Daily insights for city builders, delivered every morning at 6 AM ET. I’m Brandon Donnelly — a Toronto-based real estate developer and founder of Globizen. I’ve been writing here since 2013.

Tag: ferry

  • Norway’s $47 billion coastal highway

    The E39 highway in Norway runs along the west coast of the country and connects Kristiansand in the south to Trondheim in the north. There’s also a ferry connection to Denmark that forms part of the route. The entire highway (excluding the ferry south to Denmark) is about 1,100 km. But it takes about 21 hours to drive it because Norway’s dramatic fjords (see above photo) mean that there are seven ferry crossings along E39. The Norwegian government wants to transform the route into a ferry-free highway, which would dramatically reduce travel times. But this presents a number of extremely difficult engineering challenges — some of which haven’t been solved yet. You can learn about a number of them in the below video from The B1M. If you can’t see it below, click here. It’s a fascinating video.

    Photo by Christiann Koepke on Unsplash

  • Hello Boston

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    I arrived in Boston early this morning. It has been about a decade since I was last here.

    I took the subway in from the airport, which is typically what I like to do when I visit a city. It’s such a great way to get a feel for a place. And in the case of Boston, Logan Airport is only a few stops away from downtown.

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    As soon as I got in, I walked over to see the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway (above image). It’s a linear park that was made possible by burying the city’s elevated waterfront expressway – the infamous “Big Dig.”

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    I recognize that it was a lavishly expense infrastructure project that went many times over budget, but walking across the greenway to get to the water was rather pleasant. Will Toronto’s The Bentway achieve a similar result at a fraction of the cost?

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    With that out of the way, I went for a lobster roll. It had to happen. I then walked around Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market (above image). It felt a bit touristy, but what a remarkable pedestrian-only area

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    And now I’m on a boat heading over to Provincetown (Cape Cod) for a wedding. I’m writing this blog post over a spotty wifi connection, so out of fear that I may spontaneously lose it, I am going to end here. See you all tomorrow.