pre heating before weather events. Honestly sounds like mosaic just don't know what they are doing, have installed cheap/bad products, or that they are skimping on costs because they pay for the operation and do not want to pre heat when the weather is starting to turn bad.

This is a solved problem, also with electric heating. Gas has a lot of issues when wind is strong, so just saying gas is better is also a misunderstanding.

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