Daniel O'Brien

Software, urbanism, he/him. Engineering at @Stripe.

[Daniel O'Brien @dobs]

Dogtooth (2009)

[Daniel O'Brien @dobs]

@PJforTO @sushil_js I know him as the “wants to make Danforth wider so we can add more car lanes” guy.

[Daniel O'Brien @dobs]

Great thread.

And for contrast, the Toronto Islands — a significant downtown tourist destination that also happens to require a significant amount of funding — gets 1.5m visitors per year.

The Science Centre sees a ton of use despite lack of provincial love.

[Gil Meslin @g_meslin]

1) The Science Centre isn’t some nostalgic relic. 940,000 visitors in its 48th year, prior to Crosstown construction and Covid. 670,000 post-pandemic, with a closed entry bridge. A much-loved destination for children and families right up to its abrupt and unnecessary closure.

[Daniel O'Brien @dobs]

@BEEPBEEPImACar “They never said why or even announced it. They just did it.”

Wonder what comes up if someone were to Google “Spadina replacement bus.” I’m sure nothing, certainly no news or official announcements.

[Daniel O'Brien @dobs]

@moore_oliver Counterpoint: My understanding is that much of the empty road space on complete streets is to accommodate things like emergency vehicles and daylighting.

But I agree these signs shouldn’t dominate sidewalks. They’re huge and I’ve never seen a useful one.

[Daniel O'Brien @dobs]

@PlannerSean @gabehurl @joshuahind The new secondary entrances at some stations are definitely contenders, e.g. Woodbine. 3m door-to-door.

Spadina’s north entrance holds a special place being literally built into a SFH. Plus I know someone who lived next door at 83 Spadina.

[Daniel O'Brien @dobs]

@RZaichkowski @BWVbia Why does every single one of these groups use terminology like “balance” or “rational” or “for all” when they explicitly want to exclude one group? And when nobody is taking away car access?

[Daniel O'Brien @dobs]

Wild responses to this along the lines of “what about middle class people who bought investment properties decades ago!?”

[Daniel O'Brien @dobs]

@RZaichkowski @mfragedakis @GreekTownBIA I went to BIG on Bloor for the first time during TotD's hiatus and was pleasantly surprised.

How did they handle bike lanes? Taped down the posts and put vendors on top of them. CafeTO? Integrated into the festival. Seemed so easy.

[Daniel O'Brien @dobs]

@moore_oliver

[Daniel O'Brien @dobs]

@g_meslin FWIW the nearest intersection has an ongoing problem of red-light-running and school-zone-speeding stemming from two adjacent two auto dealerships.

Also: three short blocks from one vehicular homicide and one daytime school zone pedestrian death, both recent.

[Daniel O'Brien @dobs]

@BicycleMayorTO @HomeDepotCanada The bike access is so bad that I’d exclusively shop elsewhere if the other options weren’t somehow worse.

Home Depot on Curity is a mess to get to and Lowe’s suffers from Shoppers World having a single tiny bike rack.

[Daniel O'Brien @dobs]

@DaveLikesBikes @BicycleMayorTO @HomeDepotCanada I’m one of those people and I’m there almost weekly.

I normally use the racks by the food court entrance but the short walk between there and the garden centre is brutal.

[Daniel O'Brien @dobs]

@AlisonVStewart @TorontoRBOT When I lived in DMW’s ward there was a period of ~6 months where the middle of our nearest major street was constantly geysering water.

He seemed fixated on removing downtown bike lanes rather than helping his constituents actually get around. Bikes, cars or otherwise.

[Daniel O'Brien @dobs]

Tangentially, cannot overstate how much Shaq taught Twitter and other social platforms about scalability. How do you inject one person’s tweet into millions of custom feeds?

Until this past week I’d have said we take this problem for granted now…

[Daniel O'Brien @dobs]

That’s one way to kill a developer community.

[Developers @XDevelopers]

Starting February 9, we will no longer support free access to the Twitter API, both v2 and v1.1. A paid basic tier will be available instead 🧵

[Daniel O'Brien @dobs]

@BrentToderian The funny thing is you can see this for yourself at many Costcos.

My local requires all personal carts be left by member services. There are never fewer than two dozen carts, many times that on busy days. Plus entire families with each member hauling. Walkscore: 25.

[Daniel O'Brien @dobs]

@alexbozikovic @OntarioPlace More ridiculous given it’s right next to Ex Go, the Ex Loop TTC stop and future Ex Ontario Line terminus.

If the <1km walk is the issue, why not a shuttle? Or have the province improve Ex->OP walkability?

[Daniel O'Brien @dobs]

The display name badge is prime real estate but the barrier for basic proof-of-identity is very low.

Plus the advantage of potentially being cross-network. Or just link your profile from another verified account (e.g. instagram).

[Daniel O'Brien @dobs]

Twitter charging $20/m for blue checks seems like a great opportunity for a <$20/m competitor.