 Looks like we are live. Welcome everyone to the stream on February 21st I'm forgetting what day it is because I've been stuck inside for like four months. It's crazy Very exciting stuff to talk about today Some discussion items. I'm excited for Maybe a bit of Talk about future plans and videos a bit And as usual just kind of discussion with everyone here I always enjoy the questions and other stuff that comes up and yeah, I really suggest that people You'll bring up points if if there's something you want my take on or you think I should discuss I'm happy to see it in the chat, but yeah, I'll start the main Stream in a couple minutes. I usually just wait until 305 just so that more people can Can join and and enjoy the stream. I'm just Going over here So currently I have in the description of the video the link to the next stream so make sure to go take a look at that and bookmark it or Set a reminder on that and YouTube allows you to set a reminder so you can see the next stream So I think that's that's definitely good I also have in there The the Google form. So if you have an interesting Oh 10 seconds my bit rate is lower than suggested. So I'm just I'm dealing with a new machine here So I'm just trying to see what I can do to maybe cut things back here Let me see if I can close some windows. I can reduce the The draw on my internet connection and just open up task manager here and shut something down. That's using a lot of a lot of bandwidth See oh discord close that Cool, I think we're looking at slightly better now It's warning me how's the video quality everyone maybe someone can can stay in the chat like how the video and audio quality is I'm just making sure everything is All right here. I'm trying to Close this See we're sitting a little low for our low for our video quality So let's get into it Well, I'll wait I'll wait the two minutes But yeah, so if anyone has you know interesting transit cards or interesting maps and anything like that then It would be great feel free to send us that stuff in we like to open it On the stream and then talk about stuff. We've got stuff from kind of all over the world And so it's very exciting and And yeah, I'm just taking a look now look at the chat Some people first time making it to the stream Hopefully you enjoy it. What is the poster in the top right corner? So I think you're referring to this poster over here This is a poster for a game studio that Ellen is a big fan of Ellen is quite a gamer and And she's a big fan of this game studio. So she got some posters from them So someone's asking what do you think of mandatory reservations on longer-distance services in interesting I Will answer this at 305 I'll come back to it Um, good afternoon. Good afternoon to you as well video quality looks good. That's great Awesome, so let me take a look So yeah for anyone who has just joined because we a bunch of people have hopped on I tend to talk about some main points I think are interesting For from the week news items and stuff this week was a little light on news So I have some other discussion items. I I pulled up But then also people like to ask questions in the chat as well as Bring up stuff if you think it's a good topic for me to discuss I can do so have my water here so that my I don't die dehydration ooh Some interesting questions already My hair is totally crazy Someone commented that I should get a haircut Clearly unaware that Toronto is in lockdown and I can't easily get a haircut But yeah, so it's real five. Let's get into it So I'll answer a few questions and I'm gonna go into my first kind of discussion point for the day And then I'm going to Yeah, I'll go to I tend to do some questions And then I go to a discussion point or a news item and I go back to questions I kind of go back and forth until the stream is over so the first question is kind of about the Airlinization of Amtrak and I think other other rail services in general like do you requiring reservations I Think some reservations are okay. Like you should definitely have some reservations, right because if if you're planning a trip You want to be able to reserve a seat on the train? I had a solution to this Can always be to allow standees like I know on I don't know how broadly it's it's an option But some high-speed rail services for example while you just stand like you can pay and stand if you if you if you really need to Get on the train. So that's always an option and So that's one thing you can do. I think that having a blend is important, right? Because some people should always be able to walk up like this is in the flight So people might reasonably walk up and maybe they only want to go a few cities over and high-speed rail Could be a great way for them to do that. And so if they're willing to pay Probably should have a higher price if you don't book in advance because it's it's less certain, right? And so from a business perspective that makes less sense But otherwise, I think like a blend is best. I think there's there's benefits to having some, you know Non-reserve seats and some reserve seats I'm just gonna look at a few more of these questions With a new TTC order of streetcars and subways for line 2 well, they're not ordering streetcars for line 2 Be the Flexity and the Rockets since Bombardier has been acquired. Well, there's no reason that another company can't make them, right? An example I like to give is if you look at the Dubai Metro trains They all look the same, right? But I believe the original order was made by Hitachi And then the new order was made by Alstom. They're not substantially different. They look very very similar the Alstom ones of course have an Alstom logo on them, but What that shows you is that it's often the case that like the design can be given to other companies Like sometimes a company doesn't want to build a bid and other companies can acquire the design and things like that same thing Happens in other cities. So yeah, if they want to design use the same design they could I'm not a huge fan of Either the Flexity streetcar or rocket designs the Flexity may be a bit better than the rocket The rocket is a really dated train design and it has some good features like full or you know gangways and stuff But it's got a lot of problems too I'm gonna take a few more questions and then I'm going to go to my first kind of item I want to discuss Would you like the Eglinton crosstown or O-Train line one better if they use rolling stock like LA Metro? Maybe so LA Metro uses really poor quality labor rolling stock. It's super heavy The kinky sharia stuff is at least I think that if they use the high-floor Siemens rolling stock that Calgary for example uses then yes I would far prefer them because they have more doors or per unit length right because they're high floor So there's no bobeys in the way which makes them more appropriate for Metro style operations, right? So that's obviously very important and then I think they're more attractive That's just a total personal opinion thing But then again high floor it's more accessible And so when you've got a packed Metro train having the ability to kind of maneuver around it's better And it's safer too and more accessible. So I think yeah high-floor trains are better for that sort of service We ever do a video about transit oriented development. Yeah, I probably will I'm quite interested in in urbanism and development It what happens is whenever I plan to do a video on like cities or urbanism or development or Infrastructure or other stuff. I always get dragged back to transit because something comes up and I have to talk about it So yeah, one thing I was thinking about talking about was kind of like how I chose where we where we live I don't have my blinds open. We live near a rail line And I think it could be interesting for people who you know are looking for homes and stuff like that Like how do you decide like from a transit perspective? Like how do you how should you decide where to live so you can rely on transit for most of your trips and things of that sort? So I think that that could be interesting I'll think one more question, which is this highway 407 REM question from NICSA So I think a 407 REM would be great I think the 407 busway is a little silly like I Think that it's if it's only going to be used by GO buses, which it seems like it mostly would be then Why wouldn't you just make it around? It's going to be mostly great separate in anyway And and buses are okay But they're first of all, they're expensive to operate right bus operators get paid a lot and they should be But if you could do an automated rail system, that means you can operate more service Which is better business case and better service for everyone So if you can you probably should and for grade-separated systems you you can And so I think I think there's a lot of argument to be made for 407 Transitway just being a REM also you've got to consider the fact that like it's a circumferential line, right? There's not something that there's there's very poor weeks across the northern GTA like if you want to go from North York or North Scarborough to like Miss Saga City Center Or other areas along the 407 quarter. It's really hard and I think that Providing better quality transit there should be a priority so Take some what take some water drink some water. I'm my throat is a little sore so My first news item Is on something I was thinking about talking about on a video, but where I think that maybe it's more appropriate for the stream It's a two-part thing. So it's talking about hydrogen, right? We were so I know I talk a lot about Toronto and videos and on the screen And so I will try to give some background so Toronto is electrifying of course the go regional rail slash commuter rail network It is a bit commutory right now like there's a lot of commuter focus good luck during the pandemic with that but so previously Because and this is so sad because there was I think some prominent Hydrogen companies in Ontario government kind of push because it was they saw news articles seemingly of hydrogen trains in Europe Existing they pushed for it to be studied for electrifying the go network now go is not like the plan is to make it something like an S-bond or Not exactly RER like you know like a regional train network an S-bond is probably the most appropriate And there was this push to like study hydrogen Which is obviously silly because anyone who knows anything about the railways knows that the hydrogen trains that are being tested Which are fine. They're like they're good trains and all but therefore like true like regional lines in Europe Which is you know between like minor cities or minor towns You know not super high frequency go RER go expansion terrible name Go RER is probably a terrible name as well, you know, whatever we want to call it I should come up with a name and use that name, but maybe would stick but It's a mass transit system It shouldn't be using these these small little regional trains designed for Europe are there spots where like those type of trains could make sense I always say the O train would make a lot of sense because they're literally all-stem lints Which are what operates on the O train right now and statler who's making the flirts for the O train also has a hydrogen model and development But for go where you need way more capacity and higher frequencies. No, it doesn't make any sense and so the whole proposition of using hydrogen was stupid and And and so this is also going to get into a bit about the media and how the media covered this and why it frustrated me But to talk a bit more about the hydrogen side The reason hydrogen Maybe makes a bit more sense in Ontario is because we have an electricity surplus at night because we have a very Nuclear-dependent energy grid and since nuclear power, you know, it's not you cannot really ramp it up and down You've got a ton of power at night time that you that you can't use that gets sold at a super cheap price So why not turn that into hydrogen is the thought and use it to fuel the trains, which okay That's an interesting proposition. There's a lot of reasons why it's not actually that smart though. First of all Creating hydrogen like as I think most people who watch this channel probably like a little bit engineering Intrigued there or whatever. You probably know that a lot of hydrogen for hydrogen vehicles comes from reforming natural gas So it's basically coming off a fossil fuel. So it's not actually environmentally friendly You don't create an emission when you like a negative emission Water vapor and such when you use the hydrogen, but it comes from natural gas And that's like the easiest most efficient way to get it the way we would be getting it with electricity is from a electrolysis And electrolysis is of course where you split water into hydrogen and oxygen, of course It's not that efficient which you can you know You can judge by the fact that while water is only two-thirds hydrogen, right? So you're not going to be getting even if you were perfectly efficient. You're not getting that much hydrogen Two-thirds right part of the the other issue with this with electrolysis besides the fact that it's super inefficient is You don't have the hydrogen infrastructure So you need to make pipelines and tanks and you also need to design rolling stock that would be mass transit ready Which again doesn't exist and there's a lot of issues actually designing for example the double-decker rolling stock that we usually use on go to to work with Hydrogen and so so that part was silly. So there's a lot of silly stuff that happened But like in the modern era, why would you use that to store energy anyways because Tesla has batteries? Batteries are way more efficient for energy storage than hydrogen would be It's also easier to deploy and with batteries you could still use Electric locomotives with an overhead wire, right? And you could have some battery trains as well that charge off of those batteries that could fuel your your grid But it's it's does everything hydrogen does and you don't need to design trains that don't exist yet Which is why it was so silly in the first place and why everyone who was ever serious or really was In the loop on the railway industry knew that this was probably not gonna happen because why would a rolling stock? Manufacturer design a brand-new train from for a system that is that is brand-new and that why would they take a risk like that? It doesn't make sense for a business which the rolling stock manufacturers are of course So bit ranty, but it's it's frustrating And so so a lot of people were kind of entertaining the thought that metrolings was seriously considering this and then like years ago they said like it's up to the bidders so if the bidders who want to electrify the go network want to use hydrogen cool We don't care if they use hydrogen. It's electric And at that point hydrogen was dead because anyone could put two to two and two together and realize that like No, no company in the right mind is going to use hydrogen for For rolling stock for such a major project where it's already super risky So it was dead then and then like recently like months ago They announced kind of like no one was interested in hydrogen and then just this week There was news that like hydrogen is officially dead and we will not be using it And it's just silly, you know, like the media didn't really cover it until until it was officially dead And I think that kind of goes to show you that the media is not very Transinformed in Toronto. There's some small outlets that are but like, you know The popular media outlets who if you think about media in Toronto, you would be able to think of they They don't really talk about transit in a very nuanced way, right? They they talk a lot about like whatever's gonna get clicks whatever super politicized But the actual like technical details of transit and how those technical details lead to like the realities of transit like the fact that We would never use hydrogen in the first place are things the media doesn't talk about It's part of why I created this channel because I think that Transit should be covered in a way that is based on technology and like insight into transit and not just on what gets clicks And what's political? But so it's very frustrating for me to see that and so I Want to throw that out there. I I'm going to make a few points and I'm gonna go into some more questions from the the chat If you are new to the stream, there's a link to our next stream in the description of this video. Please go little I just ate There's there's a link to the next stream in the in the description of this video so I recommend you go and check that out because It's great to you chat with everyone on every second week There's also a link to send us transit cards and maps which we always love to receive from everyone And we recommend you send something in anyways Let's let's look at a few more comments that some of us found your channel a couple weeks ago really love your content Keep it up. Thank you very much Should major Canadian cities build circumferential rail lines. I think I think you could argue that like munch Well, I'm not gonna get into this because there might be a video coming up about Montreal and this a bit But Toronto the 407 rim would be circumferential, right? So so I think they should But we need radio lines first and there's not like great regional level radio lines at the moment But yeah, definitely Someone saying thankfully your region opens up tomorrow Well, I don't know if it's thankful because it doesn't seem like it's actually very good idea for it to open up I think part of the problem with our COVID response has been the fact that we we don't just commit to anything Right, we open close open close and you never get the numbers down It would be great if we just hard lock down for a month and then we could just be done with it But we don't do that. So we're in this kind of economic purgatory Do you have any news about the rem in Montreal anything we need to know as an update? There may be a video coming so about this so I don't want to say anything too specific, but The rem one is under construction Rem 2 Rem B is is you know going through its planning phases and they recently announced some information about Why they wanted to do a guideway? Down Renee Lovak, and so I think that's that's the main updates as of late as of late So how does the rear door of a catalyst from Protera be 40 work the rear door has a button? Okay, I'm not sure what the question here necessarily is have you heard the news from The province of Quebec who want to get involved in the in the tramway in Quebec City? I think that if they bring in the CDPQ and maybe they do some sort of light metro project That would be great You know, I think people kind of think that like hey a small city light metro isn't appropriate I really recommend people look at like what Copenhagen and Brescia and Rens do with their like Val and Hitachi light metro systems As it turns out there's actually a lot of precedent in Europe and even in Asia for small cities Building light metros, and so I think it's it's something people should look into Yeah, in the UK standing is expected even out of rush hour. Yes, but I'm not really talking about Regional I'm talking about like intercity trains. I'm not sure if that's also the norm on intercity trains But I'm explicitly referring to intercity trains. Is there anywhere, you know, that we can find Ontario line building and architecture plants that you know of I think Metrolings released some Kind of like rough design type stuff like a design guideline set sort of thing to kind of give you a sense of what stations could Look like someone could throw a link for that into the chat if they want But something like that is up, but I don't know about building and architecture plans. I don't think anything like that is out there Let me think let's go to the next Point of discussion So I posted on Twitter recently if you're not already seriously go go follow me on Twitter I I tweet a lot these days and I think I put some good some funny stuff up there Which is it's fun to be able to be a bit light-hearted and I've been posting almost every day a new or some sort of elevated rail system as kind of a Response to the the Nimbis in Toronto who suggests that elevated rail doesn't work anywhere I think I've posted like 30 cities that have elevated rail Hint hint including like almost every other city in Canada, which has elevated rail including Toronto like Eglinton Crosstown line To both have elevated portions Line twos is really short, but I still find it funny I mean it's hilarious line one in Toronto is elevated through Rosedale, which is like the Kensington and Chelsea of Canada, right? Like it's it's It's like a super rich neighborhood and the train runs right through it above ground it would blow the minds of a lot of Nimbis I think So that's that's something I find I find funny, but So one of the tweets I made recently was that should I make a video talking about where streetcars should go? Because people get the sense that I just hate streetcars and LRT and it's not true I think they're really cool and like cities like Paris and Amsterdam that have Solid tramway networks like I love those cities and I love the tramway networks, and I love the streetcars in certain places as a U of T student I Wrote the Spadina streetcar in Toronto, which if you're not from Toronto go look it up It's a very nice streetcar It has a very a very cool bit where it splits around a very beautiful Historical building which is the U of T architecture faculty But like I like great like tramways when they're in their own right of way I think mixing traffic with trams is really silly but So so my kind of common was that like there were places. I think streetcars actually make sense to be clear I usually talk about how silly I think they are when you put them in low density suburbs because obviously When you have a vehicle that has a low average speed, why would you put it in a low density area where you need to travel fast? Naturally because it's low density to get between different locations And so I wanted to propose a few places where streetcars should go now I'm going to make my video about a place I think is really good for streetcars, but I'm going to propose a few others here and leave the main one for the video And to be clear There's a lot of issues with our streetcars like people treat them as this amazing thing But again as a spadina streetcar rider the spadina streetcar is slow and unreliable and It's like one of the best streetcars and it has its own right of way So a lot of the things that we suggest we should do for light rail that we don't even do for light rail We should be doing for streetcars. So that looks like they should have level boarding. There's no reason they shouldn't They should have better shelters because like with next stop and next vehicle arrival screens For dedicated right-of-way streetcars where you have like a big stop You could have a little screen hanging down The streetcars are not reliable as I mentioned and they often aren't all that frequent And so you should have a screen that tells people when the next car is coming also because rail is higher order in terms of transit modes and so you should communicate to how How you know when the next train is coming the next tram it should be You know shelters as I mentioned should be better the ones on spadina have poles right down the middle which makes them terrible You know, you should have high quality ticketing machines that are sheltered at the shelters The platforms should probably be a bit wider You should have to have bumps at the edge of the platforms like you know Why don't we treat our streetcars like we treat LRTs because LRTs and streetcars are essentially the same thing Right like when they're on the surface LRTs are just modern tramways and streetcars are just old and so we're kind of trying to fit things in So that's one thing I have to say but in terms of where streetcars would make sense I think like more in the denser areas of the city, right? So The TTC's recent plan for Union station's new streetcar portion talks about a Lot of throat issues talks about having a connection to Bremner So Bremner Boulevard is a street through what's called Southcourt in Toronto, which is where Scotiabank Arena and The Rogers Center where like the major sports teams play like some convention centers as well and a lot of condos There's talk of putting a streetcar line down there And yeah, that makes a ton of sense right because it's a street with a ton of density packed into a tight space So even if the streetcar doesn't move all that fast Well, the chances are you don't need to be on it that long to get where you're going And so it makes a lot of sense in that location. I think that like Bay Street in Toronto Which already has a section of streetcar Tracks like why not extend that like that's a good place to have Another streetcar service like Spadina right like make it a great separate Not great separate make it a dedicated right-of-way streetcar And I think that would be a great place to have one and maybe go north of Bloor Like it is a little funny how the streetcars all stop at Bloor even though the density doesn't stop at Bloor, right? Like there's not a huge difference at like Main Street between the density south of Bloor and north of Bloor So why not have the lines continue a little further north? But yeah, I think like for the dense area of the city a lot of places north south of Eglinton having more streetcar lines makes sense and like they have a lot of benefits like lower operating costs and Streetcars are a higher order of transit and they're more comfortable to ride on than buses So streetcars make sense in some places to be clear I just don't think the suburbs are at all the place you should be building them right dense places Like, you know, and you're for example So I Am coming back to the chat not oh oh my goodness So I thought like oh there wasn't that many comments and then as it turns out there is a lot of comments in the chat and And so I need to I need to quickly go and respond So yeah, if you have questions or you have topics you think I should talk about during the stream feel free to Feel free to To ask them and to bring them up and I'll discuss them So let's see So the mayor of us, I think same Julie Once the REM to be extended on the South Shore along Highway 30. Okay, so it was just more of a comment With the new Toronto LRT is operating as local transit How much of a difference could station consolidation make in future LRT projects? Could it bolster the bang for the buck LRT argument? Yeah, potentially like having less Stop so that the trams could go faster would be beneficial part of the problem though Is that you're limited to the street speed, right? A city streets tend to be in Canada like 40 to 60 kilometers per hour Which you know a subway can hit up to 80 kilometers per hour between well-spaced stops So basically by making the tram go on the street you put this artificial ceiling on the speed Which just means that naturally like a lot of trips are just going to take you know longer They're going to take similar time to a bus You actually you actually find that Austin buses can perform better because First of all buses Don't have to deal like they can weave between traffic and they don't have to deal with left turning cars Right because they're on often on the curb lane, so Buses buses often don't perform all that much worse than than LRT does What happened to smart track? Smart track was I don't think this is the time to talk about smart track That would be a that would be a 30-minute discussion, but So fights to say smart track was never really a thing and it continues to not really be a thing But it might be more of a thing that doesn't exist now than it was a thing that doesn't exist in the past Do not eat spicy food before doing a stream How feasible with keeping the RRT going with upgrades be I know it's too late, but your opinion was the option And going back to buses is absolutely nuts Keeping it going is absolutely feasible if the Vancouver Skytrain can keep getting new equipment The Scarborough RT could it's crazy and the kind of I hate to say it But the LRT mafia really does not like you to discuss that the Scarborough RT could I don't know just be upgraded and fixed Which would cost far less than You know the cost of converting it to LRT, which I think is the silliest plan because what you're going to have the exact same line But you're spending a ton of money to in my opinion make it worse because low-floor LRT vehicles Do not make sense if they're not operating on the street, which is kind of the conundrum you're in because Because if the pushes to have a low-floor vehicle then make operating it on the street makes a lot of sense But operating on the street tends to be bad And so so there's this kind of cyclical thing with low-floor LRT, but no the Scarborough RT situation is terrible It's very upsetting As someone who's wrote it a lot actually I used in my daily commute for a long time. It's a good line Like it's actually not that bad. It's a little loud But so is the subway if you're going through Union where there's tight curves, right? So I Don't know what to say. I'm frustrated and probably more frustrated than than anyone about the whole situation If you try to bring up the fact that it could be fixed or maintained Which to be which is the funniest thing is that the TTC did a study Before all of the can of worms about the LRT replacement was was was done The study said the best option is to just repair and fix up the RT It shouldn't you didn't even have to argue that that's an obvious thing, right? Like fixing something is cheaper than building something new where you have to do a lot of heavy construction but because of the crazy politics in the city That kind of Opinion is not accepted. Anyways Scarborough RT makes me so frustrated The LRT people are just as much to blame as any subway people for the situation in Scarborough and to be fair as someone who lives in Scarborough and as someone who who doesn't have any allegiance to transit modes because as I've mentioned, I love metros I love trams. I just like them where I think they are most appropriate People in Scarborough I'm not talking about myself But if you just like kind of like go around the community talk to like political leaders who obviously go around the community a lot Everyone wants a subway like like the people who are saying that Scarborough wants an LRT are quite likely in the minority And there are people who aren't from Scarborough, but who like LRT and who think that Scarborough would be a great place for their dreams to be realized. So that's my opinion Maybe a little harsh, but that that's I think that's something worth saying Someone says a favorite soft drink and you know, it's interesting is I don't have quote like typical soft drinks at all Like I like Coke, I guess But the thing I do have a lot of is Lemonada like the Italian lemon soda. I like it a lot. So that's something I like Yeah, hydrogen is good for branches and maybe some some small small small services But I don't think it's a great wide application technology Speaking of hydrogen Portugal shutting down coal plants and adapting them to make green hydrogen which probably isn't very green, but you know It's better than coal And I do think like for some applications hydrogen makes sense like maybe for ships and trucks It actually makes sense because it's like quite high energy density, right? At least when you compress it down a ton, which is quite possible because it's such a light element But I let me quickly Do my last news item and then I'm going to just go into Q&A for the rest of the thing So so everyone, you know throwing your questions into the chat. I can't answer everything So I'll try to keep it to be what I think are the most interesting questions But but yeah, I will do this last item before I do that I got to plug my social media and everything else once more once more last time in the stream Go follow me at Twitter Instagram join the community discord I think if you're leaving comment here, you'd you'd love to chat there It's it's a great great little community links for all this stuff is in the description Send us your transit cards send us your transit tickets if they're interesting send us transit maps And maybe we can put some more on the walls behind me, which you'll see in the next stream But with that I think I will go into my last News item. It's just another hot take slash opinion because I'm a little frustrated these days The thing I wrote is why I'm why I am tired of appeals to authority So I'm not sure how many of my viewers have been to university or have kind of been through debates or things like that But appeal to authority is kind of the textual exact quote for this fallacy like a logical fallacy, which is that when someone tells you you should believe them because someone with Authority basically someone who's an expert or someone who who for whatever reason has has the authority to talk About something it is why you should listen to them. That's a red flag and you should be concerned The reason I say that is let's take an example The New York City subway is great system, but it has a lot of problems, right? Like it's obviously the cost to build new lines is insane, right? But if you listen to the appeal to authority folks You would believe that that's totally reasonable because the engineers who are responsible for designing and building these These projects well, they are engineers, right? So surely they know they know more than you and me and so so that must mean that it should be expensive, right? The truth is Anyone can have an opinion. No one there's no real Qualification for anything if you're an engineer or a planner, right? You have qualifications and knowledge which definitely allow you to make better judgments But there's no such thing as an infallible person, right? like everyone can screw up and make mistakes and everyone has blind spots and so What you need to do is look at data and look at what works in other places I think I think that's the best way of judging what's smart and what's not smart and what works and what doesn't work And so appeals to authority are just a way for people typically who don't have any authority themselves To shut down an argument from someone who has more authority than them by arguing that someone with even more authority Has has an even better idea and the truth is you can always this argument will never be able to be one because People will always say, you know appeal to some higher authority And this happens a lot in Toronto with the LRT discussions where you know You'll get some appeal that this person says LRT is really good or like this thing is really good And you just need to look at the data And I think that that's the most important thing when we're talking about transit and debating it and discussing Which we all enjoy to do. Otherwise otherwise you guys wouldn't be spending your Sunday afternoon with me talking about it So now I am done with my kind of points. I wanted to discuss. I am going to try to Fly through the chat, which okay. Oh, okay. There's a lot of questions Let's let's go Let's do this Hydrogen it might be good for getting up to say Catherine's Niagara Falls could be a by-mode up to Hamilton Yeah, I don't disagree, but I also I'm kind of on the The team of we should just electrify the freight railways I don't think they do it themselves, but I think that you know, maybe hydrogen will make sense for them, but but freight like Fossil fuels do have very high energy density And so it's difficult to get like hydrogen to work for like a locomotive And so I think that the answer might be just like let's electrify the major freight railroads Starting from major cities and working our way out the government probably needs to provide major subsidies for them To do it, but then you don't even have to worry about go etc having electric like electric lines to operate on outside of the city Don't forget cheaper batteries are coming fast like iron manganese. Yeah, so like and it's not just that There's lots of different technologies coming like solid-state batteries mono cells like various different things that That will bring make batteries even even even better right and part of the benefit of electric cars That I sometimes talk about is they're pushing battery technology fast forward very fast And I think that's great because battery technology is critical for trains and as well as buses in our urban transportation systems As well as for like our grids right as our energy grids move to renewable power Batteries become super important to allow us to store energy when we have it so we can use it when we don't have it and And so batteries are critical and it's good to see them developing Hydrogen is extremely explosive. Yeah, I mean like you don't even have to bring up the Hindenburg Right like everyone knows hydrogen dangerous hydrogen explodes. Do you really want to be sitting on a giant bomb? Basically, right like a pressurized tank of highly flammable gas In my opinion hydrogen would make the most sense for some towns in Ontario fair size which have no rail connections whatsoever Such as orangeville Maybe but like if batteries are a good option would they not even make more sense opinion on sushi? I have a weird history with sushi I spent time in Japan. I had some sushi that was quite good I thought at the time and then it got very sick and now I have like a kind of weird get reaction to not Didn't the sushi and I just can't really eat it So I stick to kind of cooked foods typically now, which is sad, but it was good sushi. It was in in Odewara, I think The water is great today Okay, well to see if it was the same mass. Yes, okay It's still super inefficient is the point. How likely do you think the shepherd subway extension is to happen as currently planned? Since it's not amongst the current Priorities, I mean like it's gonna happen eventually right like that's I think inevitable It might just be in in a long time, which is unfortunate If you were to create a transit system, what would you make? I'm not sure what necessarily this question is asking so I'm going to continue Maybe if you want to clarify I can transfer it after reopening as early can be really bad idea My country's been in a harsh lockdown for two months Only exceptions being schools which returned into lockdown like Yeah, but that's the problem right like Schools are so bad for for transmission because yeah, sure the kids aren't gonna get sick But then they're gonna go home and get everyone else sick. And so this is why again hard lockdown just makes the most sense Yeah, I was throwing shade at someone at some some organization I do think it's funny that Copenhagen built a massive high-frequency SBOT network first and plan for that to be its metro Before the mini metro was built over almost 70 years like later. Yeah, it's Copenhagen is such a weird case But it's a great city right like Copenhagen is one of the greatest cities in the world And the the estuary network is awesome. The metro is awesome People should check out Copenhagen as well as the bike the bike network can just the city in general like the the pedestrian zones and stuff Interesting outside of COVID times I stand for two to three hours at peak times Well, there you go British rail service very popular but has some problems Do you think passenger rail operators should propose public-private partnerships to electrify freight lines on shared corridors? Well, okay I mean, yes Yeah, possibly. I think that kind of falls on the lines that we need to do something to electrify various corridors, right? Apparently even young north and Scarborough subway extension will platform screen doors If you have a source for that, I'd be really interested in seeing it. I haven't heard that It would only make sense the Toronto York's but I'm a subway extension, which is the the leg I don't have a map on my map is actually over here The leg that goes like this out of the top of the young line off to the side That was has supposed to have platform screen doors, but because budget cuts and such They got removed at the kind of a late stage of the project So we would have had them on those projects, but yeah, I hope we have platform screen doors Like this is the 21st century, right? Yes, the streetcar video Jane and Dufferin I Jane and Dufferin. Yes, but not far north right where it becomes quite suburban, which is why I find those LRT plans silly how much can we upgrade the Toronto streetcar to grade-separated LRT and what point does it become a lost cause well like No LRT is like that's really an LRT is grade-separated and let's call them trams, right? We can make them segregated like put them in their own lanes But grade-separated LRT doesn't really make sense right like LRT vehicles are explicitly designed to operate on the street They're heavier because they need to be designed to interact with vehicles that you know Like your your SkyTrain train is actually lighter than your LRT train because which makes it more efficient and able to accelerate faster and stuff because a SkyTrain is not going to get hit by a car or a bus or a Semi-truck right so and in addition when you have a high-floor vehicle all your equipment gets hung underneath Which means that you know your center of gravity is lower, which is beneficial for a lot of reasons So grade-separation doesn't really make sense with LRT Which is why we probably shouldn't be building LRT in most of the places We are we can upgrade our Toronto streetcar network to be like a modern tramway though I'm talking quite fast, but lots of comments here New American streetcars aren't bad and give a bad idea to the name Well calling them streetcars is definitely part of the problem in my opinion Do you see the REM test like did you see the REM tests? Yes, I did Very exciting stuff. Do you think the money spent on the shepherd line would have better spent be spent as a streetcar? No, I don't necessarily think so You could probably get a lot of streetcars if we built them inexpensively, which we mostly do for the same price The main flaw of the shepherd subway is just that it doesn't go far enough So it's not super useful though for the length of the line like it does like people don't for five stops or four stops really on On the TTC the average like the average riderships of the stops are not actually that low The shepherd subway isn't that terrible. It's just the fact that it doesn't go anywhere particularly useful It forces a linear transfer So a lot of the problems are just because it's not long enough But I don't see why you couldn't do both What do you think will happen to the Scarborough RT stuff once it's done? I Think it will be demolished and and I'll weep over its over its smoldering remains Mark 3 Scarborough RT when if only you say trams should be segregated But what is your opinion on trams that go through these European old streets? But there's no space to segregate them like Lisbon. Well, those are very special cases, right? And in a lot of places when you can't get them separate from car traffic You just ban cars right and that if you're in a dense enough place like that makes sense in central areas Like I think what like Bordeaux has a lot of areas like that as well as Another city that does something like that is Sydney. I think on George Street So it's it's pretty common to have like a Tram only corridor. I think some places in Amsterdam do that as well What is your opinion of the what Seattle did with a mixed light rail bus tunnel transit way? Do you think it can be effective in other cities with light rail? I don't think it's a good model like Because if you're building rail And you're not running it frequently and you're sharing space with buses. I don't know. It's it's okay I just don't think it's a really a great model, right like I I Guess transit ways in general are okay because they do allow sort of service that you can't get otherwise the problem I think as we're seeing in Ottawa is that they don't convert well necessarily to rail Which is problematic because if you can't convert to rail Then you eventually run out of the ability to run buses plus buses are super expensive to run as rapid transit, right? Because you're carrying tons of people and so few per vehicle So your your costs are really high because you have to pay a driver for every what like less than a hundred riders Whereas in a train you could pay one driver for like 700 riders. So think of that your operating costs could be like five six seven times higher For buses right like buses are heavy like maintenance wise too And if you're if you're doing a transit way that's only for buses like you got to maintain that too So buses are really expensive to operate rail. It's expensive capitalized But once you build it right operating it isn't his price intensive Is there any plan to introduce platform boarding for the Scarborough LRT to allow step-free Low boarding access. So now we're sure you're referring to as the Scarborough LRT the Scarborough RT like the the Metro mini Metro Skytrain style thing already has level boarding the Eglinton LRT, which will be in Scarborough also will have level boarding What changes would you make to the California? Has to be rail project you mentioned before it had issues Is it just that they were way over budget and out of schedule? Thank you More water. Um, I'll answer that in a second Oh someone shared the go electrification EA addendum Maybe I need to open this up and discuss it a bit. I'll look through it But let me just go through these few points. So yes California has to be real a lot of problems. It is way over budget But or sorry, it is late and it's over budget and that's because of problems, right? The the like if you look at like the Central Valley in California, it should not be hard to build high-speed rail A lot of it is just empty fields and minor roads, right? You know, they probably should have looked at what like other countries do and again Spain high-speed rail video will be coming so we should really look at what Spain does but Just a quip that I need to mention Spain builds high-speed rail For the same prices in China does right let that sink in Spain builds high-speed rail really cheap so so Spain isn't definitely a model the route like to go through the Central Valley. They probably should have stuck closer inland SNCF IE the French National Rail Operator Offered to do the whole high-speed rail project for like half the price that they're doing it for right now And they were turned down. That's all I have to say I think that it tells you the whole story of the the issues with the project Have you looked into the DACA metro rail project? If yes any opinions on it? I have seen the DACA project, but I do not have enough information to have a solid opinion Probably good. I like metros generally I think they generally are pretty good because they because they have to be separated from traffic There's a lot less potential for funny business and silly stuff the smartsburg plan where RER would go to Scarborough Town Center like the Stovill line It's definitely an interesting plan The problem with depending on like RER plans is that we don't have RER, right? Like we're like I know that I'm one of the people who says that, you know, it's being procured and stuff It's been a long time like it's shocking that we still don't have like the information still hasn't been released on What's going on and and like the I guess the because stuff is still in progress, which is crazy But what that goes to show you is just kind of that That RER is kind of plotting along and I don't think we should base major plans on it right on on a need for that So I'm just looking at this go electrification EA addendum that that that someone just posted in the chat I think this is Nixia again Let me just take a look to see if there's anything of particular interest in here. I'm just scrolling along Wow that feeling when your table of contents is like 10 pages long Never mind when your table of contents and like and like Acronyms are like 30 pages long I'm just scrolling to see what interesting stuff is in here Oh some stuff in like the Don Valley area Cool the berry quarter is getting fully electrified still that's good to see Lake Shore same thing Like Lakeshore East sorry stove ill it looks like the whole thing is getting electrified I think that was like out of the plans for a while. So that's pretty exciting to see It's been weird the plans go here there and everywhere Interesting yeah, you can see that the electrification goes up to the southern part of the Richmond hill line, which is cool That's something we've known for a while Just a lot like these these documents are crazy right there's so long We have so many details in them I'm just quickly scrolling through to see if there's anything crazy that I want to talk about a lot of maps and Okay, so some cool stuff regarding like overhead lines and Where vegetation is allowed to grow like where trees are allowed to go that's on page? 23 of this document that I'm staring at right now I'm just just rolling through this Lakeshore West It's cool. It's showing some like where the switching stations and traction power substations and and layover yards will be which is kind of cool to see Just looking at Lakeshore West and now Kitchener and now the berry line I probably document is like hundreds of pages long though So I could not make all my comments now still they'll line storage yards and stuff. Oh Interesting utility bridges at Lower Sherbourne Yeah, this is on page 43 it's showing a utility bridge Which I have not I've not really seen in the before but that's it's going over a street. It's pretty cool to see So I recommend people look at that page. I am literally just speeding through this on stream Interesting there's like an area where there's noise and vibration being studied should should be a lot less problematic though Because these are electric trains and electric trains are really quiet like quieter than than a lot of like vehicles Interesting. I think this is okay. This is the campus subdivision some creek stuff So it looks some environmental impact stuff I guess Layover sites there's a lot of cool details in here folks like definitely go check out this report someone linked it to in the chat It's like one of the only links. I think in the chat. I'm just scrolling looking for pictures I like my pictures berry line like a lot of details on stuff going on there This is a very dense document like there is a lot of stuff in here Stoveline Interesting. Oh, that's my house. No Yeah, I live near the Stoveline if you you folks were to wear Looking at Unionville and the yard there Just flying through this still to see if there's anything crazy we could all discover together Okay, air quality study stuff and more stuff regarding bridges. I guess this might be Referring to utilities and stuff again Wow, this is an incredibly long document page 274. Yeah back to the utility bridge talk Wow, it's really really really long This is the walkers line layover. I'm looking at now. We're at page 300 almost on this document So if you think I'm crazy It will end soon Kitchener quarter of stuff This is truly crazy. There is so much to unpack here Unionville storage yard stuff There's just this crazy document Pickering go station stuff Ajax go station stuff. So I guess this is talking about like some impacts of doing something of which of which I'm not sure what that would be Tables tables tables. Oh, that would that look like an okay. No, that's just a public meeting notice Think I'm getting to the end now Yeah, I don't think anything else interesting is in here just a bunch of text Done. I'm at page 800 of this report. Okay, so that was crazy Let me close this down and I'll keep going through the chat I did want to end the stream after about an hour But I'll try to get through more of the chat before I end the stream We need more sky trains. Hey, I I don't disagree sky trains are great Let's see Ten seconds folks, I just need to shoot a message off here because I I want to remind myself to make a video Shoot a message off here Let's see. Okay, that's not what I wanted to have open. Okay So nobody okay. Okay. So San Pellegrino. Yes, San Pellegrino. You've heard of BRT creep now get ready for LRT creep It's a real thing like a hundred percent Nobody wants a glorified streetcar. I agree. I don't know how much I don't know How much you know about this project, but what do you think of the Trams being built in Odens, Denmark? I know a little bit about it Someone in the discord chat has talked about a bit and it's quite an interesting project I feel like for Scarborough, they should just build multiple BRTs Maybe or or just you know subway with great feeder buses, which I think is the Toronto model and I think it works quite well What do you think about converting Ottawa's line to to something similar to the Confederation line with extensions to Gatno? Sorry for spelling. Well, if you're going to convert it Just do it change it to high floor like the REM right because high floor makes more sense than low floor for high capacities What are your thoughts on Amtrak and via rail? I think that's a bit too broad of a question, right? They're both Substandard compared to what we have in other countries. Would you put gas buses in Vancouver in Toronto? I'm not sure what that means like an actual gas gasoline LRT when done like in Seattle acts more like a metro But has the flexibility to run in the street or have accurate crossings if needed. Yes But as far as I can tell Seattle really regrets the decision to put like parts of the Seattle's Link light rail system on street because if you're going to spend as much money as a subway Why not just put it all underground and then reap all of the benefits of a subway, right? So that's kind of the there's so many like fallacies and problems with light rail and that's one of them What is your favorite episode of the tube? Okay So I have watched the show but I couldn't tell you what my favorite episode is because it's been a while And I don't recall like what the specific topics of various episodes were but it's a good series I think it's spark on YouTube worth watching Electrification of the freight railways could totally work and I would be in favor of government subsidies and even a hefty carbon tax on Railways to promote the switch. Yeah, I think I think that's definitely a valid thing I am skipping over a few a few messages here. I do want to try to get through as much of this Candle and feel free to keep asking questions and stuff. I'm just trying to pick out the fun stuff Boris Johnson is asking if the young subway will ever be extended up to barrier and I certainly hope not I would be my answer someone refill this guy's water. Yeah, I am more now. So should be all good They used to be electrified freight line through Montana There used to be quite a bit of electrified freight in North America actually and it mostly been ripped out Canada Had some electrified freight in British Columbia as well time for more water Heans back grabs the water Just just flying along here. What is your favorite transit system? Yeah, that is a hard hard question Probably like the Tokyo rail network if I had to if you can call that transit system Favorite train stock. I'm a big fan of the new S bond trains in Berlin But I also like the modern Yamano tail line trains I like the mark for your sky trains though. I do wish they had LCD screens inside them I like the azures in Montreal a lot I think that there are some nice elements to Paris's new rolling stock like the RER NG and the MP 14 I like the Moscow Central Circle trains. I like the Moscow Arrow Express trains. I couldn't name a single favorite train stock or subway station some subway stations. I like our I I'm a big fan of York University in Toronto I'm a big fan of Barry Cam and you know grew in Montreal. I like commercial Broadway in Vancouver I like Fulton in New York. I like Bond Street in in London Canary Wharf Chateau de Léon in Paris a bunch of stations in Moscow Alexander Platts in Berlin like they're often major stations right because that's where all the all the love goes You should play cities in motion too I played that game years ago And I do not necessarily have time to play it anymore these days because I'm busy making videos for y'all But it's a great game I love the I love paradoxes games and city in motion city skylines and stuff. It's really fun Yeah, like just Degrees and titles etc. They are indicators, but they are not to uniform things that can tell you everything Hey Reese this this is quite a comment Thanks Mark. It's kind of weird to build stuff, but it's kind of fun to play I think you're referring to cities in motion Do should public transit in the golden horseshoe be more centralized? Yeah, like I think fair integration is super important And I think I think having one agency would really be nice, right like a TFL type system I know it's probably controversial, but I think it would be good At least back to Shepard every extension was supposed to have screen doors. They get cut fairly at a fairly late stage Yeah, it's really sad because screen doors are not that expensive when you've engineered them in right like the main Hard part about retrofitting them into old stations is that the edge of the platform is not designed to carry the weight of a screen door But if you've designed the station for like cutting into such a lame thing to do like screen doors are great I want them at more stations and then put LCDs above the screens that tell us when the next trains come and and how busy they are And that's just great Metrolinx released a design document apparently that suggests psd's at all new stations. That's awesome Great to hear tire versus rail metro short distance first long distance I mean, I think you put it all mostly there in one question Hmm random YouTube algorithm recommendation. What do you like about fast food? That's such a random question It's cheap and fast, right that's like kind of all it's got going for it typically I can't believe I'm gonna kind of stick to the main questions at this point. I think Um to It's too far away from downtown. We shouldn't develop here. Yeah, generally. That's a decent heuristic I think to operate on other than Melbourne most LRTs have platform boarding working on exclusive right of ways Yeah, yeah, I think modern tramway systems typically do have level boarding But some some don't which is crazy for the record a lot of Lisbon trams get stuck in traffic Yep, but it's kind of hard to deal with that just because of Lisbon the way it's set up, right? The way the old parts of the city are what do you think of us type low floors versus? Versus Canadian low floors I think 70% low floor is better. It's controversial. I think they're more accessible I think that 100% low floor is not actually very accessible and I think it's Very problematic now. You said us type being Seattle and Salt Lake City, but you could also mention Charlotte Houston Denver Portland Many other cities use like s 700 Siemens cars Reese someone just said Reese more like Reese. Okay, that's not sure what that's supposed to mean I have visited Greece. I think it's a very nice country I forget the station but in Minneapolis on the Green Line There's a perfectly good example of buses sharing the stop with the Green Line train As in Germany perfected buses sharing rail lines. Yeah, like I see the thing is I think people get the wrong idea when I say something like The Seattle light rail tunnel isn't great. I Think that if you can have a rail system that's like a low-frequency suburban type system and you can integrate buses great but in a city like Seattle, which is the headquarters to multiple Fortune 500 companies to Amazon there will be one of the largest companies in the world Microsoft as well, right? Boeing formally Boeing T-Mobile Seattle is a massive economic hub and you're telling me that the center of Seattle should be a mixed bus and train tunnel That's where I have problems, right? Like yes in like small places small Towns in Germany and stuff then having these kind of shared systems is fantastic. The problem is in North America We use these cute solutions that are worked really well in small places in Europe Which are great solutions for those places where they're not fast-growing and they're not massive cities We apply these these kind of solutions because we think they're cool and cute. We apply them to huge massive systems like Toronto and Seattle and We wonder why they don't work well and so that's what frustrates me Um People need to understand that when Japan build its first high-speed rail line, it was 4% of its GDP Okay, I'm not sure what the what the what the we're trying to get across though Why did Toronto dump the Bay Street trolley buses? I'm not really into the history But trolley buses kind of got killed in a lot of cities, right? They fell out of favor for various reasons and it's sad that that's the case That's all I'm gonna say on that where should King Street's prioritization be emulated elsewhere in the Toronto core I think most streets should just have dedicated streetcar lanes with with curbs between them I don't necessarily think the King Street by that is the best I think only in places where it is truly too too narrow for you to have Dedicated lanes, which is not in a lot of places in my opinion You know four line streets with street side parking kind of places Um, and if you have street side parking, maybe dump the street side parking Hmm Okay, can you talk about the new ramp in the Montreal area video coming on that? So I will not talk about that anymore. Do you agree that after the line three shutdown It will turn into an elevated park for cycling. There was an article in the star. Well Just because there's an article in the star Um, I don't necessarily think that it should the high line is cool in new york because it's like a historic thing And the old elves are actually kind of cool, right? Like the the metal structure and stuff. It's it's kind of like artistically impressive Um, the line three guideway. Well, I like line three. It is not an artistic thing and it's not that impressive or attractive um Harm transit from this point forward will solely be to get it dedicated to utility bridges. Yes, maybe that will happen Um, I hope I'll be able to see Reese's face when he rides the line three replacement I don't think I ever will if that if it comes to that. I think I'm I'm moving from Toronto Um Nick's uh, yeah, now it's going to be RM utility bridges. Yeah, that's quite funny Um, what do you think about the old bc interurban system? Uh, it's it's sad that we lost it, right? Like it was a cool system and maybe if we still had it um, our cities would have developed differently and Reviving it would have made sense. But there are people who are trying to like revive the interurban through Surrey and Langley And I think it's a very silly idea um Can't wait for the Uh Next episode of re skim re is a document on stream. Yeah, I maybe I'll do that again in the future Um Since it has been more than an hour and now we have more people than we have had on the stream this whole time I am going to go show my social media one more time. Go follow me on twitter at rm transit Instagram, I think it's also at rm transit. It's all in the description. Join our discord. Come chat with us Um, send us your transit cards and stuff via the form below Consider supporting us on patreon if you want access to videos early Um a spot on our patreon metro map weekly blog posts I've really been been trying hard on patreon lately and a chance to vote Uh on the next demystified and high speed where I'll explain to videos that we make Um, okay back to comments With the retirement of the mark one sky trains would it be easier to install platform screen doors? I know the door spacing is different between the mark two and mark three How much what about the cannon line cannon line? I think you could do it Because I think if when you when you get that third car you can probably figure out how to make the spacing still work um if we get third cars I kind of doubt we're going to get third cars because Adding a car in the middle of a train is just a weird thing to do right think about it You have like your train like different parts of your train are different ages Uh, and so what are you going to buy new end cars when the end cars are worn out? So that they can go around the slightly newer center car and then it's just weird right you're spending money on old trains I feel like that when it when we move to three cars We should just move to three equal length cars with a bunch of doors and just redesign everything because the current design is kind of It's kind of my least favorite part about the cannon line Oh, I definitely look at central europe. Um, vienna's the city. I really really enjoy Um budapest of the city. I haven't been to i've been to prog but I would love to go to budapest Check out the tramways and stuff. They're awesome. I'm pretty sure budapest metro m1 is a If budapest metro m1 is what I think it is then that's a very interesting line as well Can you make a video where you show all of your posters? I mean if you want to see my posters I'm just making sure I don't have any anything incriminating in this room. I don't think I do Um, I mean I could just go like this, right? So here here here are my posters, right? We've got the 20 lanes Uh, toronto subway poster. We've got the highway 407 poster. We've got the historic Young subway poster and we have the candle line. Um map from within a train, which I think is pretty cool um Translick Celsius. You can go order one online. So cool. I have one for the other For the expo line. That's really awesome as well. Um, I recommend people go go order those. They're literally old ones from a train It's got like the plastic material and some like, I don't know old stains that are kind of gross on it as well Very very cool stuff or place the qe w with the sky train. Uh, interesting thought um Do you think it would make sense to build the scarborough? Okay, whoever was is asking about building the scarborough subway is an underground lrt You need to watch more of my videos before proposing such a crazy solution Uh, oh my god, that keyboard is from the 90s I'm not sure what you're referring to if you're talking about my keyboard here This is not from the 90s. This is this is very much a modern keyboard. It has usb on it like modern usb um Oh, okay, I see Uh, the guy the guy from my your discord is me. I was just curious of your opinion. Thank you. Um Uh It's one p.m. In Vancouver. Yep, that's uh, how time zones work Um, I'm just looking through Just Okay, just going through messages here. Even dallas is partly a low floor lrt Yes, dart does denver is high floor but slow platform, which is really crazy Is it possible to electrify favor roads? I talked about this a bit earlier in the In the discussion, so I think um, I think it's worth going and looking uh at the rest of the video Assembly is asking if there's any chance. I do a demystified on the la regional connector or purple line So the first thing I want to say is go check out the channel the forefoot. It's a really good channel. Um Uh, the guy who runs it he does like construction updates and stuff and he has some great content on californian rail projects Um, I talked to him a bit. He's an awesome guy. Um, so definitely go check out his channel for stuff on that I want to do videos on la stuff, but when I reach out to la metro It's a very bureaucratic process like um, some projects are very open about like oh like you want to Talk about our project and they're cool about that because they you know I like transit and they they're cool with me making videos some places are like You know very there's got to be a process and stuff and it's like, okay. I am making you I'm making a video about this project. I don't think this is a reasonable amount of of Paperwork and and planning that needs to go in before I've even started making a video So I will make videos about la that is a guarantee, but I don't know if they'll be demystified Uh, love your channel. Keep on producing amazing content. Um, thank you. I appreciate it um What do you think of this story lrt? um Yeah, it's got problems It had problems and I was a fan of it initially and I think that is what turned me against lrt for the long term term, right? So Uh, there you go Someone is talking about ellen Well, you know what uh someday you might find out the answer to that question The words, um quick setup tour. Yeah. I mean, I think you basically got it, right? Um pretty cool. Where can you order? So TransLink has a store. Yeah, someone has posted it. So that's much appreciated High platform low floor You can simply fall into the train and then have to climb up very interesting idea You think the rem east in Montreal is going to be successful. Yes. I definitely do Oh, oh the forefoot is in the chat. That's very that's very cool to see What do you think about the german stock bond systems that popped up after world war two handovers stuttgart and cologne? Operate extensive systems, which are really efficient. Yeah, they're they're awesome stock bonds are like um to kind of explain uh, it's kind of like, um It's a bunch of trams That run through a tunnel and the tunnel allows them to operate quickly through the city center where they would otherwise Operate slowly and then they can operate through the the not city center But still pretty high density areas of the city as trams and you know, they they combine into the stock bond So it you know, because it's a tunnel it's dedicated right away. They can they can operate that way I'm thinking about making a video about whether the eglinton cross town should be a stock bond So maybe if folks are interested in that, let me know in the in the chat um If a fixed rapid transit link is built to vancouver's north sharp across the barard inlet kind of big inlet north of the downtown vancouver peninsula um Would it replace the sea bus Be an extension of the candle line expo line or a new line? I'm a fan of my personal my personal fantasy map Um has the candle line being extended to the north shore now It can't be via waterfront the existing waterfront because it's not deep enough and Because of the way the platforms are set up. If you've been there, you'll know why it's not possible They're not deep and they go right into the pedestrian walkway But uh, my thought is you could do you could do a tunnel connection near vancouver city center station where The train dives it goes to waterfront, but at a deeper waterfront station might be need to be elevator only I'm not sure. I mean it would be deep. Um, and then it would continue to the north shore It would be an extension of the cannon line I think there's no reason not to do that right because the cannon line has the capacity, right? Um, I think the north shore you could probably have two branches when you got to the north shore So in the long term you could extend part to the west and part to the east And I think that would probably serve the quite east west linear north shore very well um Out of curiosity, I'm just going to ask uh, if people can so since I guess I do have the chat is here Throw in the chat. How long you've been watching my channel. I'm just curious about that. Um, saw a comment here Anyways consider checking out india's new dedicated freight corridor. It's their biggest infrastructure project today I have definitely checked it out. I india does really impressive stuff at their railways as mentioned in my deli Things that I love about deli the video the double stacked freight on like flat platform cars is really impressive Um, underwire. I know people in north america lose their minds about that um the uh Yeah, continue along bar haven extension of the o-train is expected to cost 3.1 billion dollars expensive As long as you develop a lot of tod around it, it's probably worth it. Have you seen metro six's stuff? Yes, uh cool videos on the history of of various projects and stuff in the toronto area um Yeah, it's cool. Um Let's see austin's light rail plans remind me of a stop on. Yeah a bit. Uh, I think I might make some videos on austin I'm quite happy with the stuff that they're doing. Well, it's light rail So it's I'm not amazed, but at least they're building transit, right? Like that's it's cool Like people need to understand like of course. I'm happy if you're like I'm I would ride the surface part of the eglinton cross town that I don't love Any day over a bus like I still like it, but if you're going to spend billions like why can't we aim to do the best possible thing? Right, so that's that's my thinking Thanks for producing videos. You're the best transit channel. That is touching There's lots of good transit channels. I do not know if I'm the best, but I I aspire to be the best Do you think the finch west would be worse off with an lrt since it's above ground and is fixed on tracks? I'm not really sure what you're necessarily saying there. Um Uh, I think finch west could have been like the canada line I know that's something I say a lot, but I think it's very true like The canada line will carry multiple times the capacity of the finch west lrt because of its great separated nature It's not all that expensive and it would provide a higher quality service to some Communities that could really use high quality transit service and fast transit service because they get a lot of buses The light rail as we know isn't going to be that much better than the bus So why not provide something that truly is better than the bus? Um, I'm speaking fast, but uh when when you get passionate, right you speak fast about stuff Looking at more stuff Talking about low floor trains. I've been watching you since you were doing really bad videos Well, that's touching. I've been doing videos for a long time um Do you think increased use of bikes and electric scooters could bring in significantly more ridership? I kind of doubt it's going to bring more ridership. Maybe electric bikes. Like I think electric bikes and scooters And in bikes in general, like if you have good infrastructure, sure Like really good bike infrastructure can seriously make it really attractive to bike Like I think people need to try visiting like Amsterdam or like different communities around the world Vancouver is actually really good and trying the infrastructure and uh, you'll be I think you'll be amazed with what you can do and like how comfortable there's cycling Even if you're not like a cyclist like a comfortable Um cyclist, it's just great. Like biking is a lot of fun actually And it's it's safe and it's it's good exercise like so many benefits to it. So Uh cycling is great. I recommend people People do it and I think that uh, it's sure if you have good infrastructure Like bike parking and and for example, like the offices are now having showers So that people can cycle and like if they feel kind of gross after like doing some exercise they can shower before work I think that's the type of infrastructure that makes cycling possible So a year ago seven months six months a year or five days. Oh cool. Like it's cool to see when people started watching I'm not familiar with Germany's 2032 bid for the olympics I feel like olympic bids or something I followed more in the past before the olympics kind of seem to kind of start declining as a thing and like You know, there's been like a lot of negative press around like some of the infrastructure created for olympic games and stuff Like the adventure 2010 olympics work great in my opinion, but I think olympic games are can often be negative things so I think I don't follow them as closely as I might otherwise, but tokyo 2020, right? No, I actually was so I really wanted to go to tokyo 2020 It's really upsetting to me that that didn't end up happening and hopefully it happens this year But I'm not actually that confident. So I guess we'll see what happens Um got into the channel when quarantine started. Well, I'm touched Several months ago longer than I can remember a month nine to ten months It's just cool to see when people started watching. Is it possible to electrify freight railroads? Definitely After watching all of jeff marshall videos, I looked for another channel. Yeah, I love jeff's stuff. Um But jeff is very different right like jeff doesn't really I'm sure he has opinions, but he hasn't really talked too much about his opinions And I would be curious what jeff's opinions on various stuff is Um I've been watching for three years. Oh well three years then that's pretty impressive vertical psds vertical psds are a thing and like I do if you don't have heard of vertical psds Go look them up. They have them in like some various places But they kind of I don't know kind of defeats the point of psds in my opinion because like they're meant to enhance safety And and getting smacked on the head by a psd that's coming down like a guillotine does not exactly evoke safety in my mind, but Um, but yeah, like it is an option But I thought about the tune when I was in vancouver and I was really passionate about psds like in vancouver I was like, oh, I just do vertical psds. But the problem is that they kind of suck so so I'm not I don't think I don't think it's worth the investment I think for like intercity trains where there isn't another option may be vertical psds But also like as I'm saying like they take a long time to go up and down So I don't even think they're that well suited to metro services um Is finch west lrt better than buses or should you just have better should you just have buses? Like you probably should just have buses and give them dedicated lanes and you get most of the benefit of lrt without any of the capital costs Um, so this is this is another one of those conundrums, right? If your true goal is to reduce your operating costs, which a lot of lrt advocates say like oh, you've got less drivers, right? And you can carry more people. Um, and you get more capacity. The thing is yes But then why not just spend the literally It's not twice as much spend the little bit extra to go to a light automated metro And you get even reduce further reduced operating costs even a higher capacity, right? Like it's kind of uh, you the kind of push themselves into a corner because if you want this Then light metro looks better and if you want this then again, if you just go that little bit extra further to light metro It's it's still a better option, right? Do you believe investments in oh thoughts on dc? Silverline might have to make a video on it. Um, do you believe in investments in cycling and bike lanes or in mass transit? I believe you can do both Canada's Canada's weather see this is one thing too that I find funny is like Like and this is not against the commenter again. This is like something I hear a lot So it's just something I want to bring up is that people will say like Canada's wet weather Canada is the second largest country in the world. We have a lot of different weather In places like in a lot of places in bc Like clona for example clona has like the climate of the mediterranean, right? Like, um, at least for much of the year Like it's hot doesn't rain much. Um, cycling is perfect there same with Vancouver. Even though it does rain It's a great climate for cycling in Toronto where there's snow. Yes, it becomes more challenging the same with Montreal and Ottawa and Calgary and Edmonton But like if you have good infrastructure and you create a cycling like a culture of like cycling culture I know that like people in countries where cycling is popular or don't like being called cyclists If you create the infrastructure and the culture the weather is actually I think kind of irrelevant um Board of his great tramways definitely does is there a way to fix Penn station in new york Um, not as many tracks as Grand Central like you don't need lots of tracks, right? Having less tracks is better Um, not well, it's not better. But like having less tracks with better platforms is is better than many tracks with bad platforms Which is kind of the toronto situation and the Penn station situation right now Your content is pretty dope. I like it. Uh, have you thought about taking a Skillshare class on map animation? Could up your communicative mode? Uh, I am being sold on Skillshare I need to get I need to get some ads in my videos, right? I should get some sponsors Maybe Skillshare will sponsor me. Um, they haven't reached out but um, I I I would definitely do want to enhance my My maps and stuff like I know like if I if I If I went and learned like how to use after effects really well Like I could make incredible maps and it's suddenly something I'm interested in doing right But it's just not an overnight experience and when you're making a lot of videos Which you're passionate about you you run out of time to go through like learning new software and stuff Um, uh, so like my time is really packed. I I do want to learn and it's something I'm in the future I'm definitely going to go towards but I don't necessarily think I need to take a Skillshare class I actually think that you don't really need like online classes are kind of questionable I think you can learn a lot on just on regular youtube, right? I put my videos on youtube I hope people learn from my videos. Um, uh, I hope they provide value to people because that's why I make them Right. I I hope people can learn about transit and Get a sense of what it's like in other places around the world I try to be very international because I think that that's one of the keys to like better understanding transit and Especially in north america to being able to debunk Ridiculous arguments about why we can't have better transit and why it has to cost a lot and why it can't be implemented better So that's why I quit my channel. Uh, yeah Um, I think my relationship status Is going to be something I Do not discuss on my channel Um, but uh, you know, I have a lot of videos I'm sure I'm sure if you if you kind of, you know, put the strings You know do the string diagram and do all this, you know crazy detective work You can you can come to a good judgment on that most vancouver rates take their transit system for granted I agree. Do you understand why metros are more expensive than grade separated lrt? Um, they shouldn't be and I don't think they are actually more expensive I think that if you actually built both in a city like toronto at the same time they cost would be very similar most likely Um, though to be fair, there are some higher costs for doing Uh, pantograph in a tunnel. Um, at least it seems that way. Uh, depends on your vehicle profile Basically, if you have a really tall vehicle, right, which a lot of lrt trains are because you know, the equipment's on the roof They've got a pantograph. They're not that wide. You've got this tall vehicle You're not efficiently utilizing the tunnel bore because sadly we just we love doing bore tunnels Cut and cover is probably better in a lot of cases But uh, if you're doing that you're inefficient because you're pushing the height like the diameter of the bore in the circle You're making it bigger without like utilizing the space on the sides Which is why like a kind of a square shaped train is like the most efficient for for a tunnel, right? Okay, uh uh That's the model of philadelphia boston and san franc not a bad system Yeah, but the problem is in philadelphia boston and san franc is that they have north american operations, right? And like again, this is not meant to be like, uh, i'm not trying to bash north america Right, but we don't like if you go and ride the mini metro. It just it's not a great system Right, like it's simply not. Um, I would argue kind of the same with the boston green line, right? Like these are systems that in in theory shouldn't work pretty well But because we don't have the kind of regimented operational abilities that exist in europe and asia sometimes We don't operate them that well. And so I believe that those sorts sort of mod I I'll talk about in the eglinton video Do I work in transit? Yeah, I do and I also make these videos which I consider working in transit And it's part of like I don't think you have to work in transit to have an opinion and to be really informed I know a lot of people on On our discord server not plugging it, but you should go on it A lot of people in the discord server who don't work in transit are very knowledgeable and I think have some very Intelligent opinions about transit. So you don't need to and like Researchers who talk about transit don't work in transit, but you know, they're brilliant on transit What do you think about electric buses? I think they're probably they're the future buses, right for sure Um, yes, we learned from your videos. That's much appreciated. This transit discussion is sponsored by raid shadow engines Yeah, that would be it's the dream, right? Like I would love to I would love it if I could do that. Um You've got to pay the bills somehow, right? Um, but I think I think um Hopefully if I ever do get sponsored people are going to see an ad in the video Um, if that means I can produce more videos and stuff, right? I think it'd be worth it Not too convinced Uh, that the idea that the price difference between automated light metro and lrt isn't much Um, I mean go look at studies. I think the vancouver study that compared suri lrt to sky train Um, kind of shows it best like the cost is less than two times, right? And if the cost is less than two times, but you get I don't know three times the capacity and you get Um, it's safer because you can't hit cars don't get hit and it's more reliable Like there's a bunch of things that are disproportionately better about automated like metro like the cost of operations and stuff So that even if it costs two times, which I think that generally it doesn't cost two times Um, I still think it's like a way better value argument And I think if you look in europe too, you can see the same thing like look at the cost of the Copenhagen well Copenhagen I think was relatively expensive, but look at the breccio metro. Yeah, it's inexpensive um Nimbism for elevated viaducts and that sky train stops are more significant than the basic lrt platform Yeah, but they carry more people right like you can have a basic platform for an lrt because often Not that many people will be carried if lrt systems were carrying the numbers that sky train carries Which they typically do not they never do in north america. Actually, um, then you would need to have giant stations, right? So I think I think that's uh, yeah So so then Honolulu is brought up and it's like, okay So Honolulu is literally a case where again, this is north america where everything costs Way more than it should to construct Honolulu is particularly egregious and it's like it's kind of like saying that Subways need to cost a ton because look at the second avenue and subway in new york, which costs a crazy amount, right? If you look at subways in europe and i'm not talking about like sky like canada line subways I am talking about full subways. There are cities that build full subways and these are european countries They have unions. They have environmental regulations. They have accessibility regulations. They build full subways For less than it costs us to build lrt's That's all you need to say Yeah, lrt can get surprisingly expensive and english speaking Countries have crazy high construction costs Which I think is very interesting um Is there any precedent for low floor system switching to high platform trains? See, this is the problem. I don't think like no I don't think there is a precedent for that and I think well actually actually to be fair If you look at the pre metro in brussels, I think that that is maybe one system It was designed to be converted I believe like if you look at the way it's designed basically the high platform sits back a bit There's then ramps down to the low platform And I guess the plan is that when they convert to a high platform the high platform We just scoot out over the low platform. So that is an option But I think it's a very niche case where you should actually do that and systems that weren't planned for it I don't think there's a precedent I agree that regarding elevated metro. It's largely down to available corridors But generally light rail in north america is built down wide streets So like if you have room to fit like a light rail Track down the middle of the street and you still have like lanes on both sides You've probably had enough room to do an elevated system like Vancouver Vancouver style sky train Can you see a future for high speed rail in canada? No, I'm sad about that That's I think kind of what I talked about in the hfr video What's your opinion on the kitchens? Kitchener kitchener central station final design. It looks great. I'm very excited about it The canada line has a large road that was easy to make cut and cover tunnels with um Like lots of places don't have large roads and they do cut and cover right like young street in toronto Um, you can do cut and cover in a two-lane road, right? Like if you If you want to you can and it will be faster in many cases than tunnel boring because um tunnel boring is really disruptive Just not the entire length. It's just super disruptive Where the stations and access points are Um, many lrt systems don't have that luxury. I don't agree because right like think about like If we talk about lrt systems, Seattle, does it have it? Yes, portland would have that luxury. Yes, these are all Dallas Denver like all of the us because lrt is really only used in us in canada Basically, all of our systems are built on wide streets. So I do believe they have the luxury of being able to do Uh elevated generally and yes going underground and do it can cover is easier on a wide street But it can be done on any width of street and that's how most old subways were built Uh speaking getting passionate about this My water is almost running out, but I'm just going to have one more sip and then I'm gonna I'm gonna wind things down Um, why do we have coach buses rather than train services serving rural areas? Well, if you don't have great rail infrastructure it's kind of hard to serve Uh rural areas and I think a lot of the times we've spent a lot of money building really efficient highway right of ways and stuff that we don't spend because we don't spend on train right of ways because If you need to move only freight via train Then having a slow right of way doesn't matter in time, but it matters a lot for passenger service, right? So that kind of so their side effect of our very freight oriented rail system in north america um What do you think about Vancouver's imposition to use board tunnels after the experience on the canada line? Yeah, it's a little unfortunate. I think it would be better if we if we just did uh, if we do um If we just do cut and cover Oh, i'm sure it's not sure that true that light metro is always cheaper, but it's cheaper in many cases and I think like Look in europe, right? They build a lot of light metro. They don't build a lot of they build basically virtually no Lrt as we see it in north america, which is just a giant tramway um, so no, of course, it's not always the case but In probably what 70 80 90 of the case. I think it would be Instead of 70 80 90 of the case is it would be the case Why were the canada line platforms built into separate farazona and waterfront if they rebuilt those for a northern extension? uh, they could fix it It's okay though because the thing is because of like, I think people who aren't from Vancouver critique that a bit much um The canada line platforms at waterfront aren't really a big issue because if you're going to transfer between lines That's probably not where you would do it and to be fair the transfer at vcc and burrard is not great either But uh, but generally like you're not gonna in the future because of the millennium line extension Anyone going from like east to west wouldn't use the transfer in downtown. So it's not a huge issue. Um Um, what is your opinion on metro electric? It's unfortunate that they don't have better. Um that they don't have better trains um, I Someone's asking about some transit plans and advocacy. I think this is a case where you should see my twitter Um big fact big fan. Have you ever looked at small american cities that have light rail like buffalo cleveland or pittsburgh? Yes, but i'm usually a little sad because well, it's great to have those systems You need constant investment and better bus service to feed them and stuff um, I think i'm going to be shutting it down in About a minute. Um, why are there no turnstiles in german subway systems? Because they use proof of payment, which is not actually a bad model. There's a lot of potential benefits to it Anyways, thank you everyone for joining me on the stream Um, this was a long stream like almost two hours long, which is crazy. I talked a lot. I hope everyone enjoyed it. Um Thank you for watching. It's much appreciated We'll have a video coming out tomorrow. We release videos monday wednesday friday and each weekend. We do streams every other week um, please Go set a reminder for the next stream. It's in the video description follow us on social media and stuff and uh Um, I would be I'd be really excited to talk to everyone in the future So thanks for watching and i'll see you in the next one