In my opinion, we need far better urban data if we're actually going to make evidence-based decisions. Thankfully, there are lots of great companies that are focused on this space. One of them is Eco-Counter, which makes devices to count pedestrians and cyclists, among other things. This is an important job, because as Peter Drucker used to say, "you can't manage what you don't measure."
Let's look at their bike counters. According to their global map, they have 464 of them installed around the world. Montreal has 58 of them, which we've spoken about before, and is an impressive install base. And Toronto looks to have only one, which is located on Bloor Street on the north side of High Park.
The busiest route/counter in Montreal is at St-Denis Street and Rue des Carriéres. So far this year -- up to November 17, 2024 -- this counter has seen an average of just under 5,000 trips per day and a year-to-date total of 1,600,468 trips. Both of these metrics are notably up compared to 2023 when I last looked at the data.
The busiest route in Eco-Counter's entire network is on Boulevard de Sébastopol in Paris (an important main roadway, not a side street). It has seen an average of 13,667 trips per day and a year-to-date total of 4,386,996 trips. Not surprisingly, the Paris counter exhibits less seasonality. People still cycle in the winter in Montreal, but it's less than in the warmer months.
Finally, our lone Toronto counter adjacent to High Park has seen an average of 1,186 trips per day and a year-to-date total of 380,813 trips. Not quite Paris or Montreal (the latter of which has a colder climate), but I would argue that this really isn't an indicative location for Toronto given how underdeveloped the area is. Plus, you need to see each route as part of a network.
If you look at Montreal's top 5 bike counters, all of them have a year-to-date total that exceeds 1 million trips. This is important information if you're trying to make mobility decisions and these are significant figures. Imagine if these millions of people got off their bikes and instead decided to take transit or drive a car. That would change things.
Photo by Celine Ylmz on Unsplash
Yesterday I came across a post called, The Workplace of the Future, by venture capitalist Tomasz Tunguz. In it, he references a book called, Cubed: A Secret History of the Workplace, and talks about the changing nature of how and where we work.
What’s immediately interesting to think about is how recent the modern workplace really is:
The information worker is a relatively new concept. Peter Drucker coined the term in the 50s. By then companies had already developed new ways of housing information workers. The very first information workers were accountants hunched over “Bob Crachit” desks in the back rooms of factories. Booming railroad companies demanded more organization and created offices within the new skyscrapers along the Chicago skyline. With these new offices came stacks of paper and folios, and cabinets in which to file them. Then, the Mad Men wrought an era of typewriters and mahogany corner offices. Next, Bell Labs invented the suburban office park, moving offices from the city as part of post-war suburbanization and in the 70s, Herman Miller crafted the now-ubiquitous cubicle, which was called the “Action Office” when it launched. Oh, the irony.
It’s also interesting to think about how quickly things seem to be changing. Up until quite recently, everybody seemed to be singing the virtues of the open office plan. However, today, more and more companies are shying away from that kind of space planning:
In 2011, the organizational psychologist Matthew Davis reviewed more than a hundred studies about office environments. He found that, though open offices often fostered a symbolic sense of organizational mission, making employees feel like part of a more laid-back, innovative enterprise, they were damaging to the workers’ attention spans, productivity, creative thinking, and satisfaction. Compared with standard offices, employees experienced more uncontrolled interactions, higher levels of stress, and lower levels of concentration and motivation. When David Craig surveyed some thirty-eight thousand workers, he found that interruptions by colleagues were detrimental to productivity, and that the more senior the employee, the worse she fared.
Today, the most radical changes are appearing in startup offices around the world and are being driven by a desire to have spaces that embody their unique corporate cultures. This means everything from cool brick-and-beam architecture to bike racks in the office to flexible rooms and spaces that encourage mobility throughout the day. And to further reinforce these cultures, companies are creating positions like Chief Culture Officer and Chief Vibe Officer.
But as I’ve said before on ATC, the other big shift is simply location and the return to cities. More and more startups, for example, are choosing San Francisco over Silicon Valley and it’s because the city is where young people want to live. It’s increasingly where the talent is. This has already brought about many changes in workplace design, but it likely bring about many more.
In my opinion, we need far better urban data if we're actually going to make evidence-based decisions. Thankfully, there are lots of great companies that are focused on this space. One of them is Eco-Counter, which makes devices to count pedestrians and cyclists, among other things. This is an important job, because as Peter Drucker used to say, "you can't manage what you don't measure."
Let's look at their bike counters. According to their global map, they have 464 of them installed around the world. Montreal has 58 of them, which we've spoken about before, and is an impressive install base. And Toronto looks to have only one, which is located on Bloor Street on the north side of High Park.
The busiest route/counter in Montreal is at St-Denis Street and Rue des Carriéres. So far this year -- up to November 17, 2024 -- this counter has seen an average of just under 5,000 trips per day and a year-to-date total of 1,600,468 trips. Both of these metrics are notably up compared to 2023 when I last looked at the data.
The busiest route in Eco-Counter's entire network is on Boulevard de Sébastopol in Paris (an important main roadway, not a side street). It has seen an average of 13,667 trips per day and a year-to-date total of 4,386,996 trips. Not surprisingly, the Paris counter exhibits less seasonality. People still cycle in the winter in Montreal, but it's less than in the warmer months.
Finally, our lone Toronto counter adjacent to High Park has seen an average of 1,186 trips per day and a year-to-date total of 380,813 trips. Not quite Paris or Montreal (the latter of which has a colder climate), but I would argue that this really isn't an indicative location for Toronto given how underdeveloped the area is. Plus, you need to see each route as part of a network.
If you look at Montreal's top 5 bike counters, all of them have a year-to-date total that exceeds 1 million trips. This is important information if you're trying to make mobility decisions and these are significant figures. Imagine if these millions of people got off their bikes and instead decided to take transit or drive a car. That would change things.
Photo by Celine Ylmz on Unsplash
Yesterday I came across a post called, The Workplace of the Future, by venture capitalist Tomasz Tunguz. In it, he references a book called, Cubed: A Secret History of the Workplace, and talks about the changing nature of how and where we work.
What’s immediately interesting to think about is how recent the modern workplace really is:
The information worker is a relatively new concept. Peter Drucker coined the term in the 50s. By then companies had already developed new ways of housing information workers. The very first information workers were accountants hunched over “Bob Crachit” desks in the back rooms of factories. Booming railroad companies demanded more organization and created offices within the new skyscrapers along the Chicago skyline. With these new offices came stacks of paper and folios, and cabinets in which to file them. Then, the Mad Men wrought an era of typewriters and mahogany corner offices. Next, Bell Labs invented the suburban office park, moving offices from the city as part of post-war suburbanization and in the 70s, Herman Miller crafted the now-ubiquitous cubicle, which was called the “Action Office” when it launched. Oh, the irony.
It’s also interesting to think about how quickly things seem to be changing. Up until quite recently, everybody seemed to be singing the virtues of the open office plan. However, today, more and more companies are shying away from that kind of space planning:
In 2011, the organizational psychologist Matthew Davis reviewed more than a hundred studies about office environments. He found that, though open offices often fostered a symbolic sense of organizational mission, making employees feel like part of a more laid-back, innovative enterprise, they were damaging to the workers’ attention spans, productivity, creative thinking, and satisfaction. Compared with standard offices, employees experienced more uncontrolled interactions, higher levels of stress, and lower levels of concentration and motivation. When David Craig surveyed some thirty-eight thousand workers, he found that interruptions by colleagues were detrimental to productivity, and that the more senior the employee, the worse she fared.
Today, the most radical changes are appearing in startup offices around the world and are being driven by a desire to have spaces that embody their unique corporate cultures. This means everything from cool brick-and-beam architecture to bike racks in the office to flexible rooms and spaces that encourage mobility throughout the day. And to further reinforce these cultures, companies are creating positions like Chief Culture Officer and Chief Vibe Officer.
But as I’ve said before on ATC, the other big shift is simply location and the return to cities. More and more startups, for example, are choosing San Francisco over Silicon Valley and it’s because the city is where young people want to live. It’s increasingly where the talent is. This has already brought about many changes in workplace design, but it likely bring about many more.
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