Nick P

🏛️ Tomorrow I'm before the Senate Banking Committee on the underground economy, 5:15–6:15 p.m. ET 📺 Why don't businesses report income? 🔍 Visibility. Compliance isn't about character. It's something we can design for 🛠️ sencanada.ca/en/committees/BANC/noticeofmeeting/707322/45-1

EU representative praises closer work with Canada on vaccines as U.S. pulls back nationalnewswatch.com/2026/10/27/e...

My comment that it is better than nothing was in reference to the University plan, not to the idea that any bike infrastructure is better than nothing. Better for University is a bi-directional cycleway on the north side which would preserve median trees and cost $2 million less.

“We’re insulted that they listed all the stakeholder groups that they consulted with on the University (Avenue) design, and there wasn’t a single group . . . actually representing people who cycle who would use the facility." www.saltwire.com/nova-scotia/...

People gather in Council Chambers in their bike helmets to draw attention to how our safety and that of all residents, particularly seniors and kids, is threatened by the staff report under consideration today. #bikehfx

Suburban residents are at a huge increased risk of death by house fire because there is not enough of a tax based to pay for the fire fighters needed to cover the suburbs and also we prioritize automobility and driver thruput so we build a shit tonne of speed humps which slow response times.

Take it from the RCMP.

I really appreciate Max’s forthrightness in calling out how unnecessary and even inappropriate the approach journalists have taken to covering the referendum is. News media had a story they wanted to tell and they kept looking for a way to make it real.

Given that Toronto‘s social media-savvy socialist mayor just won re-election by a larger margin than Zohran Mamdani won his mayoralty I’m sure any day now we will be getting a wave of articles about what we can and should all learn from Olivia Chow

Once one has gotten used to biking with a passenger, taking hills solo is a very different experience 🤣

I see we’re cuing up Halifax Explosion II.

grain elevator fire

Almost everyone in Canada lives in "market housing" and it's always been that way, for better and for worse. Non-market housing was 6% at the high point in the 20c and it's now around 4%. Farha's history simply does not add up. www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/arti...

I think everyone who worked on that staff report should have to ride a non-electric bike uphill on Nora Bernard street and see how slick an “alternative” that is

I used the term "pretextual planning" with a partner a week ago and I saw their eyes light up the way they do when you find a word you've been looking for all your life. lewis.ucla.edu/research/mot...

New polling from Environics on immigration. From the most-watched line graph, not back to where we were, but a significant bounce back.

This is good.

The new National Heat Pump Rebate will help eligible households switch to efficient electric heating. 👉 Sign up to receive updates on launch dates, eligibility, rebate amounts and how to apply. 🔗 Learn more and sign up: bit.ly/4zQV84M

I don’t expect Councillor Purdy to vote to preserve bike infrastructure funding but I figured it was worth trying to ask her to support pulling it off the consent agenda and send it to ATAC for public comment, given her past remarks about how she wants to see more public comment.

If you're part of that (possibilty small?) community that loves real life ghost stories, Canadian historical architecture, and high quality black and white photography, you will understand why I am reposting all of Peter Coffman's skeets these days

www.cbc.ca/news/canada/... only by properly funding and connecting Halifax’s cycling network can we enjoy more expressions of our rich cultural and culinary heritage.

America's trade war with Canada has obviously backfired, both economically and politically. But Trump is likely to double down on it after the midterms. When he does, Canadians will be thankful they aren’t quite as dependent on America as they used to be.

NEW BRIGHT SPOTS: Even on 100% gas power, heat pumps cut emissions by ~48% and EVs by about half. The authors of an “electrification doesn’t cut emissions” paper made a series of compounding mistakes and used misleading assumptions. Here's why. janrosenow.substack.com/p/heat-pumps...

substack.com/app-link/pos... - gold exports looking like that isn’t normally something you want to see but in these circumstances I’ll take it.

25 Oct 2026

"Berlin has sent millions to this office." At some point in time I really hope people start to figure out how much money a million is in the context of a 30 trillion dollar economy.

Here is a summary table from our letter documenting the degradations of the alternative bike facilities being proposed.

The trick to fighting NIMBYism is time travel. Build anything sixty years ago and it will mysteriously be better than the same thing built tomorrow.

The other urbanist channels care about things viewership numbers and audience engagement, so they don't put things like model diagnostics in their videos. But I don't care about my audience. I care about making cool graphs.

Huh, this deflation caused Dems to take House and Rutherford Hayes to only win Electoral College by one vote - result was end of Reconstruction. If voters hate inflation well they really detested deflation. (Can see why this book won Pulitzer so have to be more selective in future skeets)

18 double buses, as I call them. These when full are a key reason why so few bus lanes here is silly

I think more Americans need to understand that their built environment is regulated by the groupthink of unaccountable organizations whose members think the sky is a different color abroad.