Brandon Donnelly
Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly.
Brandon Donnelly
Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly.
As counterintuitive as it may sound, one way you could try and improve traffic congestion is to discourage people from riding their bikes and instead encourage them to drive more. That's what's happening in Toronto right now. Another way is to dramatically restrict car usage. And starting this Monday, that's what Paris will be doing with its new limited traffic zone (zone à trafic limité) in the center of the city:
This new ZTL is approximately 5 square kilometers. About 100,000 people live within its boundaries, and it is estimated that somewhere between 350,000 to 500,000 vehicles enter it each day. But according to the city, it is estimated that only around 30% of these trips are absolutely necessary (because of a lack of alternatives, for example). The purpose of the ZTL is to reduce the unnecessary ones.
The way it will work is that drivers will no longer be allowed to drive through this zone. You'll only be able to enter if you plan on stopping for a legitimate reason. It's not yet clear what this exact list of approved reasons will be, but the general idea is that if you want to drive in for dinner or to attend a meeting, that's fine. What you can't do, though, is just drive around in a souped-up Honda Civic blasting Taylor Swift.
The next 6 months are planned to be a period of education. Drivers exiting the zone are just going to be told that there's this new ZTL and that they better have stopped somewhere. But eventually there will be a 135 euro fine and eventually drivers will be expected to furnish some sort of supporting evidence for their stop, such as a restaurant receipt. There's also talk of adding automatic cameras.
Of course, this creates a lot of gray areas. What about if you're just going over to a friend's place for dinner? Will they then need to write you a note saying that you went over for some homemade bouillabaisse? Yeah, I don't know the answer to this. But you have to admit that this is a bold city-building move, and a far more effective way of improving traffic flows.
Unlike removing bike lanes, this plan will actually work.
The train from Paris to Marseille takes just over 3 hours:
As counterintuitive as it may sound, one way you could try and improve traffic congestion is to discourage people from riding their bikes and instead encourage them to drive more. That's what's happening in Toronto right now. Another way is to dramatically restrict car usage. And starting this Monday, that's what Paris will be doing with its new limited traffic zone (zone à trafic limité) in the center of the city:
This new ZTL is approximately 5 square kilometers. About 100,000 people live within its boundaries, and it is estimated that somewhere between 350,000 to 500,000 vehicles enter it each day. But according to the city, it is estimated that only around 30% of these trips are absolutely necessary (because of a lack of alternatives, for example). The purpose of the ZTL is to reduce the unnecessary ones.
The way it will work is that drivers will no longer be allowed to drive through this zone. You'll only be able to enter if you plan on stopping for a legitimate reason. It's not yet clear what this exact list of approved reasons will be, but the general idea is that if you want to drive in for dinner or to attend a meeting, that's fine. What you can't do, though, is just drive around in a souped-up Honda Civic blasting Taylor Swift.
The next 6 months are planned to be a period of education. Drivers exiting the zone are just going to be told that there's this new ZTL and that they better have stopped somewhere. But eventually there will be a 135 euro fine and eventually drivers will be expected to furnish some sort of supporting evidence for their stop, such as a restaurant receipt. There's also talk of adding automatic cameras.
Of course, this creates a lot of gray areas. What about if you're just going over to a friend's place for dinner? Will they then need to write you a note saying that you went over for some homemade bouillabaisse? Yeah, I don't know the answer to this. But you have to admit that this is a bold city-building move, and a far more effective way of improving traffic flows.
Unlike removing bike lanes, this plan will actually work.
The train from Paris to Marseille takes just over 3 hours:
To drive this same distance, it would take just over 8 hours:
So unless you had a very specific reason, I don't know why you'd ever want to drive this route. I certainly hate long drives and would avoid this at all costs.
On a related note, the Canadian government announced this week that it will actually be moving forward with a high-speed train linking Québec City to Toronto, stopping in Peterborough, Ottawa, Montréal, Trois-Rivières, and Laval. And unlike previous announcements, it will actually go pretty fast -- upwards of 300 km/h, which is comparable to what the TGV does on the above route.
There are three consortia currently competing for this contract, but apparently the federal government has already chosen a winning bidder. An announcement is expected next month. At the same time, the project office owns all of the bids, and so there's a chance that elements from each of them could be used in the final project.
According to official messaging, the design alone is expected to take some 4 to 5 years, which is an eternity and way too long. But at least we seem to be moving forward. This rail link is a no brainer. It will compress the geography of an importantly bilingual corridor with nearly 20 million people -- about half the population of Canada! It's our megalopolis.
Now we just need to move forward with urgency and with an unwavering commitment to creating the best high-speed rail service in the world. Let's not accept mediocrity. And let's not cancel it once we've already sunk millions into it. That would be a terrible outcome for such an obviously important nation-building project.
LFG.
In the mid-20th century, the US made a pivotal choice that shaped its cities, economy and lifestyle. It chose highways and cars over public transit. At the time, this seemed like the future: the freedom of the open road, the allure of suburban living, and the booming post-second world war economy all converged to push America towards a car-centric culture.
The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 cemented this vision, unleashing a highway system that encouraged suburban sprawl, fuelled the automotive industry and sidelined public transit. Rail systems were seen as relics of a slow, industrial-era technology ill-suited to America’s postwar aspirations. The car was king.
But this congested system is breaking. In 1950 about 30 per cent of the world’s population lived in cities. By 2030 this is expected to reach 60 per cent. Infrastructure cannot keep up with this growth. An increase in cars further reduces street capacity.
What we don't have a clear consensus on, though, is the path forward. Is it more highways? More public transit? More bike lanes? Or will autonomous vehicles finally arrive and bail us out? The answer will depend on who you ask.
In this recent opinion piece, venture capitalist Vinod Khosla makes the case for something else: personal rapid transit systems (or PRT). Conveniently, he also happens to be an investor in one -- a company called Glydways.
The promise is an on-demand mass transit system that offers the convenience of a personal car, but with the capacities and price points of public transit. And it is based on small autonomous vehicles riding in their own dedicated lanes.
Each lane only needs to be 1.5 meters wide, which is less than the 2.3 meters that the Dutch see as the ideal width of a one-way bike lane. And with this, the company claims that it can reach capacities of up to 10,800 people per hour.
To further put this into perspective, the standard width of a two-way parking drive aisle here in Toronto is 6 meters. So this would mean that each drive aisle could, in theory, have 4 lanes dedicated to these "Glydcars." That's how narrow they are.
Here's a video of them in operation:
https://youtu.be/UNEbH4pDOts?si=qkHONKWwnhyOvbLN
This, of course, isn't an entirely new idea. You might remember that Masdar City in Abu Dhabi claims to have opened the world's first PRT system in 2010 -- a 1.4 km line with only two stations. That said, Glydways has already been awarded three projects in the US. So for fun, I think I'll keep an eye on them.
To drive this same distance, it would take just over 8 hours:
So unless you had a very specific reason, I don't know why you'd ever want to drive this route. I certainly hate long drives and would avoid this at all costs.
On a related note, the Canadian government announced this week that it will actually be moving forward with a high-speed train linking Québec City to Toronto, stopping in Peterborough, Ottawa, Montréal, Trois-Rivières, and Laval. And unlike previous announcements, it will actually go pretty fast -- upwards of 300 km/h, which is comparable to what the TGV does on the above route.
There are three consortia currently competing for this contract, but apparently the federal government has already chosen a winning bidder. An announcement is expected next month. At the same time, the project office owns all of the bids, and so there's a chance that elements from each of them could be used in the final project.
According to official messaging, the design alone is expected to take some 4 to 5 years, which is an eternity and way too long. But at least we seem to be moving forward. This rail link is a no brainer. It will compress the geography of an importantly bilingual corridor with nearly 20 million people -- about half the population of Canada! It's our megalopolis.
Now we just need to move forward with urgency and with an unwavering commitment to creating the best high-speed rail service in the world. Let's not accept mediocrity. And let's not cancel it once we've already sunk millions into it. That would be a terrible outcome for such an obviously important nation-building project.
LFG.
In the mid-20th century, the US made a pivotal choice that shaped its cities, economy and lifestyle. It chose highways and cars over public transit. At the time, this seemed like the future: the freedom of the open road, the allure of suburban living, and the booming post-second world war economy all converged to push America towards a car-centric culture.
The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 cemented this vision, unleashing a highway system that encouraged suburban sprawl, fuelled the automotive industry and sidelined public transit. Rail systems were seen as relics of a slow, industrial-era technology ill-suited to America’s postwar aspirations. The car was king.
But this congested system is breaking. In 1950 about 30 per cent of the world’s population lived in cities. By 2030 this is expected to reach 60 per cent. Infrastructure cannot keep up with this growth. An increase in cars further reduces street capacity.
What we don't have a clear consensus on, though, is the path forward. Is it more highways? More public transit? More bike lanes? Or will autonomous vehicles finally arrive and bail us out? The answer will depend on who you ask.
In this recent opinion piece, venture capitalist Vinod Khosla makes the case for something else: personal rapid transit systems (or PRT). Conveniently, he also happens to be an investor in one -- a company called Glydways.
The promise is an on-demand mass transit system that offers the convenience of a personal car, but with the capacities and price points of public transit. And it is based on small autonomous vehicles riding in their own dedicated lanes.
Each lane only needs to be 1.5 meters wide, which is less than the 2.3 meters that the Dutch see as the ideal width of a one-way bike lane. And with this, the company claims that it can reach capacities of up to 10,800 people per hour.
To further put this into perspective, the standard width of a two-way parking drive aisle here in Toronto is 6 meters. So this would mean that each drive aisle could, in theory, have 4 lanes dedicated to these "Glydcars." That's how narrow they are.
Here's a video of them in operation:
https://youtu.be/UNEbH4pDOts?si=qkHONKWwnhyOvbLN
This, of course, isn't an entirely new idea. You might remember that Masdar City in Abu Dhabi claims to have opened the world's first PRT system in 2010 -- a 1.4 km line with only two stations. That said, Glydways has already been awarded three projects in the US. So for fun, I think I'll keep an eye on them.
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