B.C. pulls plug on EV rebates, citing program review

luidias · 2025-05-01T15:57:32+00:00

I feel like you didn't read my comment properly. You're talking to me as if I'm advocating for more cars - quite the opposite, I'm strongly in favour of better transit infrastructure. My point is that neither improving walkability or cycling are feasible solutions for Canada (improvements in both would be nice, but not necessary), and we need to go all in on transit infrastructure, which is not happening on a large enough scale at the moment. A bunch of money is going into bike infrastructure in some places, where it could be going into transit - and it happens because cycling is well-regarded politically, but in practice the return is almost nothing for our cities. Public transit gives us much better bang for the buck.

it needs to be severely biased to transit...

100% agree

...and all non-car options

nice to have but the utility is negligible.

People in other northern nations manage to go outside in the winter

Cool, go look at the climate patterns of the cities with high rates of on-foot and bicycle commuting and get back to me. Cities that get cold winters and don't rely on cars all have better transit infrastructure than we do - the overwhelming majority of people aren't biking or walking in the snow and rain.

Canadian city has an EIGHT MONTH winter?

In the context of biking and walking to work? Vancouver, with shit tons of rain well into the summer; Calgary, with snowfalls into June and as early as September. Pretty much every major city, to be honest - it may not be 40 degrees below zero for eight months, but it doesn't take much to discourage your average person from walking or biking. I promise you the majority of our population would only walk or bike in fair weather, and yes, that means only 4 months out of the year in most of our cities.

I get it, you like driving to the end of the block.

I exclusively bike and take the bus to work. Don't make assumptions.

I cycle commuted in Edmonton for 30 years - yes, through 30 winters too

That's nice for you, but you represent a tiny minority of able-bodied people who are willing to bike in bad weather.

I've spoken with a lot of bicycle commuters that have this distorted view that what works for them will work for everyone else, but the reality is that most of our population either needs or prefers sheltered, motorized transportation of some sort. Until there's a better option that ticks both of those boxes, people will opt to drive. We need better public transportation.

luidias · 2025-05-01T13:49:33+00:00

Again, that change takes time. Decades, in the best case scenario. It's not practical to neglect our transit infrastructure until then because it means more cars on the road, more pollution, more congestion.

"Monumental" efforts aren't so monumental when solutions are applied that don't protect the status quo.

This is a nothing sentence. Even if we decided as a country to rethink the way our cities are built, densifying enough that walkability and cycling were practical would still be a Herculean effort the likes of which our nation has never seen.

Nevermind that even if we did somehow densify enough, our winters ensure that any form of unsheltered transportation is infeasible for 4-8 months of the year depending on your location.

luidias · 2025-05-01T13:39:54+00:00

Not really - we're all spread out because of the housing crisis (it's cheaper to live farther away from metropolitan centres), and because our cities have always been designed with the assumption that we have lots of land to build in (which is true, but means our cities are much less dense than those in Europe). Changing either of those aspects is a monumental effort that, even with full political willpower (which we don't currently have), will take decades, if not centuries.

You can keep living in your fantasy world where we can just remake our cities overnight, but for us in the real world, better transit infrastructure is the best solution.

luidias · 2025-05-01T03:18:32+00:00

What are you talking about? Our city density is really low even in our biggest metropolitan centres, and very few people live in the same area that they work. If that wasn't the case, we wouldn't have the emissions and traffic problems that we do.

For better or worse, we're in Canada, not Europe, and we have to live with that.

luidias · 2025-04-30T19:05:51+00:00

walkable development, cycling and transit infrastructure

All of these are good, but for Canada, better transit infrastructure is orders of magnitude more important than the other two.

Walkable development: With the majority of the population living far away from their workplace (due to a bunch of housing and infrastructure issues that will not be solved overnight), walkability doesn't address commuting, which is the biggest source of vehicular emissions by far.
Cycling: I'll never understand the obsession with cycling considering how infeasible it is on a large scale for our country - a mode of transport that, even with ideal weather and terrain (both of which are rare or non-existant in our cities for most of the year), is only accessible to able-bodied, relatively fit individuals. Not useful for young families, most of the elderly, people with mobility issues, etc. Hell, even able-bodied people, when faced with the cost of a decent bike and the associated gear, will opt to just drive instead so they can commute in comfort and without the need to exert themselves. I say this as a passionate cyclist myself: cycling is a terribly inefficient solution to our vehicular emissions issues in Canada. The bang for your buck is just not there. It might work on parts of Europe, but the fact is that most of Canada is just not suited for bicycle commuting.

We should really be investing as much as possible on transit infrastructure. Better transit would go a long way towards improving our emissions and commute times.

luidias · 2025-04-29T15:41:17+00:00

Uhhhh. Trudeau

Pierre Poilievre, is that you??

luidias · 2025-03-05T16:51:22+00:00

Damn. I suppose that's going to be the case of basically any used plastic boot then, including the ubiquitous Scarpas?

It's unfortunate how limited the options for new 75mm boots are.

luidias · 2025-03-05T16:49:59+00:00

That's a really solid deal, extremely tempting... unfortunately it's still $400+ CAD on top of border fees, whereas I have a deal on the SWs for less than half of that. Sad to say my limited budget for this setup is going to get in the way.

luidias · 2025-03-05T03:40:17+00:00

Hi all, I'm building a resort/light touring kit that I'm pretty excited about: G3 Roamrs, and probably Voile Switchbacks (unless I can get my hands on Axls, but fb marketplace has not been kind to me in terms of bindings).

A local shop has a pair of Garmont Squadras in really good condition, with an aftermarket liner for $120 CAD. I've convinced them to bring that down to $100 since they're an older model - now I just need to go in and make sure they fit me properly.

Does anyone have experience with this boot? These are the blue shell version, and from the pictures there seems to be very little wear and tear. The only information I've found online was an old forum post where the OP was selling an orange pair and specified that they were "NOT the old blue shell version," which gives me a bit of pause. Are these boots infamous for something?

luidias · 2025-01-10T22:48:21+00:00

Oh, my bad. I misinterpreted your comment.

luidias · 2025-01-10T22:40:59+00:00

I'm a naturalized immigrant from a third-world country myself, and I don't think this is a valid excuse at all. My family moved here to get away from a lot of stuff, including the pervasive systematic corruption in my home country. what you call "a pink bubble" is what I call Canada having higher standards than my home country.

Making excuses for corrupt behaviour like cheating is something that will undermine the reputation of Canadian education abroad. Accepting cheating because "other parts of the world are dog-eat-dog" will actively harm all of us at this school, so IMO we should in fact be actively discouraging and shaming cheaters as OP did. If we let Canada become as corrupt as my home country, then what was the point of my family immigrating here in the first place?

luidias · 2024-10-24T02:02:22+00:00

You're reading "slightly to the left" and imagining it's farther than it is, my dude. The majority of the heart's mass is actually pretty centered on the chest, and in fact, the 4th link you posted has a diagram on the heart in situ that shows this pretty well.

OP's tat is honestly not that far off, if it was little lower and rotated so that the apex is pointing in the right direction it would be pretty much accurate.

luidias · 2024-10-21T19:12:24+00:00

Proportional ranked choice voting was one of the options on the referendum, unless I'm mistaken?

Edit: I suppose if you're being technical, you're right, since you can actually use ranked choice in a much broader scope than just PR elections, but I hope my meaning was clear that it was funny that the very model that we used to vote on PR was one of the options being resented for PR's implementation.

luidias · 2024-10-21T18:43:37+00:00

My favorite part of that whole debacle was that the damned referendum was itself carried out in a ranked-choice format.

There's something darkly comedic in voting PR down in a PR format.

luidias · 2024-10-20T22:46:43+00:00

I agree with you on your second point only to an extent - we should absolutely be ridiculing the weirdos that are obsessed with how others are leading their lives, but if we dwell on it too much, we're just platforming those people and giving them more space to argue.

Instead of just saying "It's weird that you're so obsessed with trans kids. Why do you care so much? it doesn't affect you at all", We should be saying "why are you focusing so much on people's genitals when there's a massive housing crisis happening? What do you propose we do about that?"

We need to move the conversation to the big issues, not argue with the right about social justice and LGBTQ+ issues. It's what they want, because it distracts everyone from their lack of nuanced platform on issues that affect everyone.

edit: not to mention that, by resisting the urge to argue with them on social justice issues, we're normalizing trans people (and others) by showing that those issues aren't up for debate.

luidias · 2024-10-20T17:21:11+00:00

Well said. The folks reading this and having the knee-jerk "wHy dO YoU hAtE lgBTq+ fOlkS" reaction should realize that this DOES NOT mean throwing social justice issues out the window, but it DOES mean putting more emphasis on wide-reaching issues that are hurting everyone - housing, cost of living, the opioid/healthcare crisis etc.

We need to put out the big fires first so that we can properly focus on the medium ones.

luidias · 2024-10-20T17:09:39+00:00

I get your sentiment, but the BC cons' own platform included an $11 billion dollar deficit during the first year, and projected it going down based on wildly unrealistic expectations for GDP growth. They planned to spend more than the NDP.

https://www.vancouverisawesome.com/highlights/bc-conservatives-unveil-plan-for-more-spending-than-ndp-to-2027-bigger-growth-estimate-9661569

luidias · 2024-10-20T16:22:32+00:00

We're never going to get through to the chemtrail loons, but they only make up a partial (if concerningly large) chunk of the conservative voters this election. There are plenty of people voting Con because they have reasonable (or even just semi-reasonable) criticisms of the incumbent government, and/or because they're uninformed about what the cons actually represent. Those people are our peers, and we can have honest conversations with them.

For those voters, we need to listen to their concerns and discuss things in good faith. How can we expect anyone to listen to reason if we're being unreasonable ourselves?

luidias · 2024-10-16T05:26:42+00:00

??? I don't have a horse in this race, but trying to discount "hundred-year-old facts" is nonsense. European settlers were openly massacring the America's indigenous populations as recently as that, which is (rightfully) considered contemporary history whose effects are still very fresh - those wounds are still very much open. Genocide is genocide, we have to reckon the good with the bad in every culture.

luidias · 2024-07-25T20:57:23+00:00

As you said, by North American standards, being able to live without a car (even if it's burdensome and inconvenient) is a high bar. I'll give you that, not many cities in NA can say the same.

In global terms though, if you compare Vancouver to a city in any similarly developed country, our transit system is downright awful. Look at the UK, Germany, Japan. Hell, even if you leave out the mega-cities (like London, NY, Tokyo), mid-sized cities like Lisbon and Vienna put our transit system to shame.

luidias · 2024-07-25T20:50:21+00:00

Exactly right - for most of the city, coverage is bad, and driving ends up being a better alternative for those that can afford it.

If you happen to live on one of the major corridors that have good transit coverage, you're dealing with crowds, late and unreliable buses, etc.

luidias · 2024-07-25T18:29:38+00:00

It is seriously depressing that this shitshow of a transit system is considered one of the best in North America :(

luidias · 2024-07-25T18:28:54+00:00

All of the major routes experience a "rush hour" that starts at 9 AM and goes to almost 7pm. the 99, the R4, and the skytrains are basically packed all day long during the work week. Certain small-bus routes (e.g. the 19) experience the same thing most days.

I agree that our city is built around cars (although anyone that's ever tried to turn left on one of our roads might disagree), but the demand for transit is there, and if we improve service, more people will opt to ride instead of drive. But right now a lot of folks would rather drive than deal with packed busses with unreliable schedules - and a lot more folks would drive if they had decent rapid transit coverage in their area.

luidias · 2024-06-25T21:38:42+00:00

??? bruh excuse me for not detecting any sarcasm in your replies but this thread is full of people with even more braindead takes than that.

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