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Episode 2 - Interview with Reece Martin
238 Plays15 days ago
Nearly every city in the country that doesn't experience rain all winter has been inundated with so much snow and it has brought problems to transit riders especially in Southern Ontario.
We're also joined by our guest, Reece Martin of RMTransit, where we discuss the nuances and challenges of building a transit advocacy movement, culture, and education. Plus we also provide the big reveal: what is a "dwell time"?
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Snow Clearing:
- Grand River Transit working to enhance bus stop snow removal times
- Toronto residents are frustrated with slush-filled sidewalks, city responds
Vancouver Broadway Subway Bus Detour (Instagram Explainer) - https://www.instagram.com/reel/DUCNt3Oj794/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
RPA (Regional Plan Association for the Tri-State Area) Triboro Line/Interborough Express - https://rpa.org/work/campaigns/ibx
Rider’s Alliance (NYC) - https://www.ridersalliance.org/
Transit Engineering & Planning: Needs and Perspectives in Canada - https://ojs.library.queensu.ca/index.php/PCEEA/article/view/19671
Reece Martin - https://reecemartin.ca
Bluesky - https://bsky.app/profile/dwelltime.ca
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Transcript
Introduction and Episode Overview
00:00:25
Speaker
Welcome to Dwell Time. You are listening to Dwell Time, Canada's number one transit advocacy podcast. You are here with me, Dennis Agar, in Vancouver and Rodney coming from or recording from Waterloo.
00:00:44
Speaker
We are so happy that you are inexplicably back for our episode two. We actually have a really excellent interview, which will take up the bulk of this episode. It is with Reese Martin, Transit YouTube Gateway Drug. I know a lot of people have gotten into transit. That's crazy. From his content. Would you agree?
00:01:04
Speaker
No, yeah, yeah. We definitely talk about, I mean, I talk about how he's one of my ah formative experience of entering the transit world. Yes. Yeah. Perfect. So we're gonna try a format where we do a bit of news first, and then we'll throw you to that interview. Rodney, do you wanna start with some of your news items that you have handpicked for our audience?
Winter Challenges in Canadian Transit
00:01:25
Speaker
Yeah, well, it's winter and we just had like ah a massive snowstorm across quite a lot of Canada. It didn't hit Dennis, unfortunately, but I will oops have have my revenge on him another way.
00:01:40
Speaker
But yeah, there's been like, if and Toronto got hit by like, what, like 56 centimeters of snow. It's like record setting. And even here in Kitchener-Waterloo, there was quite a lot of snow. And it's been really hard for pedestrians and especially like people with mobility issues walking on the sidewalk and getting like the snow banks, getting on the bus and a lot of the subways and light rail and streetcars were kind of having trouble as well. So I just wanted to talk a little bit about the kind of the smaller things like advocating for snow clearing. um
00:02:16
Speaker
Yeah, and here here in Waterloo, quite a lot of people, including me, were experiencing that and having trouble. I wrote to my regional councillors and Apparently, hundreds of other people also, like, submitted complaints. And great because of all of, like, voices and concerns by the community, Grand River Transit, the transit agency, actually, like, responded and was like, okay, yeah, the snow clearing is, like, not up to what we'd hope it to be. Because currently it's, like... contracted out to a private snow removal company. So now like they're renegotiating the contract and to see if if they can get a ah better service, the kind of service that they were looking for initially.
Vancouver's Snow Policy and Trolley Bus Issues
00:03:00
Speaker
And yeah, and in Toronto, I think um I was also like kind of making a ah hubbub about how some of the the the streetcar stops in in downtown Toronto, like the King Street Priority Corridor, where streetcars are, it's supposed to, well, it's supposed to have priority. And it's been kind of like in a pilot stage, even though the pilot was made permanent, the infrastructure doesn't feel that way. It's still these like floppy, flexy posts and These tactile plates that get like shoveled up by the snow clearing vehicles um every every time they're installed and we need something more permanent there. Thousands of people go through this corridor every day. and that's another thing that needs like continuous pressure in Toronto.
00:03:48
Speaker
Apparently it did it did snow in Vancouver like two centimeters and melted away really quickly, which is really funny because in usually in downtown Toronto, like really near the waterfront because of the lake and like the warmth effect, like the kind of snow or precipitation. precipitation like misses downtown Toronto all the time so like you always North York and Newmarket always get like hit and like Waterloo but this year like the the snow band actually like stayed over downtown Toronto so they got they got the snow that they've always been wanting and craving they got hit yeah
00:04:24
Speaker
Yeah. Here in Vancouver, almost never get any snow. And so when it does happen, we're so unprepared for it. There's some hilarious pictures of buses just piled up. Like, because the problem is that articulated buses have a really hard time in snow because of the way oh the traction works. And so when it snows, they'll try and swap those out for standard buses.
00:04:48
Speaker
Also, I did not know what have a really hard time in snow. And there's less ability to swap those out because we just don't have enough diesel buses. um but But yeah, and you know, trolley buses are lighter and they can't pass each other. So if one bus is like disabled, um you know, it might happen on its way up a shallow slope, then you'll end up with just a line of trolley buses
Broadway Subway Construction Impacts
00:05:12
Speaker
behind it. And there's these pictures on Granville of like 10 trolley buses just stuck.
00:05:16
Speaker
And um one ah one of the things that, you know, it's city policy not to prioritize bus routes over other streets. Like they just have one flat priority level for plowing. That's just every arterial road in Vancouver. And actually, Councillor Lucy Maloney is bringing a motion that's going to be debated really soon at Vancouver City Council, where those slopes where buses get stuck would be prioritized above the other streets in Metro Vancouver for plowing. And I think that makes sense because the delays on those little chunks can just cascade outward and cause. Yeah. And you're like prioritizing, like moving the most amount of people, not the most amount of vehicles.
00:05:58
Speaker
Totally. Yeah, another issue with things like with trolleys or like streetcars is that, well, that with with trolley buses, they can like weave around. But like one big issue is like on snow routes, like if you have one car parked badly in front of a streetcar, which happens more in the winter because of the snow banks, like the streetcars like get stuck. I actually recently saw a video of...
00:06:21
Speaker
I don't know if it was, I think it was in like Poland or something where like people just got out of the streetcar and like 10 people just like carried, like lifted the car and moved it over. and i was like, I wish we would do that in Toronto. Just like push the car over. But yeah, there, there has been some discussion about like banning parking along um some streetcar routes to reduce the occurrence of that happening, which Definitely should hopefully is is done. Sounds like a're good idea to me.
00:06:53
Speaker
OK, I have one newest item and then I promise we're going to this interview. We often talk about Broadway in Vancouver as this like miraculous corridor. It has it's the busiest bus corridor in North America, which is no longer true. I don't know if it's ever been true, but there are lots of bus corridors in Mexico.
00:07:09
Speaker
often forgotten part of North America that has a lot of bus riders. But anyway, around 46,000 trips are taken each day on Broadway in Vancouver on either the nine or the 99. And,
00:07:23
Speaker
It's finally getting a subway. It's not going to go for the entire route, but it's under construction right now. And at great expense, they decided to do a a board tunnel underground, which is more expensive construction style than the cut and cover that we had on our last route in Vancouver, the Canada Line. But none of us really anticipated, i don't know, maybe we should have known this, but they're going to have to close the street for four months because the stations are still cut and cover. So the block that has the station on it is closed now. It just closed. It's going to be closed for four months.
00:08:01
Speaker
It's going to be really disruptive to the neighborhood and the businesses while they you know build the cover on this station. And these two bus routes that are moving 46,000 people a day are going to have to get diverted onto a neighborhood street for a
Introducing Reese Martin: A Transit Advocate
00:08:14
Speaker
block. And of course, you know, the city doesn't want to make that diversion bus only. They're letting cars go through this really narrow diversion. You know, a six lane street goes down yeah too. And it's zigzagging through neighborhood streets. and And you should check out Movements Instagram or TikTok or whatever. We have some really cool video with drone shots and everything just showing what what happens when you when you mix cars and buses on this corridor. It's another opportunity where if if the detour was bus only, you know, those 46,000 people would be able to move freely and that the cars have lots of alternatives.
00:08:49
Speaker
That's so frustrating because of the whole idea that like tunnel boring is is so much more expensive, but people think it's less disruptive. Like the Eglinton Crosstown, one of the major reasons why it was so disruptive, especially in Little Jamaica, was the stations, you got the worst of both worlds where it was like tunnel boring, but the stations were so close together that all those stations were cut and cover. So you basically cut and covered like half the corridor and shut down most of the street and killed most of the businesses over like 10 years because of how long. Yeah. Like you're making the stations deeper because it's tunnel boring.
00:09:22
Speaker
So yeah, that's very frustrating. But I think the kind of message I think we want from like the snow clearing to the this bus diversion is that kit keep pressuring your council, your politicians, your transit agency. It works from small things like snow clearing all the way up to big bus diversions.
00:09:44
Speaker
ah People have been asking about what dwell time means and Rhys will tell us at the end of the podcast. So stay tuned.
00:10:07
Speaker
we are so honored to have with us reese martin um i think a lot of our audience should know him If you don't, definitely go check out his channel on YouTube.
00:10:19
Speaker
ah It's been so formative for so many people, myself
Reese's Advocacy in Toronto
00:10:22
Speaker
included. It's covered so much ground in the world of transit, literally all across the world. So yeah, with that, Rodney and I really happy to welcome you to our our nascent podcast, Rhys.
00:10:36
Speaker
Thanks for having me on. I appreciate it. Yeah, and especially Rhys has also been a lot more active on Substack now and has been writing quite a few articles. I've also been enjoying reading some of his longer form content.
00:10:51
Speaker
um Yeah, so Rhys, you want to, for the audience, tell them a little bit more about yourself? Yeah, I, what do I do? um I'm a retired YouTuber. Um, I, so I ran a YouTube channel called RM transit for about 10 years from, yeah, from about 10 years ago until this year when I went on indefinite hiatus. Um, the channel had about, you know, has like 800 videos on it. Dennis kind of referred to videos about cities all around the world. Um,
00:11:29
Speaker
It's a mix of videos about like specific transit systems, like concepts in transit, a lot of opinion about different ways of operating systems, wayfinding, different vehicles, how they might be designed, different debates in transit, new projects opening, kind of all of that stuff um really kind of wide reaching.
00:11:52
Speaker
And then, yeah, like, when you do that as your full-time job you end up like getting pulled into all kinds of random stuff so like i i'm sometimes on in the news like talking to different reporters and stuff now i'm writing couple blogs uh i periodically write for the toronto star and other publications as well So kind of everything in the transit verse.
00:12:18
Speaker
Yeah, that's that's my thing. um Some light advocacy here and there as well. so And speaking of some light advocacy and kind of kind of the articles I've been seeing you, like in the Toronto Star and other newspapers more more and more often these last few years, you want to talk a little bit more about kind of leaning into advocacy more these days? Like why um and how it's going and how it's feeling for you? Yeah, sure. i
00:12:50
Speaker
I think that for me... the ability to do advocacy. i mean, like you can, anyone can do advocacy, but like, for me, it's not, I am kind of tired of transit. Sadly, I'm i'm like a bit ah cynical and a bit worn down. And so for me, it's kind of like, oh, if I can do something in the Toronto star that will reach a lot of politicians and sort of influentials and stuff, then it sort of feels like, okay, I'm not just, um it's not a shot in
Global Transit Perspectives and Frustrations
00:13:25
Speaker
the dark. It feels like there's a bit more of a chance of of something happening. And um personally, there's been a real big advocacy push since around September for fixing the Toronto streetcars. And think,
00:13:39
Speaker
the Finch West LRT, which opened, which is kind of a Toronto streetcar as well. It's got all the same problems as the Toronto streetcars. And so it has been an interesting couple of months of kind of wrote a piece in the Star in September about like, hey, like, here's how we can fix this Bedien streetcar with um two other people, Jonathan English and Narayan Donaldson, and um who also like are in this space. And then Uh, right before the Finch LRT opened, I got an article in the star that's like, Hey, it's good. It's going to be slow.
00:14:12
Speaker
and And that was kind of good because ah a friend described it to me as I was in the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff after the project opened. And so I've definitely been in talks with a lot of politicians, um which is very unusual for me.
00:14:28
Speaker
Toronto slash Ontario politicians never talked to me really prior to this. And so it has been a bit interesting, like being able to engage with them and be like, hey, this thing isn't very good.
00:14:39
Speaker
Why don't we make it better? And so that has been the kind of advocacy experience. it's It's definitely a bit of a privileged one because it's been a pretty direct, here's some problems.
00:14:51
Speaker
Politician says, hey, how could we fix those problems? And you deliver them. a list of how to fix the problems. And it's like, well, it's on you now to actually implement these things. But it's a pretty, after 10 years of kind of putting ideas out into the abyss, to some extent, it's nice to just be able to directly engage with the political process that way.
00:15:13
Speaker
I mean, you mentioned you mentioned that you're maybe is disaffected the word like about transit. toy are Good word. It's one of many words one could use.
00:15:23
Speaker
I mean, is there anything that gives you hope like in your encyclopedic knowledge of transit around the world? Do you have any like stories of places like where people rose up and transit got better?
00:15:36
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think that it's just generally the case that transit is getting better almost everywhere in the world. um It's sort of my my frustrations are more about the speed at which it's getting better and it's less about like the process of it getting better. um I live in Toronto.
00:15:55
Speaker
It is Toronto can be a frustrating place. And I think people have long been frustrated with its transit. And yet its transit has also in most ways gotten better over the last 20,
00:16:07
Speaker
50 years, you know, every couple of years, something new opens. Usually service has tended to get better overall. um You know, there are hiccups here and there. But if you kind of look at the the trend line long term, it's it's an
US vs Canada: Transit Advocacy Differences
00:16:21
Speaker
improving one. And so i think and i think this is true in a lot of places. I don't think there's many where it isn't true because the reality is that Transit just kind of is a key that unlocks a lot of problems that the world has. It's just this more efficient way of moving people around urban areas.
00:16:37
Speaker
And you can like fight it, but it's just sort of like gravity, right? You just have to, even cities in Texas have transit, right? You just can't not have it. It's at some level, it's an essential thing.
00:16:49
Speaker
And so I think that, and and it has tons of political support. I listened to you guys this first episode and you mentioned this. It does, it has a lot of political support. And in terms of like places where people have have sort of like risen up, um I think it's,
00:17:05
Speaker
There are so many examples, right? Like every, almost every big city in North America has some sort of advocacy group that's done some different stuff. um I live in Toronto, so I see like TTC writers and it's like, they've done lots of good, good initiatives. I think the ones that are maybe the like kind of pinnacle for me are like some of the New York area. Like there's several groups in New York and they do a really wide range of things.
00:17:32
Speaker
um there's like the RPA and stuff and they do like, they they don't just, I think it's it's quite cool because it's not just um kind of ah nitty gritty advocacy, which is really cool and valuable and important, but it's like they have that and then they have like these high level like how should Penn Station be designed?
00:17:51
Speaker
How should regional rail in New York look? It's like really, they have this whole spectrum. It's like there's a sort of advocacy equivalent to every element of the public sector transit operation that kind of, you know, it's like, hey, we don't like your plan. Here's a better plan. We don't like the way you're running the subways. Here's how you should, like, they have an answer to every question. And I think that's really valuable.
00:18:15
Speaker
And I think, for example, right now, um the political stars are sort of aligned for New York, right? And so because they have they have this kind of pipeline of ideas and things, right, they can feed that. And now now that the stars have aligned, they start to make a lot of improvements like bus lanes and stuff quickly.
00:18:34
Speaker
Yeah, but those are all, i have so many thoughts about the things you said. um Yeah, looking to like cities in New York, in the States, especially like New York City, like you were talking about, there's so many different advocacy groups and it's kind of jealous looking over to see how much they have going on. And a lot of their their advocacy groups, some of them are like pretty big nonprofits with like full-time people working there, like policy people. Like I know the the RPA in New York City has been pushing for like the Triboro Express or i guess now they're calling the Innerboro Express because it's just...
00:19:12
Speaker
just Queens and Brooklyn. Yeah. And kind of how the political stars have aligned in New York city. i mean, i feel like like congestion pricing is is one thing that I was both looking over, seeing very, very excited. Like I never thought I would kind of see it and in North America or at least in the States or Canada, yeah,
00:19:35
Speaker
both jealous, but also hopeful as like, now we have like an example, like that's really close to home that it works. It, I just saw like a multiple posts and articles and videos like within the last year about how it's been successful on like every single metric, like reducing traffic, increasing transit usage and decreasing bus times and reducing pollution and increased business. And and it's like not controversial anymore. Yeah.
00:20:06
Speaker
too. Yeah. Like, it's you just have the most, I think the most exciting part is that it's like the, the thing that is most stress inducing for me for something like congestion pricing is the idea that it will get ripped out at some point, but it's the good thing about it is it's politically popular.
00:20:23
Speaker
Like now it's just going to be a thing that exists. And, and yeah, now like people visit New York, they will see signs and they'll say, Oh, Oh, like my city could do that too.
00:20:36
Speaker
Yeah, and like, speaking about the political stars aligning, I feel like we also are kind of, we kind of had that moment in Toronto when Line 6 opened when ah there was such a big public ah kind of complaint and discussion around how slow the trains are and the media was all over it, thanks in part to people like you who wrote about it.
00:20:55
Speaker
um And now like politicians are are all are all of council, the mayor are talking about it and kind of have the pressure to not only fix line six, but the streetcars. And also now like Eglinton before it opens, they're trying to hopefully have some more TSP and um hopefully make the operations better.
Funding Transit Advocacy
00:21:19
Speaker
So I think looking at inspiration elsewhere, we also have, um some really unique opportunities happening here at home, like right now too. i should I should say that like the the thing that maybe is kind of like an interesting metanarrative and it might be a bit and it's It's going to be unpleasant for anyone to hear this, but like I think part of the reason it's a bit hard to think of... at like my For me, I always go to like, hey, what is the most non-North American place I can think about as an answer to a question? Because I just think it's good for people to like not think of the same places all the time. But I think on advocacy, and this is a good reflection, it's like most of the world...
00:22:04
Speaker
doesn't need it too much. You know, like it's not the case that it doesn't exist in other cities, but the extent to which like America has a lot of groups, et cetera. But yeah I do think it's a reflection of the fact that transit does not have the same level of support in America that it has in Canada, for example. um You know, there's a lot of basic things that just don't exist in the U.S. s And so there is a real need for advocacy in a way that in Canada, we get to be a bit more like sophisticated wine sipping advocates and be a bit more like we have the bus. It's like, let's make the bus good instead of like we need a bus.
00:22:41
Speaker
Please, someone give us a bus. Right. Like that does exist in Canada. But to a lesser extent than the U.S., where there are like some pretty big cities that don't have almost any transit at all. Arlington, Texas has like 350,000 or over people and still doesn't have a transit system
00:23:00
Speaker
You know, and I've been thinking a lot about this question, like, why does the US s have so much more transit advocacy than we do and and a lot of the the rest of the world? and And yeah, I think you're right that that there's the need is a lot more desperate there, that transit is seen more as like kind of a charity case.
00:23:16
Speaker
ah Like it's a social service for the people that most desperately need it and not for broader society, which lends itself better. to charities and NGOs getting involved in it. It's just already associated in people's minds. But the other thing that you start to learn when you really become a nonprofit executive director and you have to go out there and fundraise is that there are a lot of rich people foundations in the US that are doling out money for groups like these that we just don't have that infrastructure in Canada as much like the group.
00:23:47
Speaker
um One of the groups in Minnesota has an annual budget of around two million. um around 10 staff. And they cover the state of Minnesota has one eighth the number of transit riders that we do in Metro Vancouver. And so if you're purely looking at it on like advocacy funding per rider, it's like way out of whack with us up here. But of course, that's not how these fund this money gets doled out. There's lots of other factors. But that's always the argument that I use when I'm trying to fundraise is, hey, look at how much money they have over there. Like, Anyway, no, it's a, it's a re it's a good argument. I mean, Vancouver too, should actually be a case where, you know, like it's, it's kind of bad because you're like, oh, like there's a lot of really rich, like oligarch type people who like, it's like, they might have good but feelings about transit. They're like, oh we need to like help the climate. So like fund transit groups. um
00:24:44
Speaker
So it's like a bit of a double-edged sword, but Vancouver seems like a place where you could, could, you know, get convinced some rich people to, You know, more more buses, please. Come on, guys. I'm working on it.
00:24:56
Speaker
I'm working on it. If you know any of those people or if any of them are listening, please email Dennis.Agar at movementybr.ca. I mean, every transit... Mail and check to address.
Reese's Formative Transit Experiences
00:25:05
Speaker
Every transit person has their like... If I was a billionaire, if I was Jeff Bezos, what would I use like $20 billion for, right? It's like, oh, like we could have light rail on all these streets and we could... We could buy like 150 buses. We could do all of these things, right? So Jeff, if you're listening.
00:25:28
Speaker
Bring back rich people building like massive public works projects. Like i would ah like massive, beautiful train stations or libraries. And ah used to do that.
00:25:42
Speaker
You know, what's interesting is, is, um, Riders Alliance is one of the groups in New York that is part of the kind of bouquet that Reese was referring to of all the groups out there. They're the more kind of organize-y kind of mobilize-y group, like they're mobilizing riders. Um, I had a great chat with them and, and,
00:26:00
Speaker
ah one of their biggest kind of ways that they get money are the medium donors, like not the small donors that are giving a few dollars a month and not necessarily the big foundations, but the people in the middle that are willing to contribute like a significant chunk of their their income on a monthly annual basis. And so that's that.
00:26:23
Speaker
wasn't something I was expecting to hear, but that's kind of set me on the path of of chasing that. It seems fitting. Like, it seems like something that would work in New York and it seems like something could work in Canada because you have a lot of like bankers who like to use transit.
00:26:37
Speaker
And it's like, they actually, a lot of them care. Like that's why they use transit because they're like, I could drive, but like, I actually want to use transit. And, and they seem like definitely a good contingent of people to like mobilize to fund stuff.
00:26:51
Speaker
Right. And you know what, even if it's one of our most successful groups in terms of just looking at who's donating our planners and engineers, people that actually work on this stuff in their day job. And they're like so convinced of the value of the work that they do, but can sometimes be really slow, slower than they they want it to be like exactly the way you said, Reese. And and they're giving money to us ah to kind of live vicariously through us a little bit and and potentially in some ways make their own jobs a little easier.
00:27:21
Speaker
Going back to transit and Reese, how did you first get into like the interest of of transit? And like is there any like experience in your youth or childhood that shaped your experience? Why transit?
00:27:39
Speaker
i um i have like ah I have like a bunch of moments that I remember using transit and that is, they're kind of like, it's the cornucopia of like transit experiences that influence things.
The Role of Media in Transit Education
00:27:54
Speaker
I grew up in like in Langley, which is getting a SkyTrain. So that's kind of a crazy experience for me because like,
00:28:03
Speaker
the The area I grew up in, um the only bus route I had was a community shuttle, which ran hourly. It's about a 30-minute walk from my house. And to think that like the same municipality is going to have a metro service is just wild ah to me. And a PRT.
00:28:20
Speaker
Yeah, well, and and and bus rapid transit as well. Yeah, no, it is... um It's a pretty, it's pretty exciting. I mean, Langley, I think really just needs more buses. Same with Surrey. It's really different from Toronto or Brampton or or whatever. But but like to the point of like what influenced it, you know like I definitely had a lot of experiences growing up riding the SkyTrain because I think like a lot of people who lived in the suburbs um of of Vancouver, and I think this is like ah really the case in a lot of Canada. It's the case in Australia as well.
00:28:53
Speaker
You know, my parents didn't commute on transit. They didn't have commutes that would really have been practical on transit. But because we had good transit, it would be like, oh, when you want to go to science world or you want to go to a hockey game, well, you'd get on the Skytrain. And so I think a lot of people...
00:29:09
Speaker
in Canada and Australia compared to the US, because these systems exist and they go to a lot of the major destinations, there's a lot of like incidental riders. And so people people have tried the transit at least. And so when they at some point have a commute that they could do on transit, they're already familiar and they're like, oh, yeah, I mean, I totally would take the SkyTrain if I worked here and I lived here. um i don't think i ever stepped foot on a on a bus until i was about i don't know the eighth grade or something when i went i went to downtown vancouver from langley and had to take the bus to the sky train that was certainly an interesting experience and i think it really shapes a lot of how we look at transit now in the sense that like i had no idea like how do you ride the bus it was kind of a nerve-wracking experience like oh do you
00:29:55
Speaker
Like there's the cord at the side. Do you you pull
LA's Rail Projects vs Bus Services
00:29:58
Speaker
the cord? is it How do you pay? How does this work? And I think that that's something that a lot of people underrate still is that a lot of people in North America don't use transit. And we we leave it up to them to kind of figure things out. And I think there's a great advocacy group in Kingston, Ontario,
00:30:16
Speaker
where they basically um take ah like high school students and middle school students and they just like show them how to use the bus. And I think they all get bus passes and it like gives them a lot of freedom, but it also is just like training them. Like, here's how you use the bus because it's intimidating if you haven't. And the thing is, all this stuff basically works the same in every country around the world. So it's like quite empowering because you learn how to use the bus in Kingston and you can be in Dubai and use the bus or Shanghai and use the bus. And it's like really the same experience.
00:30:48
Speaker
um And I'm really off topic. Shout out to Dan Hendry in Kingston, Ontario. Get on the bus. and um i mean yeah Dan Yeah, Dan's work is fantastic. And that that's like something that should be emulated in a lot of places, I think. um But anyways...
00:31:02
Speaker
um Yeah, transit when I grew up, Skytrain, great. Front views, awesome. Super cool. More cities should do that because it's very exciting for kids and adults as well.
00:31:13
Speaker
um But then it would just be like I traveled to different cities and would experience transit there. And, you know, you see like, wow, Vancouver, like North America, it's kind of on the light side. Like we don't have a lot of it. And a lot of other places do. and I think that maybe the most formative experience was I had family that lived in New York and I would go visit them when I was a teenager.
00:31:35
Speaker
Like that was my first experience traveling alone. So it was a bit of a like, oh, coming of age thing anyways, because you'd be like traveling alone, flying alone to see family in New York and you'd show up there and it'd be like, I want to go see stuff. And my uncle's working. And so it's like I just get to use this subway. I just get to go around the city. And the experience of being like sitting at a place in lower Manhattan, and thinking like, oh like Fifth Avenue so far away. And then like opening Google Maps and seeing that like I can get there in 12 minutes if I just start walking. It's just such a, when you don't have the ability to drive, but even if you do at this point, I mean, it's just so powerful. You can, at its best, transit is just,
Finding Your Niche in Transit Advocacy
00:32:16
Speaker
it's unbeatable. There's no other mode of transportation that can do that kind of trip through Manhattan, for example, faster than the subway can. And so I think that that that kind of sense of total freedom and of,
00:32:27
Speaker
speed and efficiency and being able to get anywhere you want really quickly without having me to get into a car, without having to be responsible for something is really cool. So that's kind of my, my experience, I think.
00:32:38
Speaker
Yeah, I think, yeah, urbanists a lot of time talk about how, like, bikes or transit offer kind of the freedom that, like, car ads promise. But you kind of bring it to another level, like, traveling to other countries and cities is is now now that I think of it, like, has actually given me so much freedom being, not just being a regular transit rider, but being, like, a transit nerd has allowed me to, like, navigate, like, other cities that I'm being a tourist in so much easier. I remember like going to LA and a lot of my more like car-centric suburban friends are like, oh, you're going to have to like drive everywhere, take an Uber everywhere. and I'm like...
00:33:18
Speaker
I think I should be fine by transit. And I think people kind of, kind of downplay um LA's transit. And when I went there, like I didn't take a single Uber, like the light rail went everywhere I wanted. And i took a lot of the buses. um Yeah. and And not just like, even like around the world and in new cities, like it it translates, like the a lot of wayfinding is, is there's kind of,
00:33:41
Speaker
a lot of similarities and you take the bus, it's kind of the same. um So yeah, I think that was a really good point of not only having like the freedom to kind of travel in your own city, but it kind of translates to everywhere abroad.
00:33:56
Speaker
This is way off script, but um since we're talking about LA, LA is an interesting place because a lot of the transit activism there has been, especially like decades ago, has been focused on the fact that there's a lot of interest in that region and a lot of funding and referenda. around building big, expensive rail projects.
00:34:15
Speaker
And sometimes that can come at the expense of local bus service and and yeah it can get whittled away. Not always, but I'm curious, Rhys, if you have like a way of thinking about that trade off, like what's going on in LA.
00:34:30
Speaker
Like, do you ever kind of look at a place and be like, don't bother with that, just do more buses? Yeah, I mean, I think most of the US, you could kind of have that attitude of like, don't bother with that, just do more buses. Like, how many light rail systems in the US, like, are, there's, like, every Canadian transit system has a line, like rail transit system has a line, besides like Waterloo, um that'll come later. It's so new still. um And everyone has a line that's like, oh, in 10 years, we're going have to like figure out more capacity for that. We're going to build a new line or something. And like, how many cities is this true in America?
00:35:10
Speaker
um You know, I think it's basically just New York, right? I don't think any other city in the US is kind of requiring another line because ridership is so high. Right. And so I think that that's an indicator that like something is wrong, because like if the system is working properly, it should be really well utilized. And like they do have some impressive systems, but it's like they kind of have the opposite problem of Canada. Canada kind of has underbuilt rapid transit for the amount of ridership we have. Like we get these lines that are actually used extremely heavily. But in America, because like they want the map and because they have the money to spend and they do these like tax referendums all the time, They get a lot of money to build stuff like, you know, Denver, Austin, before they cut down all the plants, Seattle, all they l LA as well. They build these big systems, but then they don't back it up with funding for local service, even funding for, you know, service on the lines. LA, always, you know, it's crazy to me. But if you look at the subway, the BD lines in l LA, They're off peak. They're like every 20 minutes. It's like that level of frequency. And it sort of peters out to the buses too, right? Like the buses are less frequent.
00:36:21
Speaker
So there's not many people on the subway. So they can justify running the subway pretty infrequently. And it's like the engine isn't going. Right. If they ran the buses really frequently, then they'd be like, wow, this trains are really busy. We've got to run more train service. And it would create this sort of virtuous cycle that you see in Canada.
00:36:36
Speaker
and And I just don't think you see that in in l LA. i i I think that the kind of like, we need to do only this thing. Like we need to do more buses or we need to do more rapid transit. Like in the ideal situation where you're like a city in most of the world, you kind of just need to do all of them.
00:36:54
Speaker
Like um it might be the case that, you know, you have like a city where, oh, the buses are super overcrowded and like the rail is fine. And that's like, you need do the buses there. And in some cities like Toronto, we actually have a lot of buses and like, I think we need to focus more on like building more rail out.
00:37:09
Speaker
um but But I think that's the nature of like, if you have expansive transit, there's always another
Future Aspirations in Transit Advocacy
00:37:15
Speaker
problem to solve. There's always 10 more problems to solve. And so you just kind of need like an array of solutions that you just kind of advance all of these different angles. And I think there's a lot of room in advocacy because of that.
00:37:28
Speaker
Yeah, I think one one thing kind of Reese talked about earlier, we kind of talked about hope or hopelessness in transit. And one thing I appreciated it about Reese's videos is a lot of times, I know he intentionally tries to be positive a lot of the times because we, a lot of times it's just negative transit news and it can get a lot of people down. But I think Reese was one of the people that made me realize how spoiled I was as a Torontonian to Like, I just expect the subway to come every two to three minutes. Whenever I have to wait more than five minutes, I get cranky.
00:38:01
Speaker
i kind of expect a 10 minute network from my buses. um I kind of like have have told a lot of my like Toronto friends, like, Like, I get it. Like, i I have a lot of frustration with the TTC as well.
00:38:14
Speaker
um But we we have it pretty well, pretty good. And like kind of the service levels you're talking about, like, I can't fathom waiting for 15, 20 minutes for the subway in Chicago or in L.A. That's just so far fetched to me.
00:38:31
Speaker
Yeah. And I think, I think it really like, it is this engine that gets going because like something for me, when I moved to Toronto from, from Metro Vancouver, I guess I can say is as someone who like, didn't, I didn't ride a lot of transit growing up. I wish I could have, I wanted to, but it was like, there just wasn't, I got a car when I was 16. So I could drive to high school because there was a bus, but it it would be like an hour walk from my house and it ran every half an hour. And it was just ad, right? And so that was a huge contrast to Toronto, which is, you know, not that different.
00:39:05
Speaker
But what was interesting was there was more of a culture of riding transit and the service levels were higher. And something I always find interesting is if you go to a business's website in Toronto, and you go to one in Vancouver, so often in Toronto, you will see like in the contact us section,
00:39:22
Speaker
it where it says like how how to get here, you know, where where it's a map, like give you an address. It'll also say like, oh, the local subway station or like you could take this streetcar to get here. there' It's embedded in the culture that people will ride transit in a way that it isn't in other places.
00:39:38
Speaker
and And as you said, Rodney, there's like an expectation of service. And these things like keep that engine going because, hey, even someone who doesn't regularly ride transit notices that like the buses aren't coming very often on their street. They're they might complain in a way that that's never going to happen in a place where i remember when I grew up in Langley and it was like, I didn't even recognize that public transit buses, like this was a thing until I think it was like 16 and someone was like, oh, how do I get from here to there? and they're like, well, I think there's a bus. And i was like, oh, those, those little vans, those are public transit. I didn't, because they're just so infrequently you would see one. Right. So you just like didn't connect with Creation.
00:40:20
Speaker
Um, what would you say to someone who might've been consuming a lot of your videos and is like, ah maybe, you know, a little bit earlier along, like maybe a few years past that stage where you're just recognizing what a bus is, um, who, who wants to take the next step, but just like, doesn't know where to start.
00:40:43
Speaker
I think that there is so much room in sort of advocacy or activism for a lot of people.
Impact of YouTube on Transit Advocacy
00:40:51
Speaker
i There was this very frustrating YouTube video that came out a few years ago where this guy kind of, he came on and I don't know the guy, I'm not i'm not trying to throw shade or whatever, even though he threw a lot of shade at at all the YouTube people. But this person was just kind of like, you know, if you're to be a real advocate, you need to like show up at city council and depute or
00:41:16
Speaker
whatever you call it in your jurisdiction. um and like, that's what real advocates do in this making videos thing. It's not serious. It's not a real advocacy. You have to tell people what to do. And I think that's like totally wrong. um I think that there are like a wide variety of people in the world. And I think each individual kind of like probably has a sense of like what you could do. It's like, what are you already passionate about?
00:41:40
Speaker
Like, are you, are you like super sociable? Could you organize groups of people to do stuff? You know, then there's like a type of advocacy that naturally makes sense. Are you like a person who's very analytical?
00:41:52
Speaker
You could do like a sort of database advocacy, like and Steve Monroe or Alan Levy do where it's like very, let me look at the schedules and... And, you know, point out to my politicians that like the transit agency says they're running this schedule and they're running this schedule. So that's like a different type of advocacy you could do. Are you like brain rotting on social media? You could do like a social media thing, right? Like social media, it's bad, I think, but it's like powerful, right? It's like a powerful tool. I think I was talking to you about this, Dennis, like, it's like very easy to dislike social media. But when you start trying to like communicate stuff or like
00:42:27
Speaker
organized, basically, it's like so powerful, because it lets you reach this wide variety of people in a way it's like, how would you do that? Before you would have just had to show up in person constantly, and you would get a 10th as many people, right. And so there's all these different like forms of advocacy you can do.
00:42:42
Speaker
And I think, I think everything helps, right? I think even just like dinner table advocacy is a thing. I think like harassing your friends to like, hey, like we're going to a concert. We can totally take transit super easy, even if they don't regularly use it. Like all of these little things, there's a million little things people can do. And I think that people can just kind of decide for themselves, like how can they have a big impact and choose the things that they know that they can do and take it as far as they want to.
00:43:09
Speaker
yeah i so I saw that same video, I think, what you're talking about. And I think to a to an extent, like, the aesthetic of, like, YouTubers complaining about things just seems, like, annoying. Like, oh, they're just complaining about it. And, like, in a vacuum, sure, it doesn't really do anything. But...
00:43:27
Speaker
the amount of people that you or even people like Not Just Bikes have like inspired and educated and like transit pilled or whatnot have have really created like a whole generation of people where like so many young people now like know everyone's talking about walkable cities a lot of people talk about public transit we're all talking about um 15 minute cities and and and all these things and that wouldn't this culture shift wouldn't have happened without all the youtubers and bloggers and uh
00:43:59
Speaker
social media accounts that help foster this kind of culture and just knowledge base. um And yeah, you're so right that like we need the the people who need the people who go to council, but we also need the people who canvas and the people who create events for people to come together and meet other people.
00:44:19
Speaker
um And make graphics and like, yeah, and it's like it's a pipeline, right? Like there is a sort of like, I always thought like YouTube is kind of like maybe the top of the sales funnel, so to speak. And it's like, hey, like it's exposing people to ideas. Maybe it's giving like for me, it was always like, how could I say?
00:44:36
Speaker
I know what the arguments against this thing are. How can I like give people ammunition so that like when someone says, like we don't have the funding to run more buses, they can say, like hey, like the transit agency, they lay over the buses for a super long time at the end of the route. What if we like change the operation so that we could we could get some more frequency out of it? um What if we did a pulse schedule instead in this part of the town? Like, I think that you need to have like all of these different people coming together and enabling things. And it's like now that there's all these people. um And I think that it's I think there's like a lot of reasons. I think YouTube is maybe part of it. But there's like affordability challenges, people's concerns about the environment. All of this has like led to a ton of people being interested in urbanism and et cetera. And I think that that's going to be like, this is like, it's a demographic thing. Like in 20 years, a lot of people, these people be politicians and stuff. And we're probably going to see some huge changes. um But what is what's great about it is it's like, it it fuels the next part of the funnel. Like Dennis, his life will be much easier than it would have been otherwise, because there's like a lot of young people who just care about this. And they're like looking for ways to help and they can like, Oh, movement. Like,
00:45:43
Speaker
It helps, you know, Dennis has created like the next fit phase of the funnel, like people like, oh, I can go like I can advocate. i have a ah way to do that. Like, I don't have to start my own thing. i can I can be a cog in a greater machine that is fighting for better transit. And I think that that's some everyone has a role to play. And I think there's many undiscovered roles that people will discover over the years.
00:46:06
Speaker
Another interesting thing is I think there's kind of a gap in kind of transit education and a formalized education. i think like transit YouTube has inspired a lot of people, like as someone who's currently currently enrolled in urban planning program, there's lots of people in my program who just want to work in public transit, but we don't actually have that many classes on it. And yeah,
00:46:31
Speaker
and Yeah, like a lot of people have been like filling in their knowledge through videos like ah that, re that people like Reese have made. YouTube University. i mean, its its like it is a real problem. Like, this is an area of advocacy that like someone could spend their rest of their life doing and it would be fantastic. Like, um we need.
00:46:56
Speaker
we need like a bachelor's of transit planning. We need like a rail engineering degree. We need all of these things. And like the the thing that's cool about all the different areas of advocacy is like some of them can be quite localized. So like Metro Vancouver could have the first of both of these, like one of the post-secondary institutions and TransLink. And this actually feels like something that could happen in Metro Vancouver because TransLink feels quite organized and and in intelligent in the way it operates. Like in Toronto, I just can't sadly entirely see this happening. But in Vancouver, you can sort of imagine like TransLink with Langara College does Bachelor of of transit planning or operations or something.
00:47:38
Speaker
And like that creates all of these things, they create momentum because it's like now there are people whose whole career is transit. um And that's like predefined before they've even gotten into the into the career.
00:47:50
Speaker
And if you look at places like Europe and Asia, right, they have entire like railway universities and stuff. And so like we need to This is another front in the battle that needs to be kind of pushed forwards. And I don't think this is like one of the areas of advocacy that like, Rodney, you're so right. Like it's it's such a big problem. And I don't see a lot of people doing stuff. So it's like, it's a real open season for someone to like come in and shake things up.
00:48:14
Speaker
ah Patrick Utiga, he's a senior planner at the TTC. I think he recently just, he's like a,
Conclusion and Listener Engagement
00:48:20
Speaker
he recently wrote or was one of the co-writers of of a research project specifically about the gap, about the transit education system in Canada. Interesting.
00:48:31
Speaker
um I think i can I can link it in the podcast notes later. But yeah, this is definitely something. It's it's slowly starting to change because of this like new cohort of transit-obsessed planners. We're trying to offer more transportation and transit classes now. I think they're trying to... My program has like specializations like in land development and yeah GIS and all these things. I think we're trying to get a transit one. So things are slowly changing.
00:49:00
Speaker
ah Yeah. Rhys, do you want to start a program? Do you want to start like a like a transit school? i'm I'm I'm not. I'm no joke. I'm very into this idea. I this is like this is I think it's a great idea. And I honest I'm not joking at all.
00:49:16
Speaker
Sign me up. I'm happy to I'm happy to. How to do that. I mean, I think that like Canada, like the thing is we have the capacity, we have enough transit that there is actually a consistent demand for this. And, um, and I think it would be an absolutely great project. And it's just one of those things where.
00:49:34
Speaker
Yeah, there is like demand for this. And I'm pretty sure that if ah even if like one or two universities created it it would be a huge draw to that university, like in the same way that like um TMU has planning and it's like quite unique in the at the bachelor's level. And so like if people go there for that. And so I think that this is like um it's a very good idea. Yes. Yes. TMU has a great planning program and the people that it produces are excellent. um it's speaking of you know um Once you get into the planning industry, that the amount that like American transit planners look up to Canada, like that there's this enormous country to our south that would probably send a lot of people up to Vancouver or Toronto to learn about transit, would be a really big extended market for you know people that are paying a lot, like international student rates, to study in this in this potential program.
00:50:24
Speaker
I wrote a, like a Globe and Mail piece at the beginning of the year that our trade war strategy should be that we have good transit and we can really double down on this because it's like, it helps save people money. And this is like another component of that. I didn't even think about this, but it's like a great idea. Yeah.
00:50:40
Speaker
Like. Look at Seattle. It's like trying to be Vancouver so badly on on all of its transit. You know, it's like, oh, wow, Link is looking a lot like Skytrain now, guys. How did that happen? And it's like having ah having educational institutions, that's like a thing we could totally do that would help help move things forward. And so, yeah, it's this really exciting idea.
00:51:02
Speaker
And speaking of kind of future aspirations or plans, I think a good way to wrap up this episode would be, of priest do you have any like next steps or like future things that you're thinking of doing for yourself or in advocacy or any projects you want to kind of get started on?
00:51:21
Speaker
i That's a great question. i i wish ah I wish I had a good answer. I mean, i think it's kind of like it's an opportunistic thing. And I think that that's been my biggest learning um through all these years is you do have to be kind of opportunistic. You just have to be waiting and watching and And, and seeing when things arise, right. Like this Finch LRT thing was, it was, that was an opportunity. And people were like, Oh, like you're being like so loud about this. And it's like, yeah, because like, this is like, when you see that moment, you have to like airstrike, you have to like come in and like, boom, like we're going to do something. um You can imagine ah each city has different things that happen, right? Like, yeah,
00:52:05
Speaker
like Metro Vancouver had its whole like transit funding is going to get cut moment. And it's like that would be that's like a moment to not like when you could not only say like we need to fund transit, but we create a better mechanism so that it actually goes beyond the status quo.
00:52:18
Speaker
And so it's like waiting for these moments. um And I mean, there are times when when you're in the sort of interstitial space between these these transition points, these inflection points, I think that's when it's good to sort of like build up a repertoire of like, what what would you do if you had the capacity to do it? Like, what should your city do?
00:52:39
Speaker
um You know, like, where would where where should bus lanes go in the future? Like, if money arrives, where should it go? so often um So often, I feel like cities and et cetera aren't ready for it to arrive, and then they they don't deliver anything. I think my...
00:52:56
Speaker
maybe my saddest example of this is Calgary. um During the sort of like Trudeau era in in Canada, there was ah just an unbelievable amount of transit funding for capital projects mostly that just got that just got sprayed across the country. And Calgary just totally failed to to capture that funding. And so like,
00:53:16
Speaker
From 2011-ish to now, Calgary hasn't opened a single new light rail line. Edmonton's opened opened a couple extensions and a new line. Toronto's got like five or six lines under construction. Vancouver's got two big projects under construction. Montreal does.
00:53:32
Speaker
You have to have stuff sitting on the shelf so that when the moment arises, you can like grab it and you can go with it. And I mean, I think that's true of transit agencies, but it's true of advocates as well. Knowing that like when the political moment is right,
00:53:46
Speaker
Like, oh, I want to make transit better. What do I do? Here are all the things you could do to make transit better. We have them nicely organized. And like, these are the steps you need to take. Like that matters a lot. So so I think for me, it's just, yeah, I think it's just putting the stuff on the shelf. That's my, that's my plan. And then waiting for the next moment.
00:54:05
Speaker
That's awesome. um This has been so much fun. It's really like we've talked before and it's been it's been a pleasure each time, but just like the the influence you've had in this industry, you're so right that like you, ah your videos and your work has driven people to our organization to the point where like it made it obvious to be able to start a movement, but it might not have been if it wasn't for kind of the the broader YouTube urbanism groundswell. So yeah, thank you for coming and thanks for doing what you do.
00:54:36
Speaker
I'm looking forward to seeing what's next. Thanks for having me on guys. Dwell time. Wait, Rhys, do you want do you want to explain to our audience what a dwell time is? Yes. Dwell time is the time when vehicle, the transit vehicle dwells.
00:54:56
Speaker
It's when it's got its door open. It's waiting, it's dwelling. And then the dwell time ends because the door closes. And then the goal begins. the significance of of the dwell time? you want You want a short dwell time because you get long dwell times. I mean, it depends, right? I mean, sometimes you're trying to do time transfers and then you want like, well, maybe we're going to be dwelling for a while. Like if you're Swiss, but if you're like Japanese, you just want the dwell time to be super short.
00:55:19
Speaker
You want as many doors as possible. So it's like on, off dwell, done, close the doors. Oh, that guy lost his hand. It's fine. Keep going. Um, Yeah, exactly. So I mean, like, that's the dwellness at dwell time. you want In a perfect world, a train, the the wall of the train would just disappear for a few seconds, and everyone would flood on, and then the wall would reappear.
00:55:40
Speaker
Yeah, like the entire, like, train wall. Have you considered a future in engineering, Dennis? What's that? ah Yeah, exactly. I don't know. The next station Commercials Broadway, doors will open on the left. Stay here for the Millennium Line. Take the gear for the 99B Line.
00:56:03
Speaker
Very exciting to have Reese on our podcast. A big thanks to him for doing that. And a big thanks to you for listening. Hey, do you have any questions for us as both transit planners and activists?
00:56:18
Speaker
If you have any questions for someone that is at the intersection of those two things, you should email us at mailbag at dwelltime.ca. Also, you can probably tell that this podcast is embryonic and we are finding our voice and our our cadence and our structure. If you have any ideas on like what you like in a podcast, like why are you listening to this or why do you listen to other podcasts? Tell us that too, as we make decisions on how to structure this show in the future.
00:56:49
Speaker
Also, feel free to message us on Blue Sky or Instagram. Our Blue Sky is dwelltime.ca. And our Instagram is at dwelltimepod.
00:57:02
Speaker
Also, if you have any suggestions for people you would like to see us interview next, or if you want to tell us what's happening in your city and what you're advocating for, that's something we would love to know.
00:57:14
Speaker
Basically, just email us for any reason. Thank you. Talk to you later. yeah Okay, bye. Dwelltime is over.
00:57:29
Speaker
You've been listening to Dwell Time. This show is hosted by Rodney Chan and Dennis Agar. Producer and editor is Carriette Heather Keir. Thank you for listening. Details about our social media and content mentioned are in the show notes.
00:57:44
Speaker
We would like to recognize that this show is written, recorded, and edited on the ancestral lands of First Nations peoples across Canada.