I was very impressed by Bordeaux's tramway network. It felt like no matter where you were in the city, there was a tram gracefully passing you by. Here's a high-level summary of the system:

• The network has 4 lines and a total route length of 77.5 km.

• The first line opened in 2003.

• The network has 130 stops, which crudely results in an average stop spacing of around 600 m.

• The system pioneered ground-level power supply for the trains, which means no overhead wires. Supposedly this caused some issues upfront, but now it seems to be working just fine.

• Most of the network runs on a dedicated right-of-way (en site propre). Meaning, the trains don't compete with car traffic. Many of the lines are quite beautiful too - see above video.

• In 2018, the network carried close to 100 million people. This is in a city of ~260k people and a metro area of ~1.4 million people (2020).

The key differentiators for me are (1) the stop spacing and (2) the fact that most of the system runs on its own dedicated right-of-way. These are two reasons why Toronto's streetcars perform so poorly. They stop too frequently. And most of the lines have to compete with traffic.

So why bother? Walking can be faster.

Bordeaux shows that -- if you implement light rail correctly -- you can actually move a ton people efficiently. With surface rail, you can also build out a robust network in a relatively short period of time.

Twenty years isn't that long in city-building years. It has already been 10 years since Toronto was first promised SmartTrack.

I admire Warren Buffet's humility:

In the physical world, great buildings are linked to their architect while those who had poured the concrete or installed the windows are soon forgotten. Berkshire has become a great company. Though I have long been in charge of the construction crew; Charlie [Munger] should forever be credited with being the architect.

This is an excerpt from his recent letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders, which, this year, he opens up with an obituary to his late partner, Charlie Munger.

I don't agree with everything Warren says and writes. He, for instance, doesn't seem to like crypto and streetcars. Though, surely, he'd really dig my CryptoParisian.

That said, I never miss his letters and his thinking has been broadly instrumental in how I tend to think about real estate.

If you take his description (same letter) of what Berkshire does, and replace businesses with properties, this is what you get:

Our goal at Berkshire is simple: We want to own either all or a portion of [properties] that enjoy good economics that are fundamental and enduring. Within capitalism, some [properties] will flourish for a very long time while others will prove to be sinkholes. It’s harder than you would think to predict which will be the winners and losers.

This is a good way to think about real estate.

I have a great deal of respect for Warren Buffet. Much of what I know (or think I know) about investing has come from listening to and watching him and his partner Charlie Munger. Surely they have got to be the most successful investors living today.

But there are some things that I don't always agree with them on. The first and most obvious one is crypto. Warren thinks it is speculative rat poison and I think it is the future of the internet. I understand where he is coming from in that it does not produce cash in the same way as say a farm or an apartment building. But that doesn't mean it won't have value.

The second one, as I have learned today, is maybe streetcars. As a rule, Warren doesn't typically engage in local politics. But he recently decided to break that rule through a letter he wrote to the editor of the Omaha World-Herald, lobbying against a new $306 million project that I believe is going ahead regardless.

Here's an excerpt from the letter:

“Residents can be far better served by extended or more intensive service by the bus system,” Buffett wrote. “As population, commerce and desired destinations shift, a bus system can be re-engineered. Streetcars keep mindlessly rolling on, fuelled by large public subsidies. Mistakes are literally cast in cement.”

I should, however, be clear that (1) I know nothing about Omaha and this streetcar project, and (2) "streetcars" can be nuanced. There are streetcars that compete with car traffic and have short station spacing, and there is light rail transit on its own dedicated tracks and with farther station spacing. One size does not fit all.

Here in Toronto, we have lots of the former and they generally move you around at the slowest possible speeds. Sometimes it is faster to just walk. But we are also getting a new light rail line next year and that should move much faster. I can also tell you that when I worked in Dublin many years ago, I took their Luas to the office every day and loved it.

Again, I don't know the specifics of Omaha's streetcar project. Maybe Warren is right or maybe he is wrong. And that's why I was careful to say "maybe" above. But I do know that in the right urban contexts and when done well, I am a fan of light rail transit.