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Fenxis · Guru

RE: Canadian Election: 2019

Fenxis · Guru

Dubey wrote:
The hate for Trudeau is through the roof, and the hate for “liberals” is a relatively new thing, at least being spoken about

My FIL absolutely hates the Liberals -- though he's a drunk that sits around getting brainwashed by right-wing talk radio all day long.

Zach6668 · Guru

My Dad is such a weird case of fading increasingly irrelevant boomer.

He lives part time in the US and actively hates Trump and Fox News and all that ****, but when he's back in Canada, he's ****ing posting doctored videos where Singh is "hanging out with terrorists" on Facebook and cussing out Trudeau all day long. His justification is always that Trudeau is lighting "your" future on fire (in reference to my sister and I) with his neverending deficits, etc. He doesn't bother to consider that the Conservatives are *always* increasing the deficit at faster rates than Liberals and he never bothers to as *us* what we want in our own future. He pretends to be so concerned about the fiscal ****, but it's just nonsense. Just tell us what you really care about and stop hiding behind an easily disprovable claim. (It's that he doesn't want his taxes raised by one cent to pay for anything.)

Dubey · Guru

The worst is everyone referring to “socialist” as an almost derogatory term, as though Canada hasn’t been a socialist country forever.

Fenxis · Guru

Transfer payments are a huge, huge deal out there. Something that we barely even think about in Ontario.

You need to understand these to understand AB/SK.

-- Edited by Fenxis on Wednesday 23rd of October 2019 07:40:11 PM

Fenxis · Guru

Zach6668 wrote:
Just tell us what you really care about and stop hiding behind an easily disprovable claim. (It's that he doesn't want his taxes raised by one cent to pay for anything.)

Q: Should we do something about climate change?

Average Canadian: Oh absolutely yes

Q: Would you be willing to pay $100 / year more?

Non trivial amount of Canadians: Oh no, absolutely not

Dubey · Guru

Transfer payments that literally don’t have a tangible affect on they day to day life of Albertans. Transfer payments that were put in place by harper and Jason Kenny’s conservatives but are somehow blamed on Trudeau.

Fenxis · Guru

Dubey wrote:
Transfer payments that literally don’t have a tangible affect on they day to day life of Albertans. Transfer payments that were put in place by harper and Jason Kenny’s conservatives but are somehow blamed on Trudeau.

It's the perception: that while AB was booming ON went into a ****hole and "their" money was bailing out entitled left wingers.

Nevermind that it all the young single people going to the oil fields making a ton of money leaving the kids (schooling) and elderly (health care) behind.

It's all I hear about.

Fenxis · Guru

Zach6668 wrote:
He doesn't bother to consider that the Conservatives are *always* increasing the deficit at faster rates than Liberals and he never bothers to as *us* what we want in our own future.

Yup... the Harris tax cuts **** up the provinces balance sheet just as much as Wynn. At least Harper racked up his deficit during a recession... Trudeau is doing it during good times.

digitalmonkey · Guru

Fenxis wrote:
Zach6668 wrote:
Just tell us what you really care about and stop hiding behind an easily disprovable claim. (It's that he doesn't want his taxes raised by one cent to pay for anything.)

Q: Should we do something about climate change?
Average Canadian: Oh absolutely yes
Q: Would you be willing to pay $100 / year more?
Non trivial amount of Canadians: Oh no, absolutely not

Average Canadian here: I would choose not to pay $100/year

rich · Overselling players since 1993

I would choose to pay it.

digitalmonkey · Guru

Would you pay $200?

Adam · Guru

That’s charming that you’re asked your opinion about being taxed before being taxed. We just get taxed. All day, every day.

Fenxis · Guru

digitalmonkey wrote:
Would you pay $200?

Except the decision isn't to pay or not pay.

One choice to pay now, the other is paying more down the line (https://www.sciencenews.org/article/climate-change-economic-cost-united-states Article linking to a 2018 Study by the US Government, findings from 13 depts)

Even if the most dire predictions occur it's still it's still like an insurance policy that pays out.

And in the pay now category I don't consider it could a random tax that people pay -- it could be that we have to pay a few cents more for products due to packaging, tire compounds that have to be changed, etc.

Estimates very by in the NCA4 estimates (from first line) estimates by 2090 annual damage to the US alone will be $280-500 B/Y in economic damage. *500B "worst case" is just the estimates for doing nothing.

-- Edited by Fenxis on Thursday 24th of October 2019 09:46:17 AM

Zach6668 · Guru

Zach6668 · Guru

But ya, it's pay now, or pay trillions more later. People who are denying that are just screaming infants with their fingers in their years. (uh, no offense, Dale?)

digitalmonkey · Guru

My issue with not wanting to pay has little to do with helping the environment. I have zero faith in the government to use the money in the best possible way.

Also, why do I need to own a pair of scissors to open the packaging on the new ****ing scissors I just bought?

Zach6668 · Guru

I think that’s fair (though I don’t agree). But it’s also the only chance we have. At least we can vote for the group who we think will spend it less poorly. Lol

And to answer your second question, no, you can use a steak knife.

digitalmonkey · Guru

Admittedly, I don't follow politics very closely. I try to maintain a level where I know what's going on and stay sane.
Why does the responsibility fall on the people to pay? Why aren't the billion dollar companies who are responsible for most of the waste paying? Why do people need a new ****ing cellphone every couple of years? Why is a Tim Horton's allowed to remove their garbage cans at their drive thru resulting in Tim Hortons cups scattered everywhere? Why not tax the use of plastic? Don't want to pay more taxes? Find a better way to package your product. If Matt Damon can grow potatoes in his own **** then surely it's doable.

-- Edited by digitalmonkey on Wednesday 23rd of October 2019 10:42:28 PM

Zach6668 · Guru

Yes to all of that. I'm just speaking in generalities about $100 or whatever. I mean, it all gets passed back down, right? But we can at least make a way to have polluters pay. I mean, that's what a carbon tax is, but the conservatives somehow riled everyone up as if it was costing people money directly. Lies work really well when your voting base are angry idiots. But I agree, make polluters pay. There should be bigger gas taxes (they haven't gone up since like 1991, so in real terms, they've decreased significantly).... Carbon taxes should incentivize companies to be cleaner at the point of production. There have been talks about holding major polluters like Tim Horton's, etc responsible for their coffee cups being everywhere, etc. Banned bottled water. Ban single use plastics. Focus on things that actually incentivize cleaner behaviour, not some stupid symbolic gestures about plastic straws. Build more public transit, toll roads to pay for it, build bike lanes everywhere. Stop building sprawling subdivisions that result in additional vehicle miles traveled. Legislate construction materials (concrete is a *huge* polluter). Legislate passivehaus buildings - net zero buildings. Get off natural gas and go 100% renewable (hydro, wind, solar), then electrify 100% of public transportation. Try to encourage more alternative to meat (another insane GHG polluter)... etc, etc, etc.

We know what's causing climate change, we just have spineless politicians and a population in denial, either entirely, or about just how "inconvenienced" they'll have to be to save humanity. (These inconveniences will seem trivial almost immediately, like any change the NIMBY groups, etc fight against. Once it's implemented, nobody will want to go back.)

Zach6668 · Guru

I don't do anything crazy, but I've been trying to lower my carbon footprint. I already drive basically zero for non-work things (and only a handful of times for work each year). I bike, I take electric transit. Sometimes I take buses, which use gas. I've started trying to half the amount of meat I eat. Every second big batch meal I cook to make lunches, etc I try to use an alternative source of protein (though I have a long way to go here because my non-home cooked meals are probably contain meat 100% of the time). Air travel is my biggest source of pollution, I think. That's a tricky one. I wonder how we can solve that...

Fenxis · Guru

digitalmonkey wrote:
Why not tax the use of plastic? Don't want to pay more taxes?

The current Canadian model (default federal model if the province doesn't implement their own strategy) is to tax the producers of carbon and then give every citizen a refund. The idea is the citizen is the end consumer and make purchasing decisions.

eg: that scissors with 10cents of plastic and tons of space for branding is now that scissors with a dollar of plastic

Fenxis · Guru

Zach6668 wrote:
I wonder how we can solve that...

Rent a sailboat to travel /s

rich · Overselling players since 1993

I do very similar things to Zach and yeah, it basically gets all thrown out the window by air travel. I did a 3 week road trip instead of flying somewhere this summer but I doubt that's any better.

Zach6668 · Guru

I think it's supposed to be better, but still bad.

Zach6668 · Guru

The biggest problem is every government I work with says they want to address climate change through their transportation plans but never agree to anything more than token “solutions”. Granted we are putting more emphasis on cycling and transit than we have in half a century, but they aren’t cutting back when it comes to enabling driving. So they all talk a good game, but don’t let it actually manifest itself in enforceable policy.

digitalmonkey · Guru

I guess I view things as being similar to the cigarette bull****. Buy our cigarettes and pay us taxes while we spend millions on campaigns to quit smoking. They don't want people to quit smoking. It's all a farce.

They don't want people to be more environmentally friendly until they can make money off it. People are brainwashed to consume. Buy this. Eat that. Call within the next 15 minutes and we'll send you two. It's both laughable and frightening. And people are either too inconvenienced, too busy, too tired, too lazy or too poor to choose the Brita charcoal filter on their tap over the case of bottled water at Walmart for 3 bucks.

My buzz is wearing off. I'm gonna go load the pipe again and then I'll be back to solve this air travel issue.

Fenxis · Guru

Zach6668 wrote:
The biggest problem is every government I work with says they want to address climate change through their transportation plans but never agree to anything more than token “solutions”. Granted we are putting more emphasis on cycling and transit than we have in half a century, but they aren’t cutting back when it comes to enabling driving. So they all talk a good game, but don’t let it actually manifest itself in enforceable policy.

That's because they want to go for the easy stuff.

ie going after plastic straws is a lot easier (people won't move) viable than going after cruise lines (which use a really dirty fuel) -- companies will change where they port

Cars are a big one, fortunately electric cars have made a huge progress

Food waste (ie grown but thrown out) is massive

Meat versus Faux Meat (which have their own issues)

The problem is that NA cities are generally built around driving and not subways + walking.

Even once the LRT Phase 3 is done in Ottawa (in 10-12 years) i'm still looking at a longer bus/walk in just Kanata than my current commute as a whole -- but if I don't have to buy a 2nd car again that would be a ton of savings

At least Ford is in favour of mass transit so the projects are going on

digitalmonkey · Guru

Cancer is another one. It's big business. Why would they ever want to "find" a cure?

rich · Overselling players since 1993

Well yeah changing our consumer culture is the real solution. That's not changing overnight.

Zach6668 · Guru

Fenxis wrote:
Zach6668 wrote:
The biggest problem is every government I work with says they want to address climate change through their transportation plans but never agree to anything more than token “solutions”. Granted we are putting more emphasis on cycling and transit than we have in half a century, but they aren’t cutting back when it comes to enabling driving. So they all talk a good game, but don’t let it actually manifest itself in enforceable policy.
That's because they want to go for the easy stuff.
ie going after plastic straws is a lot easier (people won't move) viable than going after cruise lines (which use a really dirty fuel) -- companies will change where they port
Cars are a big one, fortunately electric cars have made a huge progress
Food waste (ie grown but thrown out) is massive
Meat versus Faux Meat (which have their own issues)

The problem is that NA cities are generally built around driving and not subways + walking.
Even once the LRT Phase 3 is done in Ottawa (in 10-12 years) i'm still looking at a longer bus/walk in just Kanata than my current commute as a whole -- but if I don't have to buy a 2nd car again that would be a ton of savings

At least Ford is in favour of mass transit so the projects are going on

Well yeah, I am a city/transportation planner that’s obv my focus. Yes many of our cities were designed around the car but you can’t start to change that without... well, starting to change that.

Ford’s transit plans are trash and he’s mostly just buying votes and continuously changing plans as a predatory delay tactic. Also subways are a tiny part of the urban transit puzzle. We could do simple things tomorrow like painting bus lanes and running insanely frequent service. But we don’t because it would take space away from cars. NYC and Toronto both with major success on this front in the last year. But South American cities are miles ahead of us on this one.

Zach6668 · Guru

rich wrote:
Well yeah changing our consumer culture is the real solution. That's not changing overnight.

i also pretend to be a minimalist, which isn’t entirely untrue, but I’m still a consumer, just not a fully brainwashed one. Lol

Fenxis · Guru

Zach6668 wrote:
Ford’s transit plans are trash and he’s mostly just buying votes and continuously changing plans as a predatory delay tactic. Also subways are a tiny part of the urban transit puzzle. We could do simple things tomorrow like painting bus lanes and running insanely frequent service. But we don’t because it would take space away from cars. NYC and Toronto both with major success on this front in the last year. But South American cities are miles ahead of us on this one.

I remember reading somewhere that the key is to have service every 15 minutes -- if it's less frequent than that that then ridership will decline drastically. So even with the subway/LRT trunk systems you are looking at up to 30 minute wait for your local bus.

But Ottawa has seen an explosion of condos along the Phase1 route -- the argument that the city doesn't have the density for LRT is junk. "If you build it they will come".

Also there's plans to add dedicated lanes to Baseline which goes to the idea of high frequency core routes.

Fenxis · Guru

rich wrote:
Well yeah changing our consumer culture is the real solution. That's not changing overnight.

There's changing our culture and having more transparency so that we actually hold corps accountable.

eg1: Nike using Kappernick to show that they are woke and yet still suckling the teet of the Chinese government

eg2: Big food shuffling though 'bad ingredients' while never really delivering the healthy food people want

Zach6668 · Guru

Fenxis wrote:
Zach6668 wrote:
Ford’s transit plans are trash and he’s mostly just buying votes and continuously changing plans as a predatory delay tactic. Also subways are a tiny part of the urban transit puzzle. We could do simple things tomorrow like painting bus lanes and running insanely frequent service. But we don’t because it would take space away from cars. NYC and Toronto both with major success on this front in the last year. But South American cities are miles ahead of us on this one.
I remember reading somewhere that the key is to have service every 15 minutes -- if it's less frequent than that that then ridership will decline drastically. So even with the subway/LRT trunk systems you are looking at up to 30 minute wait for your local bus.

But Ottawa has seen an explosion of condos along the Phase1 route -- the argument that the city doesn't have the density for LRT is junk. "If you build it they will come".
Also there's plans to add dedicated lanes to Baseline which goes to the idea of high frequency core routes.

Even 15 mins is too infrequent. Not all bus routes need to be that often but you need a core grid of 10 mins or better (emphasis on better). When you start cutting service you lose riders, as you note, so you keep cutting service. The transit death spiral.

The buses vs metro thing happens in a lot of places too. Buses get ignored far too often. They’re the real workhorses of Toronto’s transit network. Not the subways, not the streetcars. Without our bus network, transit usage would plummet. And still it’s the first thing they cut. Politicians and the general public have no understanding of network effects. The number of comments I get about mostly empty buses at off-peak times or the ends of the routes etc.

Fenxis · Guru

Zach6668 wrote:
Even 15 mins is too infrequent. Not all bus routes need to be that often but you need a core grid of 10 mins or better (emphasis on better). When you start cutting service you lose riders, as you note, so you keep cutting service. The transit death spiral.
The buses vs metro thing happens in a lot of places too. Buses get ignored far too often. They’re the real workhorses of Toronto’s transit network. Not the subways, not the streetcars. Without our bus network, transit usage would plummet. And still it’s the first thing they cut. Politicians and the general public have no understanding of network effects. The number of comments I get about mostly empty buses at off-peak times or the ends of the routes etc.

(At least) every 15 minutes then? When I lived at home I hated how often I just missed by minutes and had to sit around in a cold bus station. At least it ran to ~12:30 so I could go out drinking -- a lot of people out in Orleans had to bail after 8:30 to catch the last one. But it basically means once I graduated I bought a car asap and generally take it when possible.

It's likely because most of the pro mass transit ads are: here are 40 ppl in cars, here are 40 people on the bus. But the off-peak: here are 5 people in cars, here are 5 people on that same bus is an easy counter.

What I've read about in Europe is a pilot for dynamic bus routes. You fire up the app and indicate if pickup or arrival time is most important to you and then a route will be generated. Seems like a great idea for off-peak times or weekends.

Zach6668 · Guru

Yeah, I'm just saying we need to be more ambitious to get people to switch to transit. The whole like "aha moment" with high frequency is that it equates to freedom. No checking schedules, no worrying about missing it. Just show up and wait 10 mins or less. 10 min frequency is an average wait of 5 minutes. I'd definitely add in there, to your point, hours of service. Like, the last bus is at 8:30? That's absurd. I get Ottawa has bananas geography, but that's part of the whole network effect. If there's a really great bus that gets somewhere where they need to go when they need to go there, but not one for the way back, then of course that person isn't going to use transit. But again, these are the routes that get cut. And because they get cut, ridership elsewhere falls.

---

Isn't 5 people on the same bus still better than 5 people in their own cars? Takes up less space, no need for end of trip parking facilities, and probably still a smaller carbon footprint?

---

Dynamic bus routes... yeah, we're always asked about that. I don't do a ton of work with transit, so I'm not sure of the specifics, but I'm not sure any real world trials have proven it to be any less expensive than regular fixed route service. A small town north of Toronto, Innisfil, has piloted a partnership with Uber instead of running 2 or 3 bus lines, and it was extremely successful, but it ended up costing way more because of the success. Which, is not exactly the worst problem to have, but just another wrinkle to consider. We get asked a lot about this type of arrangement for first mile/last mile scenarios, especially around GO stations in less dense areas, but it's still unclear how well it'll work.

This on-demand transit thing goes back decades though. Do you remember Dial-a-Ride at all? I'm guessing they had some version in Ottawa. Similar approach, just less tech-y. It's never really need able to scale, but it could be a useful way to get people to/from mass transit in low density areas, then you're at least keeping those people on transit.

Zach6668 · Guru

To clarify my point about the dynamic transit routes... I'm very skeptical. Mostly because the problem is a land use problem, not really a transit or transportation problem. All transportation problems are land use problems at some level. Bad land use just ensures bad transportation options.

Zach6668 · Guru

And I'll stop talking about this now because I know it's boring and not really on topic.

Back to Alberta... is the economy so bad that they've stopped buying $80,000 pick up trucks? I'm so out of touch with AB. In my mind, it still feels like that boom when everyone would go to Fort Mac and make $25/hr working at Tim Horton's.

My initial instinct is to say boo hoo because we need to get off of oil. Propping it up is not a long term solution to an economy that badly needs to diversify and transform. But that's not empathetic at all, so really the real answer should be transition away from oil being the basis for the economy while providing social assistance, etc for those who need it (money, job training, etc) and find incentives for other industries to move in and scoop up the excess labour.

But I could be way off, so please, set me straight folks.

Fenxis · Guru

Zach6668 wrote:
Yeah, I'm just saying we need to be more ambitious to get people to switch to transit.

The key is you need to make it so good that you it will serve them 95%+ of the time so they don't feel the buy a car. They can rent a vehicle/uber for trips and/or errands.

Because the second you buy a car you are going to use it -- deprecation and fixed maintenance are your biggest costs.

-- Edited by Fenxis on Thursday 24th of October 2019 11:35:06 AM

Fenxis · Guru

Zach6668 wrote:
And I'll stop talking about this now because I know it's boring and not really on topic.

Back to Alberta... is the economy so bad that they've stopped buying $80,000 pick up trucks? I'm so out of touch with AB. In my mind, it still feels like that boom when everyone would go to Fort Mac and make $25/hr working at Tim Horton's.

My initial instinct is to say boo hoo because we need to get off of oil. Propping it up is not a long term solution to an economy that badly needs to diversify and transform. But that's not empathetic at all, so really the real answer should be transition away from oil being the basis for the economy while providing social assistance, etc for those who need it (money, job training, etc) and find incentives for other industries to move in and scoop up the excess labour.

But I could be way off, so please, set me straight folks.

For years the Oil Patch has been a key cog for the Canadian economy -- and therefore Alberta did not qualify equalization payments -- while everyone else spent themselves into debt (a huge simplication but whatever)

Then when the downturn in oil prices they feel like haven't been getting their share in time of need. eg: Bombardier getting bailed out yet again / PM bending over for Lavalin feeds into their issues. [Though I also get it's easier to bail out the automobile industry / Bombardier when there are temporary setbacks and not permanent changes to an industry wrt oil prices]

-- Edited by Fenxis on Thursday 24th of October 2019 11:39:16 AM

Zach6668 · Guru

Fenxis wrote:
Zach6668 wrote:
Yeah, I'm just saying we need to be more ambitious to get people to switch to transit.
The key is you need to make it so good that you it will serve them 95%+ of the time so they don't feel the buy a car. They can rent a vehicle/uber for trips and/or errands.
Because the second you buy a car you are going to use it -- deprecation and fixed maintenance are your biggest costs.

That's exactly right. Though I think people might be surprised how much a car actually costs them each year. You could probably rent a car for one weekend a month and still come out waaaaay ahead. I think the average cost to own and operate a vehicle is in the ballpark of $10,000 per year. But you're right. It's the sunk cost fallacy to some extent, and to another extent kind of a path of least resistance thing once you do have that car (though I'd argue we overestimate how much easier a car is a lot of the time, considering traffic, mental energy, frustration, and other non-time/money factors). But that said, even getting two car households to become one car households is a big first step.

-- Edited by Zach6668 on Thursday 24th of October 2019 11:34:54 AM

Broadway · Guru

Not getting involved in the discussion but I avoid buses at all costs.
I have big problems with motion sickness

digitalmonkey · Guru

Marijuana may help with that, John.

Zach6668 · Guru

Broadway wrote:
Not getting involved in the discussion but I avoid buses at all costs.
I have big problems with motion sickness

That's obviously a good reason to avoid buses.

I assume you're aware of what your town has accomplished with 14th Street this year? That's a huge win.

Adam · Guru

Broadway wrote:
Not getting involved in the discussion but I avoid buses at all costs.
I have big problems with motion sickness

I live in the suburbs, buses are only barely a thing and not the least bit convenient.

SBriand · Guru

I would gladly ride a bus to work but the nearest bus stop is the same walking distance away from house as it is to just drive to work.

rich · Overselling players since 1993

Adam wrote:
Broadway wrote:
Not getting involved in the discussion but I avoid buses at all costs.
I have big problems with motion sickness
I live in the suburbs, buses are only barely a thing and not the least bit convenient.

Sounds like you need to pay more taxes to get more buses!

Adam · Guru

rich wrote:
Adam wrote:
Broadway wrote:
Not getting involved in the discussion but I avoid buses at all costs.
I have big problems with motion sickness
I live in the suburbs, buses are only barely a thing and not the least bit convenient.
Sounds like you need to pay more taxes to get more buses!

If they bought more buses it wouldn't be to deploy them to the suburbs.

Zach6668 · Guru

Depends on the strategic goals of your city and transit agencies...