Mark (he/him)

@dannyoleksiuk.bsky.social, in an excellent piece about how housing has become less salient in big-city politics (😢) www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/artic...

increasingly of the mind that we should go back to leaders being chosen by caucus, not party members

I’m on team “political parties in municipal politics” now. It makes city politics more about platforms, ideas, and teams, and less about personalities. It’s easier to understand as a voter. Councillors have a built-in support network. I didn’t always think this but I changed my mind.

The Marine Building in 1931: out of scale, blocks mountain views, does not respect neighbourhood character

Well it happened again, conservatives are running on a bigger deficit than the NDP. 2026/27 NDP: 13,752 CPBC: 13,689 2027/28 NDP: 12,654 CPBC: 13,536 2028/29 NDP: 11,970 CPBC: 12,303

Go to your camera roll and search "boat" and post one that you like. [behold, the mighty westham island ferry]

I think this is a good synopsis of the election

Look, there's been lots of bad news in bike lane world recently, but I think it's cool that there's still cycling + walking infrastructure quietly being built all over the place

I'm privileged to have been profiled by the National Observer! #yyjpoli #yyj #bcpoli

I'm hoisting this from an interesting exchange about platform height and path dependency because I think it's worth pointing out that the search for an "omnistandrad" is often one of the big drivers of costs. There is value in standardization, but there is also the risk of overdesign.

Hi! Gonna try a bit of blueskying

While the debate over traffic calming is grabbing the headlines, Ken Sim has also proposed a much more profound—and destructive—change to the way that we plan our streets, notes Ruofan Wang.

This was a large part of Robert Moses's success. He had the capacity through TBTA revenue to keep teams planning projects for the future. Thus, when money was available (as it became post-Depression), guess who was ready with a plan?

my yimby origin story is nearly complete Telus Ocean Building, Victoria

This looks like an early example of the international best practice, circulation planning-based bus priority measures that @chittimarco.bsky.social details in the Transit Priority Atlas. tpa.transitcosts.com

Huge loss. Big respect for all of @ravikahlon.bsky.social work on housing and other files theprogress.com/2026/09/22/h...

Probably Antwerp?

The upshot is that timed elections would increase turnout, which is why I support holding municipal elections each time parliament is dissolved

I’m running for Council for lots of reasons. Here’s are my top three.

FWIW, I've often half-joked that the fastest way for Canada to remove inter-provincial trade barriers would be to join the EU, as it would force us to adopt EU regs.

Born at 317 ppm | say NO to bike lanes on Richardson St

Also not sure why this is in the news now, these estimates came out in January. I guess BC Stats re-published them as an Excel sheet, which makes the data more accessible to non-data folks. But that's why I built CanViz: to make it easier for non-data folks to pinpoint and visualize StatCan data.

It's pretty remarkable how the Auckland story is almost entirely a story of townhouses and small-lot subdivision legalization. I don't think this is how many YIMBYs interpret what happened there!

my opinion is that journalism outlets need to start being clearer about public bodies withholding interviews or information, rather than going with an anodyne "declined/unavailable for an interview" that suggests each incident is a scheduling issue, and not a consistent obfuscation strategy.

Great reporting on the Summerland wildfire (gift link): www.theglobeandmail.com/gift/ff223fd...

the Canada Line is often characterized as disruptive (by critics) or cheap (by proponents) thanks to a secretive P3 structure, but is imo better understood as the government of the time being agnostic about construction techniques and consciously making trade-offs to reduce costs

This is Vancouver’s exact policy on SROs! And very similar to our hotel policy

Right now in Vancouver, if you want to open a bike repair shop in your alley? Illegal. Bakery from your back door? Illegal. Haircut in your spare room? You guessed it. Illegal.  That's ridiculous. So we're gonna fix it. 🧵1/7 #VanPoli #YVR #VancouverVotes2026 #GoodBusinessStartsAtHome

In a similar vein, this delightful piece I come back to every 6 months: www.newyorker.com/culture/rabb...

"At First, Everyone Hated Vancouver's West End" Everyone loves the West End today, but people *hated* it when the towers were new. It is hard to convey just how much they hated it. What does that say about building new West Ends? reillywood.com/blog/west-end/

Now with homes, & a social services centre for veterans of Canada’s armed forces, the Arbutus & 7th Ave social housing building has returned larger than ever. Will #Vancouver embrace this once controversial proposal, or will #Lestweforget take on a new meaning? #Kitsilano #VanRE

I really like the idea of having to watch the motorist equivalent of a pre-flight safety video before you can drive to work

As a side note, this is an example where Vancouver urbanism is unambiguously worse than Calgary: trail networks in the suburbs here are much more discontinuous and often consist of adding a shared-use sign to a sidewalk

Really remarkable article, the Anglican Church is going gloves off against multiple cities. $9M and 6 years of delay to build 85 units of below-market seniors housing on their own land

unfortunately I've had many of these conversations about the GST/PST/HST

I wish we could shake libs out of the consensus position that the progressiveness of a tax policy can be solely evaluated by looking at one side of the ledger I have had many conversations like this “This tax is regressive” >But the revenue is being spent progressively “Had not considered this”

Explosives are sometimes fun

In better zoning systems than ours (i.e. Japan's), this is a non-issue because they allow multiple uses instead of mandating one. People will build commercial if it's allowed and there's demand for it, you don't need to forbid residential to make it happen.

I have nothing to add that hasn't already been said but this is an act of abject cowardice. All the endless hand-wringing about towers and concentrating development on existing rental areas, and when the opportunity comes to do something about it everyone except Lucy votes for the status quo.

Edmonton continues to show it's possible to have newly built, ground-oriented housing for families in existing neighbourhoods at a reasonable price. You only have to make it legal and feasible. Here's a 3bed for $1,895 with a $500 lease signing bonus.

The Villages Plan is not that controversial & Council should approve all 17 villages. There was not that much opposition considering most complaints were poorly founded & the result of NIMBY fear-mongering. For comparison, consider 1805 Larch, ONE 5-storey apartment building.