Geoffrey Singer

Urban planner, climate action leader, transit enthusiast, map nerd. Check out my laneway and garden suites web map - link below! Opinions are my own.

[Geoffrey Singer @GeoffreySinger]

Hey, @SUBWAY. That sure is one expensive can of @bublywater!

[Geoffrey Singer @GeoffreySinger]

Disappointed to discover @Esri has removed @ArcGISUrban and @CityEngine from the ArcGIS for Personal Use program. I appreciate these are niche products, but as an urban planner I found them useful for training and skills development. @esricanada

[Geoffrey Singer @GeoffreySinger]

@RM_Transit @eddrass @StephenWickens1 I think five of the lines were dropped. The goal of connecting suburban priority neighbourhoods was largely not realized, or at best remains a work in progress.

[Geoffrey Singer @GeoffreySinger]

@StephenWickens1 @eddrass @RM_Transit I was about to say the same. It was very much about road space.

[Geoffrey Singer @GeoffreySinger]

@RM_Transit @eddrass @StephenWickens1 Perhaps you didn't reside in Toronto at the time, but Rob amd Doug Ford absolutely killed off the majority of the Transit City plan. Had Mayor Miller stayed for another term, it would have likely continued. Can we not agree on well established facts?

[Geoffrey Singer @GeoffreySinger]

@RM_Transit @eddrass @StephenWickens1 This misses that Transit City was by design a non-subway plan. We already tried that, and Mike Harris made us fill in the hole. TC was an attempt to extend decent transit to much more of the city, and though it was flawed, it tried to do it in a financially responsible way.

[Geoffrey Singer @GeoffreySinger]

@RM_Transit @eddrass @StephenWickens1 Scrapping Transit City was one of Rob Ford's first actions as incoming mayor of Toronto. It absolutely was abandoned. Eglinton was only spared because parts of it resembled a subway.

"Transit City is over, ladies and gentlemen." - Rob Ford, 2010

https://t.co/nop27prrW9

[Geoffrey Singer @GeoffreySinger]

@RM_Transit @eddrass @StephenWickens1 Subways have their place, but they aren't the answer to everything as I, too, once believed. Great cities around the world have built extensive LRT systems and rely on both heavy and light rail for different parts of their network. I'm not sure what makes Toronto so exceptional.

[Geoffrey Singer @GeoffreySinger]

@eddrass @RM_Transit @StephenWickens1 EC was just one piece of a bigger plan to link priority neighbourhoods on the periphery with the existing rapid transit network and employment opportunities in the City's core. Even though it was abandoned, there was never a subway option that would have accomplished this.

[Geoffrey Singer @GeoffreySinger]

@eddrass @RM_Transit Yes, those of us who were there back then remember how impossible it had been to get any new major transit projects going. For a time, Transit City had political momentum for its equity component, a way to get rapid transit to more people across more parts of the city quickly.

[Geoffrey Singer @GeoffreySinger]

@AlkebulanVi @Concreteisland2 @richimedhurst Yiddish literally uses the same alphabet as Hebrew and has many other elements that are borrowed from it.

[Geoffrey Singer @GeoffreySinger]

@JoshMatlow Here's my map of where Toronto's laneway homes and garden suites are located. It's a bit dated (Fall 2024), but there's currently a problem with the City's open data feed, so I'll update it when that gets fixed.

https://t.co/gBdTia2ng8

[Geoffrey Singer @GeoffreySinger]

@plaffin The issue is that you are paying for the labour, not the data and some purchasers might object to free riders who wait for someone else to order the custom table they want. Still, I'd like to see civil society take this on. Something like https://t.co/HiJzRpD6if, but for all.

[Geoffrey Singer @GeoffreySinger]

@CurtTruland @singlekey_com @david_krstevski Really feels like SK is dropping the ball on this one. No proactive communications to affected users. No explanation of the source of the problem and the steps they're taking to address it. No anticipated resolution date. Result: Confidence in SK severely shaken.

[Geoffrey Singer @GeoffreySinger]

@CraveCanada How do I watch "One Life" in English? I can only find the French version.

[Geoffrey Singer @GeoffreySinger]

This makes me nostalgic for Toronto's Eglinton Theatre, which sadly was converted to an event space many years ago. How fortunate I was to grow up a couple of blocks away and be treated to such spectacles as 2001: A Space Odyssey in all its 70 mm glory.
https://t.co/qoJP9hNaVG

[Geoffrey Singer @GeoffreySinger]

This is an absurd situation the City of Toronto has needlessly created, one that works counter to its own #EV adoption policy targets. Instead of a nonsensical statement about an "equitable distribution" of parking, it should have committed to a quick fix. https://t.co/RCePjaS18T

[Geoffrey Singer @GeoffreySinger]

@MikePMoffatt The 1995 Projection Methodology Guideline provided some amount of direction on this but desperately needs updating, particularly given recent changes in upper-tier planning responsibilities. The Province should either disaggregate the CD forecasts itself or provide the tools.

[Geoffrey Singer @GeoffreySinger]

@LarryDClay https://t.co/iOufva1cja

[Geoffrey Singer @GeoffreySinger]

@jm_mcgrath The end of an era.