This interview and Jason's channel changed my perspective on transportation and traffic design, the same way the MM podcast changed it on the housing crisis: it's complicated and multi faceted. I learned about Strong Towns organization and now I'm a member who wants to make real change in my town. Thank you Kara, Mike and Jason!

North American cities centers have been de- urbanized long time ago and office buildings, shops and hotels took over those city centers. People moved out to the suburbs so they had to travel downtown for work. It means roads from all directions into the heart of the city. Zoning also pushed people out of the city center. European cities have circular roads around the city. When the cities expanded a second or third ring way was built. Due to mixed zoning people can live close to where they work.

My sister's father-in-law lived in Dordrecht and used his bike to get around well into his nineties.

The ironies and lack of joined up thinking piling up in this episode vis-à-vis the Sun are something to behold. At one point you're going on about how cities shouldn't be letting shadowing considerations dictate building heights. Elsewhere you talk about how lowering carbon emissions should be a consideration. And then there's talking about apartments where there's passive solar gain and roof top solar panels. Like make it make sense. If you allow developers to build buildings that markedly shadow others, you're increasing the heating costs - and by extension, carbon emissions - of all those so newly enshadowed by decreasing their passive solar gain (as well as cutting into any solar panel revenues they may have). And what's particularly silly about this is that tall buildings can have really serious HVAC problems due to the fact that heat rises so you can get cases where folks on upper floors in south-facing units open their windows in the dead of winter as they are baking hot which just exacerbates the chimney effect, leading to those at the bottom cranking up their heat. So the net effect is you've actually increased everyone's heating requirements and made winter more dreary for a bunch of people to boot. The kind of amazing thing here is that this channel calls itself the "Missing Middle Podcast" but here you are going on about high rises again. Most shadowing problems don't really exist if you keep to that missing middle of 4-6 stories and are careful about when it is and isn't allowed.

It’s funny as a Dutchy that I had to learn from not just bikes that the bicycle thing was not always there and actually started around the time I was born

In holland biking is not primarily only as recreational activity. It’s most of the time just easier, faster and cheaper to cycle to work/school/groceryshop etc. Because our public transport is very frustrating and quite expensive to be honest

A prominent mortgage broker in Toronto said on X/Twitter that politicians enact laws that favour suburban homeowners since they are the ones that always vote in elections so they will restrict development in or near suburban areas. I personally noticed there are numerous bylaws to block duplexes, triplexes or small apartment buildings. Even buildings on main avenues go through a lengthy approval processes. When there are calls for more affordable housing, these homeowners will call for opening up the greenbelt to development or putting subsidized units in luxury condo buildings at the greedy developers' expense, but if a neighbour wants to add a secondary unit to their house, they lose their minds and call their local councillor. Is this a correct assessement?

I was just thinking about how conservative politics markets itself as "removing red tape", but from what I've experienced, they seem to add comparable amounts of regulations/overhead. So I think it might be more accurate to say that they should be characterized as "realigning regulations" to current opinions.

Mike, you mentioned you would share more details about the co-hosting opportunity. Did I miss the follow up on that? Where should I be looking for more info?

I’m beginning to think a big issue is jobs. We seem to have home shortages in areas with the best jobs. Maybe we ought to figure out how to get more companies to hire more people living in more rural areas or smaller towns.

This video highlights what, for me, is so focal: just a complete sense of futility with hoping North American cities ever becoming anything but car-centric hellscapes.

One issue with solar panels and net metering is that it can often result in lower revenue for utility companies without any decrease in their costs to operate the grid. Solar power is not dispatchable thus the utility cannot rely on it (there are some statistics here). This means that even though you're not consuming power the utility still has to have generation and distribution as if you didn't because their are days where the sun isn't shining where you still need access to power when your solar panels aren't generating. Additionally, solar tends to produce power when the demand is low and supply is high... Thus, not every generated kilowatt hour has the same value, a kilowatt generated at night on the coldest day of the year is more valuable than one generated in the middle of a warm spring day where no heat or AC is required.

Lol 😆 nothing will change.

Parking and shadows are not trivial subjects and not seeing that is a bit worrying. Also your speaking out of both sides of your mouth. Firstly, Access to sunlight is an important part of life in northern climates. If residents have enjoyed a certain level of sunshine, taking that away has negative impacts. Massive shadows happen when taller and wider buildings are built in an out of scale way with adjacent buildings. This creates shadows making rooms and backyards dark. This takes away dollar value from that home which is now less desirable. We can see this in many examples. Gentle densities don’t create complete shadow conditions. These 5 and under storey buildings don’t need angular planes. These forms are the best forms for density and work best with low density 2 and 3 storey contexts. But that’s not what’s being built. With parking, developments that don’t have parking or minimal parking push the parking needs of their residents to adjacent streets and neighbourhoods. The parking issue doesn’t disappear when municipalities don’t require parking. How would you feel if an 10 storey building was built beside your 2 million dollar house? Oh academics!

These days, those who call themselves "Progressive" only care about identity politics. They don't care about the hardship that us working class people are going through. They don't get it that poverty, hunger and homelessness do not discriminate. Actually, they have abandoned the working to the Conservatives.

Maybe you guys can do an episode where you talk about the confusing outcome we see where, when private developers are given free reign to build new subdivisions, either on the edge of the city, or maybe filling in a previously large area used for something else like a rail yard, they usually just fill most of the space with single family detached housing. I'm thinking for example in Winnipeg, about new developments like Bridgewater, South Pointe, Sage Creek, but also examples of "large infill neighbourhoods" like Prairie Crocus Drive, or Devonshire Drive. You'd think in these cases, the developer would want to maximize their revenue by building as dense as possible.

One thing that could help is Victorian row houses with 3 floors + basement for single family house. On a 500 square feet you have a 2000 square feet house, on a 750, a 3000. It takes less land than a boomer bungalow to house 3 or 4 kids families.

If they identify as "progressive", but are NIMBYs, they are not progressives. Actions and words determine what you are politically, not your vibes.

Protect my neighborhood is inherently conservative, not progressive

Mike, where the heck is this advocacy in your hometown of Ottawa? The clowns are City council keep raising Development charges!

In all the apartments I've lived in that only had south-facing rooms, I was absolutely cooked by the sun in the summer and had to blast the AC. The sun is not a reliable way to regulate indoor temperatures, even in new builds

I'd vote for either Cara or Mike if they ever decided to run for anything.

progressives are anti corporatism from the jump. of course we support deregulation if finding regulation of the beneficiary of corporate greed

change single use areas to allow multiuse. government could buy vacant parts of stripmalls and single family homes that are for sale and build retail+housing in its spot. Put housing in and on strip mall lots

Politicians are absolutely responsible for inflation.

18:16 The Soviet Union proved that making cities walkable was cheaper than giving everyone a Personal car. Soviet Microdistrict vs US suburbia

I always thought that Not Just Bike was some 30 year old hippie 😂😂

That’s right- our family voted Biden and now we hate Biden the most for the inflated housing market.

Any mass timber building under construction in NJ

Legal vehicles will travel on public roads. Take away the bike lanes and you'll have groups of cyclists in the remaining lanes at bike speeds. I hope Ford will be happy.

Blah blah blah, is what i heard . does no one give a direct answer anymore.Theres no certification for lego playing

If you look at European cities like Utrecht, bicycling has significantly reduced traffic problems and from my perspective, cities like Utrecht are much more pleasant cities. What the motor vehicle crowd is not aware of is that there is going to be a major crisis in global oil supply in the not-too-distant future that will significantly increase prices. Most of the increase in global oil supply in the last 15 years has come from fracking shale plays in the U.S. The typical shale well produces most of its oil in the first two years of production. Producers are closing in on saturating the "sweet spots' within shale plays with oil wells in the U.S. Maybe the belief is that EVs will just replace ICE vehicles in Toronto and beyond. There are multiple problems with EVs that will limit their acceptance.

The municipal government funding model in North America is broken. Mayors and city councilors discovered that they could generate revenue with development charges (housing taxes) instead of raising property taxes, which would anger the voter. Cities need a new funding model that doesn't tax new house construction.

Jason is right! Redesign of a whole city / country and step by step! Not only 1 road etc.

I have lived in fake London all my life. A new C---o was recently built bigger than the old one next to the 401 exit. It is around the corner on the side road. The bike path from Byron to downtown was originally a trolley line. I used to live on Baseline west of Wharncliffe. Single family homes are being replaced with med density apartment buildings on a main bus line. Most of the main services are within a short walk. Some things better but many of the old properties are being replaced giant homes on tiny lots. I am a life long cyclist who has adapted to mobile combat... However using the bike paths I can get to Western in less time than it takes to drive from Victoria Hospital near my house.

It’s almost like politicians are in the pocket of energy companies and vehicles manufacturers or something

I thought mass timber was pretty expensive?

Sorry for the long post/ answer. It is easy to say that you should just implement the Dutch model in other cities/countries. It does not work if you only tackle part of the problem, because you only shift the problem. Exactly what you see with regard to widening the roads to avoid traffic jams. In the Netherlands, people also think about how bulk goods are transported. Because moving consumer goods from factories or warehouses to shops is not done by bike. But if you think about how people live and in what radius they can meet their needs (going shopping, going to work, going to a doctor for example), you come to the conclusion that a lot can be achieved within a radius of the center of a community, and the delivery of goods can be done outside. There is no need to build a big fat highway into the center. It is not attractive and it only causes problems, to mention a parking problem or the appearance of a center that you completely destroy with it. It should be said in advance that in the Netherlands (and in many European villages and small towns) we have a lot to do with old city centres, with winding streets, many protected monuments, and infrastructure that does not fit in with motorways to the centre at all. People tried to work around it and indeed there was a time when the focus was on the car industry. Until they noticed that that was not the solution. It should also be said that in the EU we have to consider the use of land because we often do not have the space. Reusing old buildings is something of the last 30-40 years here in the Netherlands, before that everything was also demolished and ugly monotonous buildings were built in their place. And we really regret that. When I look at old industrial complexes, people are currently thinking about what can be preserved and used to make homes or to meet the need to convert them into community centres; doctors, vets, physiotherapy practices, community space such as a local coffee shop, a hairdresser, a florist or a small supermarket. To fulfil the need and to make good use of the space. Indeed, the political will must be there. The will to radically flip the switch and get started. Start with one street and connect it to the street next to it and connect the desired infrastructure. Think about what you are doing and look again at all the regulations and think about whether this is still necessary. A street in a residential area does not have to be 9 metres wide because a fire engine has to be able to park there and cars still have to be able to pass. It will be quite a change for many if their street suddenly looks completely different and you can drive much slower through a residential area. But you will notice that in the long run it will feel much more pleasant and the municipality where you live can drastically reduce the tax for road maintenance.

One of the most exciting aspects of mass timber construction to me is the potential of prefab offsite, and the utilization of BIM modelling to a far greater extent than on previous concrete mid rises. One thing that tends to happen in my experience is a free for all, with electrical, plumbers, sheet metal, sprinkler fitters, and whoever else cramming their systems into a building without any detailed coordination. Without a very involved general contractor playing referee, it can get so ugly, and inefficient. Prefab penetrations for specific systems just sound like a dream come true to me.

Innovation and productivity in the construction sector is very low and decreasing, we need to change the regulations to allow for things like mass timber and robotics.

The city of Montreal just announced that it is releasing a bunch of land in various spots throughout the city for non-market housing projects. It would be great if you could review this in a future video, but this idea of mass timber would be excellent if it could be put in use here in Montreal for these non-market apartment buildings.

I find this not to be true. Georgism is all about what is the most moral form to fund a government? It is taxing economic rent. Land rent, natural resource rent, intelectual property rent, cyberspace rent. If some one is gaining from unearned wealth, that should be taxed. This only pertains to the main way of funding societies needs. Now Henry George was a laissez-faire free market guy. Today, THIS is what divides the advocates. Some are geolibertarian capitalists. Some are geosocialdemocrats. Most agree that the Land Value Tax is the goal and to ideally use this tax to incentivize the most opportunistic use of our scarce resources that nature has given us.

We have many more people talking about how great mass timber is than actually starting mass timber manufacturing companies or otherwise doing anything to make it happen. If the chattering classes and academic class would tell the government to sit down, shut up,and get out of the way we might actually be able to buy a reasonably priced mass timber home. The reason we need schools to teach trades now is because employment laws have made training employees an obviously stupid idea to be avoided if at all possible while convincing way too many people to waste time and money on unmarketable degrees from colleges that maybe could be excellent high schools if they stuck to the basics.

Why not use AI technology instead of more bureaucracy to audit projects?

Mass timber does not help address Greenbelt induced high land prices or the 30% gov taxes on new homes. It would only make a meaningful difference in markets such as Winnipeg, Regina, or Saskatoon that already have low land prices and low taxes on new homes.

The reality of space - ample "geography" and low population density that go well beyond what has LONG characterized any Western European country, let alone the Netherlands - are a reality that just cannot be ignored. There are huge economies of scale associated with infrastructure in densely populated areas: that's what makes it cheaper on a per capita basis to do the kinds of things the Dutch do in the Netherlands. It will take decades - if not a century or more - and consistently high immigration (which I think is acceptable in Canada - in the US maybe not so much anymore) to move towards a more dense population pattern in established (sprawling) (sub-)urban areas of the sort that would make it practical (in per capita public taxation terms) to recreate today's Dutch-style cities in North America. Calls for "political will" always strike me as an intellectually lazy throw-away line that assumes away the thorny political problem of how you get people to accept encroachment on their spaced-out suburban lifestyles: in the Canadian/Ontario context, how exactly does a government get re-elected if it is seen to work against the interests of people spread out across the "905" belt? (i.e. Toronto's very extensive suburban belt, for non-Canadian readers)

Bike lanes created traffic congestion in my little town and are hardly used. There's no green aspect when traffic sits and idles

Drivers and especially upset drivers are furious about car congestion. Having a basic understanding of congestion can be helpful, it’s something they might listen to. Traffic planners use the V/C Index which uses daily traffic counts to measure congestion: Volume ÷ Capacity = V/C Index Multiply by 100 and it is expressed as a percentage. This is useful for overall calculations but it can put the “numb” into numbers for most of the public. Congestion happens moment to moment. You can always add more cars by drivers travelling on off peak times, like how you have a maximum amount of water that can go through a pipe but you can let the water run more often like at night. They see and get caught in congestion. They feel it. So using a rating system like the congestion scale is something they can relate to. THE CONGESTION SCALE 5 GRIDLOCK 4 BUMPER TO BUMPER 3 TAILBACKS 1 BLOCK LONG 2 “SMALL TOWN” TRAFFIC 1 LITTLE TO NO TRAFFIC What concerns drivers is Levels 4 and 5. We don’t get gridlock. It makes a great trigger word to inspire drivers to oppose bike lanes but we know this is exaggeration. Gridlock is where the whole neighbourhood gets flooded with cars and your car is locked in the grid of streets. You can’t go forward or backwards. Might as well turn your car off because you won’t move for 10 to as much as 45 minutes. We get this when a big event ends, like a world championship sports game. A solution to this is for the city to ask a venue to present a traffic mitigation plan, like host post-game activities that encourage attendees to linger and not leave all at once. Level 4 is where the street is saturated to capacity and traffic starts to fold in on itself. On streets like Bloor, it never reaches gridlock because the worst of it is just on Bloor, not on cross streets. But it’s this level that makes drivers get claustrophobic. When you’re caught in it, it feels like you are drowning. Having a rating scale to refer to is like touching the bottom of the lake and finding you can stand up with your head above the waves. When we see congestion from the sidewalk and actually surveying congestion on Bloor we notice this congestion ebbs and flows. So it fluctuates between Level 4 and 3 and often the whole queue of cars gets through before the red light. So we measure congestion by observing the level of congestion at specific parts of the street and we measure how long it stays at this level. When we do this, what looks like gridlock is not nearly as bad and it’s easier to tolerate. So the next step is to recognize the city wants to reduce car congestion. The highest Level Of Service (LOS) is at Levels 3 and 4, that’s the highest capacity of a street. That brings us to how to reduce congestion, what actions the city can do. Increasing Level Of Service is one way. The network of streets can accommodate more cars. But recent ways to calculate LOS include how do we move more people, not just cars? And, as long as people ride bikes and fill bike lanes, that can be more efficient than a car lane. Vehicle Miles Travelled (VMT), is an approach that’s been around for a while. Put origins and destinations like home, work, shopping and recreation closer together so people use the streets less. This recently got the name 15 Minute Cities. Encourage people not to drive by making other modes like biking more popular. Discourage people from driving, with left turn only, like on King St, car free streets, parks and neighbourhoods, road tolls and congestion fees. And odd licence plates drive every second day while even plates go the other times. When we add lanes to a highway, we ease congestion, so more people drive. We call that induced demand. But a secondary effect of more people using the highway is this means more trips at the beginning and end of the ride on city streets. So more local highway travel results in more congestion on city streets. There is one more we induce demand on streets. We work painstakingly to make our community more liveable. More homes, both businesses that create more jobs, more infrastructure like better streets. The result of our hard work is more people want to stay and more are invited in. Population growth is a good thing, right? Especially if you are a landlord or developer. But when you can’t afford rent let alone buy a home, you have a different perspective. And we see more congestion. What is the solution? Pretty soon we paved over the Green Belt and contaminated our fresh water supply as Toronto expands to Lake Simcoe the same way it did along the Golden Horseshoe. The reason why our population is growing is not just because Toronto is a great place to live. It’s because it’s better than everywhere else. So it’s in Toronto’s best interest for 2 things. Make places like Sudbury and Timmins better to move to. And do a better job promoting them. Toronto is still world class but so is Kirkland Lake and Nippising. We welcome refugees from Ukraine, over 100,000 of them. But a lot of these people are farmers and like farming. Setting them up with entry level jobs in Toronto might not be the best value for them or us. That’s population growth. A decade ago, experts talked about a world population explosion. But now they talk about a decline in birth rates, quoting country after country already having birth rates so low they don’t sustain the current population. At a time when communities age, riding a bicycle is a perfect way to get daily exercise to keep us healthy. Most drivers in Etobicoke who got upset with the Bloor bike lane extension just drive without considering these factors. If they do and if they know their thoughts and ideas are not just welcomed, they are needed to make Toronto better, they might not be so upset by the bike lanes. They might even try riding a bike!

A few things might help us understand what’s behind Bill 212. It was inspired by residents complaining about the bike lanes on Bloor when they got extended into Etobicoke. For some reason when this one bike lane gets extended, locals get upset about the new section in the same way they got upset when bike lanes got first installed. It seems to go like this: Cycling advocates talk with other cyclists about bike lanes. Then they spoke with key decision makers with the city, to get them installed. But cyclists didn’t focus much on talking with drivers. So drivers rightly felt they were not in the loop. You can understand this because for decades drivers blocked bike lanes. Now that bike lanes are being rolled out it’s tempting for cyclists to say suck it up just like we had to before. But that isn’t helpful at all. The city proposes bike lanes and sends out flyers to homes. Drivers see the flyers and say this is about cycling. I don’t have anything against cycling but it has nothing to do with me. So the flyer goes in the recycle box and they get on with their lives. Then the city installs the bike lanes and drivers suddenly see a bit more car congestion. Now that they are in their neighbourhood, they notice the bike lanes. They still haven’t educated themselves on bike lanes or congestion so they just see the congestion and want the bike lanes gone. And that happened in Etobicoke. See this from the Conservative government’s view. They got thousands of complaints in person, on the phone and by email. The essence of responsible government is to respond to people’s concerns. And constituents did share their concerns. Add to that, bike lanes were a downtown “problem.” Now that the Bloor bike lanes were extended into Etobicoke, it can feel like the city came over and pooped in their backyard. After Ford and Christine Hogarth spent 3 decades in local politics, they can use this issue as one of the last big causes to fight, to cap off their political careers. So this is personal, not just political or academic. But there’s more: When the city removed the Jarvis Street bike lanes, not much consultation went into installing them and ZERO consultation was used to remove them. Rob Ford and council relied on gut instinct and their own judgement to decide to remove the Jarvis bike lanes. Since then, the city uses a robust consultation process to install bike lanes: Councillors and the council want the bike lanes. Grass roots support from residents, residents’ associations and BIAs support bike lanes. And the city routinely invites traffic planning agencies to have experts inform us on best practices and more city staff have knowledge on bike lanes. Doug Ford is still functioning in the old style that relied on their own judgement and what they heard from residents. But even when they talk about how this issue is the number one issue for constituents and they never saw any issue the residents were so unified over, they haven’t bothered to get counts on how many people complained and what the specific complaints were. And they seem to ignore locals who share they want the bike lanes. They just say lots complained. And this bill does not suggest other ways to reduce “gridlock” except to remove the bike lanes. So it’s a lot more about opposing bike lanes than it is about fighting car congestion. So it falls to cycling advocates to inform drivers about not just bike lanes but also about congestion for cars and its cures. Including talking directly to drivers in Etobicoke. These drivers are mad. They won’t want to listen, they just want to hear the words, We will remove the Bloor bike lanes and do it ASAP. So any dialogue needs to be done in very short sound bites that are meaningful to them. Like understanding congestion.

My two children bought homes in Bidens administration with my third one buying soon. And each one has just one job. But they didnt buy an expensive vehicle. They have used vehicles between 7 to 10 years old. They arent having trouble buying groceries either. They have gardens and they use coupons and look for sales. They dont have student loan debt either because they started at the bottom of their respective companies and worked their way up. They also have investment accounts and SAVINGS. Oh, did I mention they also have children and they aren't struggling. STOP WITH THE DOOM & GLOOM. P.S. My brother and sister-in-law are also doing GREAT.