NarrativeBear

@[email protected]

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. View on remote instance

NarrativeBear , (edited ) to Canada in Car-free streets in downtown Montreal took ‘political guts.’ Can Toronto do the same?

Yup its the only suburban neighbourhood in north America that is completly car free.

Trouble is zoning laws in Ontario and anywhere else in north America prevent cities from building more neighbourhoods like this.

Examples include things like minimum parking requirements, minimum setback, fire codes and even policing all play a part in shaping this. If you ever look at new suburban developments, think how hard its to get a convenience store or small supermarket build right inside the suburb.

Its a shame because we really should not be building suburbs with the same two or three single family homes repeated over and over, its really inefficient. We should start having townhomes, fourplexes, small 4-5 level mixed use condos, subways and trams with busways incorporated. Existing suburban layouts should also start adding missing middle housing inside whereever possible by changing zoning.

NarrativeBear , to Canada in Car-free streets in downtown Montreal took ‘political guts.’ Can Toronto do the same?

"Pedestrian streets" are not really "new", it's just something that we as North Americans have forgotten about.

We see large Walmart parking lots as normal and 6 lane "strodes" as nothing weird in cities and suburbs.

NarrativeBear OP , to Selfhosted in Looking for Self-hosted Bookmark Manager

I have tested both lingding and linkwarden. Lingding was easy to use and did the basics in bookmark management. Though I settled on linkwarden for its saving of webpages in different formats with folder and subfolder organisation in the UI.

Both are good options, but linkwarden seem to be more power user focused.

NarrativeBear , to Terrible Estate Agent Photos in Good estate

Prime location, good bones.

NarrativeBear OP , to Fuck Cars in ‘Mini Holland’ scheme in Walthamstow hailed as major success as traffic falls by half, cycling and walking scheme is model for other cities

True, the article may be old news, so here is an article celebrating the success of the same location after the last 10 years.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/mini-holland-cycling-scheme-sadiq-khan-will-norman-walthamstow-b1158415.html

Wish more cities would take note and move away from car centric urban and suburban design.

NarrativeBear OP , to Canada in City scraps downtown pedestrian bridge project in Guelph Ontario.

Your right, its sad because its true.

But when people walk across a pedestrian bridge society profits. Healthier population both physically and mentally. Greater happiness and less stress. Less pollution, pretty much all these benefits put less "burden" on peoples pockets financially, either both directly and indirectly through taxs.

Unfortunately probably all hard to quantify though.

NarrativeBear , to cats in New addition, not sure on name yet...

New fave sub!

NarrativeBear OP , to Canada in City scraps downtown pedestrian bridge project in Guelph Ontario.

Its a shame when projects like these are cancelled. It really shows how "car centric" North America can be in that a simple pedestrian bridge is harder to build and costs more then one designed for cars.

In a time when we should really be shifting to a more "pedestrian focused" design and "livable cities" in general, project like these are in the correct direction.

NarrativeBear , (edited ) to Fuck Cars in They Transformed a Nasty Stroad With Bus Rapid Transit (CityNerd)

Examples like these show its never to late to shift a city from a "car centric" design to a pedestrian focused design, with bus, tram, light rail, or subway routes.

Cities should be designed for people first, as opposed to cars first.

Pedestrian cities are also in a way cheaper in terms cost & mantinace of infrastructure, such as less traffic lights to maintain. Traffic lights are by far the biggest money sink for a financially struggling city, not to mention large parking lots that provides no return on investment.

NarrativeBear , to Canada in Toronto developers are getting desperate as no one is buying condos anymore

Condos need to be built for families, give me more three or four bedrooms in the city, and make it more affordable.

Condo developers can't build these affordable three or four bedrooms though, because on average these layouts are about 20% larger in size to their comparable European unit layout. This is all to due to building code, and something called "point access layout" vs "common corridor layout".

If we could get more families in the city buy making costs comparable in sq/ft to a single family home in the suburb we could make cities more enjoyable and give people a better sense of belonging, as opposed to just commuting in for a few hours.

NarrativeBear , to Canada in Federal gov’t sparks outrage for giving newcomers free access to Canada’s parks

That's the one, thanks for finding a link.

Seems like it was 12-25 years of age and 150$ for a month of unlimited travel. It was a good deal but only available for 1 month, and i was already to old :'(

Would of been nice to use the pass and only sleep on the train as opposed to finding hotels.

NarrativeBear , to Canada in Federal gov’t sparks outrage for giving newcomers free access to Canada’s parks

Day pass admission is 10-11$ for adults

Yearly passes cost around 135$

If you have 7 people in a car you can use that yearly pass for your group of 7.

Kids under 18 are free by default.

NarrativeBear , to Canada in Federal gov’t sparks outrage for giving newcomers free access to Canada’s parks

For parking...

NarrativeBear , to Canada in Federal gov’t sparks outrage for giving newcomers free access to Canada’s parks

You mean German Canadians.

Though they would also need to be financially sound at the time they became a full on citizen, own a car (to make us of the day pass free parking), and be able to take the time off, to actually go see these parks.

Remembering the voucher kicks in on the day of becoming a citizen and then expires exactly in exactly 1 year.

I guarantee you if someone becomes a citizen in their teens and originally immigrated on their own with no family (which happens), they would more then likely not benefit from this, and probably not even have the means to see these parks in that one year window, and make use of the free day pass voucher for free parking...

NarrativeBear , to Canada in Federal gov’t sparks outrage for giving newcomers free access to Canada’s parks

Absolutely, a welcome package for a new Canadian is not something we as Canadians should be angered about.

You don't freak out when the new person that just joined your office you been working at got a new pen, and maybe a shinny new stapler?

What we really should be angered aboot, and ashamed of as Canadians, is that its actually cheeper for us to go on vacation to Europe for 2-3weeks instead of being able to visit parts of Canada. A train ride to Vancouver is just as expensive as a plane flight if not more, and if you want to go to any of the northern parts you will need a car. Not to mention the price of accommodations such as a hotel or airbnd.

There should be more trains that take you to national and maybe even provincial parks and surrounding towns.

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • kbinchat
  • All magazines