Some of you might know that I’ve recently started using a mobile app called Strava. It’s a platform that allows you to track your runs and bike rides, as well as those of your friends. It tells you your speed, elevation changes, and it also maps your trips–among many other things. Here’s what my 50 km ‘Ride for Heart’ looks like from last Sunday.

But what’s even more interesting is how cities are starting to use the data this app collects:

For $20,000 a year, transportation planners and others can access Strava Metro, which provides an unprecedented look at where and how people are biking. It can tell them where they speed up and slow down, for example, or where they might stay in the street or ride on a crosswalk. That information can reveal where bike lanes or traffic calming measures would be useful, and if those already installed are effective.

It’s a perfect example of how “tech” is infiltrating so many other sectors. Mobile technology and networks are generating huge amounts of data and it’s happening at an increasing rate. We’re gaining insights into the way people live that simply wasn’t possible before. Some of this information will inevitably be misused, but a lot of it will be used to improve the way we live our lives.

I know that the City of Toronto also has its own proprietary cycling app and is hoping to collect similar sorts of data from it. But intuitively, I don’t think they’ll be able to compete with the scale of a platform like Strava. Though I certainly applaud the initiative.

The information age is an exciting time.

Image: Strava via Wired

Yesterday Toronto mayoral candidate, John Tory, proposed a transit line called SmartTrack. It’s part of his One Toronto transit plan. If you’re interested in watching the full 30 minute announcement, click here.

As somebody who came out of the gate as a strong proponent of the “Yonge Relief Subway Line” (and as somebody I immediately supported for that reason), this proposal first hit me yesterday as a disappointment. Not because I don’t think we need a regional express rail network in the region (we do), but because I feel that he is backing away from that initial commitment and depriving the core of the transit infrastructure it needs.

As soon as I found out about the plan, I immediately emailed one of my friends at Metrolinx. I told him I thought it was an “epic fail”. He pushed back and asked me to consider the merits of Tory’s plan. After having slept on it (and calmed down), I’m now prepared to talk about both the benefits of SmartTrack and why I was disappointed. 

SmartTrack is basically a regional rail plan, intended to move people from the outer and inner suburbs to and from downtown using an integrated fare system. That is, riders will not have to pay a separate fare to transfer from subway to SmartTrack. 90% of the track needed for the plan is already existing, which means it will be cheaper and quicker to build compared to the full relief subway line. It will also bring employment centers such as Airport Corporate Centre in Mississauga into the transit network. For these reasons, the SmartTrack plan would certainly be beneficial for the region. 

But, there’s a densities mismatch.

If you look at the number of stops proposed in Scarborough and Markham, and compare it to the number of new stations proposed for downtown (1 - Spadina station) and the downtown shoulder neighborhoods (2 - Liberty Village and the Unilever site), the plan starts to look lopsided. SmartTrack would help residents of downtown get out to the suburbs, but it would do little to help them move in and around the core.

If you look at the way Toronto is intensifying on a map, it looks like an upside down letter T. Density now hugs the waterfront and then follows our subway lines up north. I believe that the SmartTrack plan would help to relieve the pressures on those subway lines, but I don’t think it adequately addresses the bar of the T that now runs parallel to the lake.

So while I do think that the Toronto region would be well served by regional express rail, I don’t think we can forget about the central part of the city. This shift in focus may have something to do with where Tory believes his voter base now sits, but let’s not forget that there’s a strong correlation between population density and transit ridership levels. 

Now, let’s hear from you. What do you think of Tory’s One Toronto plan and SmartTrack proposal?

This past weekend was a milestone weekend for Architect This City. The number of email subscribers surpassed 100 people for the first time. Now, that may not seem like a lot of people, but I think it is. I’m incredibly proud of and grateful for each and every one of you who subscribe to ATC. If I had all of your photos, I would make a collage just like the one above and call it “the first 100.”

The reason I think 100 people is a lot is because I think of an email inbox as an incredibly personal thing. We live in an age of too much information and our inboxes certainly reflect that. So for somebody to invite and accept the ATC email into their inbox every morning (only a few people subscribe weekly), I consider that to be a big deal. Thank you for that. It really does mean a lot to me.

I try to ensure that I’m always delivering value to you, which is why I ask for your industry on the full subscription page. I want to know where you’re coming from so that I can do my best to write content that will help you professionally, and perhaps even in life. But if you signed up elsewhere, you may have only entered your email. If you’d like to add your industry, click on “update subscription preferences” at the bottom of one of my emails.

So far, I know that many of you are architects, city planners, real estate developers, brokers, policy makers, finance people, marketers, and entrepreneurs–to name only a few.

If you have any specific feedback or have a topic you’d like to see covered on ATC, please feel free to email me or reply to this email (if you’re already a subscriber). I keep a queue of draft posts and I do eventually get to them when the timing is right. Finally, if you feel that somebody within your network would also get value out of what we’re all doing here at ATC, I would really appreciate it if you forwarded this email or shared this post.

Happy Monday :)

Image: Flickr