Architect Michael Green’s new house in Kits Point, Vancouver was recently featured in the Globe and Mail. He and his family went from a 3,500 square foot home in the suburbs to a 1,500 square foot semi-detached home in the city, close to downtown. The… Read More
There’s a lot of data/speculation out there about the impact of ride-hailing apps. Many dense urban centers are claiming that they have increased traffic (slowed average speeds) and pulled people away from public transit. The University of Toronto published this study last year. And the… Read More
The Information estimates that around $16 billion has been spent over the last few years on developing autonomous vehicles. This is across some 30 companies. But about half of this spending has come from just three companies: Waymo (Alphabet), Cruise (GM), and Uber. Waymo has… Read More
Last week was CES in Las Vegas. Some or many of you were probably there. One of the things that was announced at the show was a project by Bjarke Ingels Group for Toyota called the Woven City. Situated at the base of Mount Fuji… Read More
Elon Musk recently posted this Twitter survey asking if we, the people, would like “super safe, Earthquake-proof tunnels under [our] cities to solve traffic.” It was leading in that the “no” response was, “No, I like traffic.” And it was initially vague in that it… Read More
Last week, SHARE NOW — which was previously known as Car2Go — announced that it will be exiting the North American market entirely come February 29, 2020, and that it will also cease operations in London, Brussels, and Florence. A couple of reasons were cited,… Read More
For all of us who are involved in the building of cities, it is important to remember that cities emerge and thrive as a result of economic purpose. Take, for example, Sao Paulo. Once one of the poorest of Portuguese colonies, it is today the… Read More
Each year, Bloomberg NEF (New Energy Finance) publishes a long-term forecast of how electric vehicles and shared mobility will/might impact our cities. Predicting the future is never easy. And forecasts are never right. But they’re valuable to do. By 2040, BNEF believes that 57% of… Read More
On October 3, New York City did something very similar to what Toronto did on King Street. It restricted through traffic on 14th Street to only trucks and buses, and turned the street into the city’s first “busway.” Under the new rules, cars, vans, and… Read More
This recent Streetsblog article about the possibility of turning the M Ocean View line in San Francisco into a kind of subway is a good reminder about the always important connection between transit investment and density. The question I always pose to myself is, “If… Read More
