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Damien Moule

@damienmoule.bsky.social

1.6K followers 110 following 2.9K posts

Toronto municipal policy wonk, engineer, urbanist, father. Consider donating to effective charities: https://www.givewell.org/

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Damien Moule @damienmoule.bsky.social · Nov 11

Hello to everyone who found me from a starter pack. For those who don't me, I write (mostly) about housing, urbanism, and Toronto municipal government policy. Here's a thread of some of my longer form writing over the last two years.

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Damien Moule @damienmoule.bsky.social · 2h

I think people imagine that for Parkside you can do something like this complete street style arrangement along a park in Amsterdam. But this is a 30m ROW. Parkside is 20m. You have to choose what the road is for and prioritize that. As part of a network so these decisions make sense.

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Damien Moule @damienmoule.bsky.social · 2h

I also don't think I've seen them in use. I imagine the TTC would still object.

Damien Moule @damienmoule.bsky.social · 3h

Keenan lists all the reasons people give to not make Parkside safer but all I see is a failure to choose. We want to keep Parkside open for a half hourly bus so we won't narrow lanes or add speed bumps. We want it to be an arterial with bike lanes so we're letting that stop us from reducing lanes.

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Damien Moule @damienmoule.bsky.social · 7h

Dear Calgary: you don't want your own version of David Crombie. Don't vote for Farkas.

Damien Moule @damienmoule.bsky.social · 7h

One of the front runners in Calgary's mayoral race, Jeromy Farkas, appears to be running on removing Calgary's good zoning and taking inspiration from Patrick Condon and Toronto NIMBYs (pretend to care about affordability and infrastructure in order to segregate).
www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

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Damien Moule @damienmoule.bsky.social · 1d

I don't go camping very often but the experience this time has been significantly reduced by people driving big dumb pickup trucks around at all hours.

Damien Moule @damienmoule.bsky.social · 2d

The maps I showed are all the zoning by-law. The land use designation maps from the Official Plan for these areas would all be Neighbourhood.

Damien Moule @damienmoule.bsky.social · 2d

To elaborate on the blurb that made it to this story, Toronto has two competing challenges with multiplex zoning:
-Lot coverage maximums and setbacks on smaller lots.
-Large lot area minimums in North York and Etobicoke that would need division for multiplexes.
www.thestar.com/real-estate/...

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Damien Moule @damienmoule.bsky.social · 3d

I would like multiplex uptake to be much higher but I don't think it will happen unless we tackle minimum lot areas, lot coverages, setbacks, and frontages.

Damien Moule @damienmoule.bsky.social · 3d

Some nice new mapping/charting of multiplex uptake from the Star. I liked the second one that looked at the ratio of new builds to renos. About 3/4s of multiplexes approved since the Multiplex Study By-law was passed have been renos.
www.thestar.com/real-estate/...

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Damien Moule @damienmoule.bsky.social · 3d

From what I understand Smith's idea in introducing them was to defang the organizing advantage of local progressives, which as of right now it seems like will be successful in both cities.

Damien Moule @damienmoule.bsky.social · 3d

Though still hoping that mistake will intrigue Doug Ford and lead him to permit parties in Toronto and Ottawa.

Damien Moule @damienmoule.bsky.social · 3d

Think Edmonton and Calgary's left and incumbents more broadly made a mistake in not organizing parties.

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Damien Moule @damienmoule.bsky.social · 4d

Gotta lower than one. There's at least 10% people who want rigid social hierarchies in everything.

Reposted by Damien Moule

More Neighbours Toronto @moreneighboursto.bsky.social · 4d

If you're around on October 25 or 26, consider a lovely autumn walk that will showcase local businesses and the residential communities that they are a part of.

Dan Seljak @anotherglassbox.bsky.social · 4d

A Jane's Walk so nice, we had to run it twice! And now...quadrice?

I'm retreading the steps I took with the folks from @moreneighboursto.bsky.social, but with a stronger emphasis on retail. This topic is being revisited by Council; we're going to win.

www.eventbrite.ca/e/neighbourh...

Neighbourhood Retail & Residential Tour

Join us for a lively discussion on the future of local businesses and residential living in Toronto's neighbourhoods.

www.eventbrite.ca

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Damien Moule @damienmoule.bsky.social · 4d

The TTC's capital investment plan is a list of hopelessly underfunded projects at world worst costs. I know people want higher frequencies in the subway but we have lost the ability to make it happen. Start focusing on the surface network and what we can do to make it better.

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Damien Moule @damienmoule.bsky.social · 4d

Good thread about evolution of traffic planning in the heart of Bologna. I want to emphasize this particular post for Toronto. The city has lost the ability to plan higher order transit so municipal politicians need to stop spending all their effort on federal funding and start doing what they can.

Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 4d

Pragmatism.

In a context where funding for mass transit projects was sorely lacking, the city didn't waste time on pipe dreams; instead, it acted on what it had control of and fiscal capacity for: bus service levels and patterns, allocation of street space, and traffic flow organization.

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Damien Moule @damienmoule.bsky.social · 4d

Toronto's official plan just shows a map of major transit lines and roadways, a map of hypothetical routes for surface transit priority, and then lists a bunch of policies that *developers* need to follow in building applications. No plans for the city to do anything about.

Damien Moule @damienmoule.bsky.social · 4d

I'm also very suspicious that the boroughs get to implement the plan through zoning. Seems like a recipe for shenanigans. And there is a bit too much micro detail on local amenities and cultural buildings for an official plan.

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Damien Moule @damienmoule.bsky.social · 4d

It has the most developed transportation planning of any of them (low bar) and I like their implementation of high/medium/low growth areas that extend over wide areas, officially committed to a mix of types, and high lot coverages. I am skeptical the built form+one storey in low growth areas works.

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Damien Moule @damienmoule.bsky.social · 4d

It's not rigorous by any means but something like housing flexibility, lack of official segregation, conceptual coherence, consistency with stated goals, presence of material transportation planning (i.e. just noting the location of highways doesn't count), and clarity/simplicity.

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Damien Moule @damienmoule.bsky.social · 4d

Semi-informed ranking of Canadian big city Official Plans:
1. Edmonton
2. Calgary (either MDP or new draft Calgary Plan)
3. Montreal
4. draft Vancouver ODP
5. Toronto
6. Ottawa

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Damien Moule @damienmoule.bsky.social · 4d

That is basically Ontario as well. Which probably explains our collective struggles.

Damien Moule @damienmoule.bsky.social · 4d

I skimmed through the Vancouver plan as well and I still think the GLU map they added is better work than the horrible kludges we've attempted in 6 years here.

Damien Moule @damienmoule.bsky.social · 4d

That being said I definitely much prefer the city plans of Edmonton and Calgary to the ODP. Possibly Montreal's plan as well.