Vaping is almost as cool as coal rolling.

How else are we going to increase shareholder value

Most of Ontario’s roadway infrastructure is in a decline and has been for a while now. Think potholes, crumbling sidewalks, crumbling bridges, lack of roadway reworks for better traffic calming and pedestrian safety to reach “vision zero”.

Its amazing how much car centric infrastructure costs to build and maintain. Its also heavily subsidised, because if you had to pay the “actual cost” to use a roadway it would be unaffordable. Not to mention the indirect costs, such as environmental costs and public heath and wellbeing.

There is a visible difference in how well maintained the tolled 407 is compared to other 400 series highways in terms of proper on/off ramps, concrete roadways, quick response times to debris clearing.

It is a shame the remaining “profits” (after maintainace costs) do not go into other infrastructure projects in Ontario, like schools, hospitals, and parks, but instead a private purse.

Why are these two standing right in the centre of what looks to be a road?! Get off the road stupid pedestrians, you’re asking to get run over. /s

“While people are stuck in gridlock across the GTA, the 407 sits half-empty"

Looks like tolls are actually beneficial to reducing congestion…

Tolls help with choosing other forms of transportation, and reduce gridlock. If individuals had to choose to pay a direct fee (as opposed to a indirect fee) people may choose to drive less and choose to support forms of public transits more. This would ease congestion and promote a need for better more frequent public transportation.

Cities should start implementing a “Congestion Charge” for their downtown cores. Every vehicle should have a transponder so once it enters a specific area in a city centre it gets pinged and tolled. Residents living inside these areas would probably be a exemption to promote more families choosing to live in cities as opposed to commuting in and out everyday.

Older generation “nobody wants to fight anymore”.

Relevant video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPWY9Mka4Io

I think it really just came down to costs and city budgets. Cities always seem to cut public funding allocated for things like this when trying to balance their budgets.

That is why I find a few of the comments that were suggesting the city should hire the man a little counterintuitive. The first thing the city would cut would be the light show saying it’s to expensive and to extravagant, probably in the same year they hire him even.

Holiday drive thru light shows in the GTA pretty much sums up the car centric nature of Ontario.

http://www.todocanada.ca/drive-thru-holiday-light-displays-in-gta/amp/

They should just end the drive thrus at a Timmie’s, nothing is more Canadian.

Seems to align with keeping the general public as uneducated as possible.

The more uneducated a population as a whole the easier for a government to control.

This just in, people with money have more to spend.

Its going to be interesting when this starts happening in North American, and in some places it may have already started.

Drought, wild fires, extreme heat, rise in ocean levels. Places like NYC, California, Florida may start becoming harder to live in. Canada may get colder and more extreme in temperature swings.

Places closer to or alongside the equator may become more ideal to live. That wall between the US and Mexico border might get in the way.

But, but I though undocumented immigrants were lazy?! How can they both be lazy and take all the jobs?!

You seem to be thinking small scale, the concept is decentralised electrical generation nation wide.

Not centralised energy generation such as a single solar plant, a single wind turbine field, a single coal plant, a single nuclear plant.

To cluster bomb a single PV plant (in one attack) would be “easy”, just as easy as a single coal plant.

To carpet bomb a whole nation (in one attack) with PV panels on every home, building, school, sports centre, field, farm would be logistically challenging.

In agree there are always those few in a community that feel the need to fight everything, even it may be in their best interest and the best interest of the community as a whole.

Anecdotally, I used to live in a rural suburban neighbourhood, the type where homes have large yards between them. There was a proposal to finally put in sidewalks along the residential streets in front of the homes, by narrowing the street a little. This would allows children to walk safely to the new school built, and allow people in the neighbourhood to go on walks, or walk their dogs safely.

Anyways, the amount of push back from some residents saying it will ruin the character of the neighbourhood, or that it would remove vital street parking, or shrink their driveways.

The neighbourhood street was about 4.5 cars wide.

In the end the sidewalks got put in after someone (that did not live in the area), ran over a residents dog along the street.

Become an American patriot, secure our borders with decentralised power generation, on your roof, on your own terms!

Exactly!! Though I don’t understand why so many country’s and civilians are opposed to clean decentralised power generation such as solar, wind, thermal.

The fact that you get to generate your own “free” power, and its less likely to fail in times of natural disaster.

Its essentially “freedom” & “sticking it to the man” in one clean package. Its not what the media or propaganda calls “the green agenda”.

The fact that it also has applications in better national security is a win win.

Decentralised power generation makes you a american patriot! No a green hippy.

500 to 600 hours divided by 365 would only come out to a 1hr or 2hr a day.

1.5hrs a day x 365days = 547.5hrs

Though a good chunk of that time would be in the physical setup of the lights over a weekend or week.

Most of us commute 2hr or more a day in total. (1hr in and 1hr out of work). Just let that one sink in for a while.

And this is why north american suburban neighbours in how they are designed suck IMO. You need a car to get around, even just to go get milk.

Suburban neighboorhoods should really be designed like communities with mixed density housing, small shops that you can walk to, pedestrians and cyclists trails that connect two points quicker in a shorter distance then by car. Mixed zonning for offices and businesses and nothing over 6 stories.

Designing suburbs like this would allow the density required for a tram line and mixed transportation modes. It would also potentially solve suburban sprawl that then compounds the “car is king” problem.

Everything mentioned above is possible, but requires people to accept a level of change.

Think how Amsterdam as a whole transformed its self starting in the 1970-1980 from a gridlocked “car is king” mentality to pedestrian and livability first approach.

https://www.fastcompany.com/3052699/these-historical-photos-show-how-amsterdam-turned-itself-into-a-bike-riders-paradise

Once a hobby turns into a full time job it looses its meaning. Plus being hired means you are no longer your own boss.

Also, we seem to forget cities always cut budgets for things. It used to be the city may have decorated its streets with lights or setup decorations in public plazas. A city may have also had it’s own light show that diminised in quality year after year, now a distant memory due to skyrocketing costs.

There may have been public fireworks show or a puplic skate rink. All those things usually are the first to go in a effort to save cash when city funded.

This man was doing a economic service to his town in terms of tourism on his own dime. The city shot it self in the foot here, then they tried to have their cake and eat it too asking him to pay for pirmits