@RM_Transit

Writer & Reader & Communicator. YouTuber. Focused on infrastructure & technology. Bylines: Globe & Mail, Maclean's, Toronto Star.

 Canada
thetransitbrief.net/
Joined August 2019
  • Tweets25.9K
  • Following469
  • Followers34.1K
2KMedia
This website increasingly feels to me like Facebook did maybe a decade ago. An orgy of arguments, inflammatory everything, bots, and civilization destabilizers. This is it for me, I should have left long ago, will leave the DMs open. A short final thread. . .
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But, microblogging is also just . . . worse that sitting down and writing something significant that doesn't have a nuance killing character limit.
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I'd urge you, turn off the social media, sit down with people in real life, the conversations are much better, and people are virtually always more reasonable. This whole social media experiment was worth running, seems pretty clear what the outcomes have been. Cheers.
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In our latest post, we talk about the compelling case for congestion pricing only on driverless vehicles, and other policy ideas as Waymo comes to Toronto. Read now:
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With Waymo coming to Toronto now is the moment to talk congestion pricing. With a digital service like this you can do it without any cameras and charge a nominal fee for people entering the downtown core at certain times of day.
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To be clear, only for Waymos! Regular drivers wouldn't have to pay, as AVs become more and more of traffic a higher % of cars would be paying.
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Quite funny seeing people decry Doug Fords lack of ability to see nuance, while yelling that he would never allow congestion pricing -- themselves missing the nuance that I suggested only Waymos pay it. I repeat, congestion pricing ONLY for Waymos.
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That it is a small number of cars and fees is what makes it easy to get rolling. As this becomes more and more of traffic you get to avoid a bigger fight later, the congestion fee is there from the beginning. If you think the name is a problem, come up with a dif one.
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Anyone who thinks Doug Ford would immediately shoot down congestion pricing aimed only at Waymos seems to be jumping way too fast to that conclusion. Doug cares an immense amount about urban car commuters, they will suddenly be getting stuck behind Waymo-congestion.
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Do you really think Doug would side with Waymo over someone driving down Bloor, Avenue or Dufferin?
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Reece Martin retweeted
Matt Spoke
@MattSpokeOct 16
I'm excited about this. But this is also a good time to start talking about road tolling and congestion pricing. The politics make this difficult to apply to human drivers, but there should not constituency opposed to congestion pricing applied exclusively to autonomous vehicles. Fleets of autonomous cars will represent a large percentage of road use in 10 years. We may as well start monetizing this now.
Waymo
@WaymoOct 16
We’re bringing the magic of Waymo to Toronto! 🇨🇦 In the coming days, you’ll begin seeing Waymo’s all-electric vehicles driving through Toronto’s streets as we lay the groundwork for our ride-hailing service. Our goal is to begin serving riders in 2028. Sign up for future updates: waymo.com/waymo-in-canada
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Anyone who thinks that Doug Ford would out of hand say no to congestion pricing should consider that waymos are going to be very visibly taking up road space from people driving in from the burbs.
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Reece Martin retweeted
R M@RM2074125449497Oct 16
Replying to @RM_Transit
Just got back from europe and the streetcars in the city I was in move so much faster than ours, on both the streetcar dedicated tracks and on mixEd use lanes. No slowing down/stopping at intersections, no crawling around curves.
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You could also apply this to Uber at some point
Reece Martin@RM_TransitOct 16
With Waymo coming to Toronto now is the moment to talk congestion pricing. With a digital service like this you can do it without any cameras and charge a nominal fee for people entering the downtown core at certain times of day.
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As automated vehicles become more and more prevalent this might eventually mean that you never have to apply a charge to private vehicles and yet most cars still have a congestion price on them. This should be combined with lots of new Transit priority and speed up measures.
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Calling on @MayorOliviaChow and @BradMBradford to seriously look at doing this and working with waymo and the province. I see no good reason for anyone to oppose this as it would leave us with funding for faster Transit, waymo, and reduce congestion pressure.
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