Hi there!
If you’re reading this, it means you pay for a subscription to my blog, and that means a lot to me, because it helps me create and share with the world. If you weren’t already aware, paid subscribers can directly reply to a newsletter email to get in touch with me! This post is meant to be the type of broad overview of what my 2024 looks like for:
my personal sphere of public transit (obviously the main topic I write about) — i.e. the transit projects and systems that have some relevant stuff happening to them this year, and that I’ll likely travel to and make content about;
the blog;
and my YouTube channel.
I imagine you might only be interested in one or a few of these topics, and so I’ve broken the piece up this way so that you can better tease out the stuff you are interested in.
Why am I writing about 2024 before November has even ended? It’s probably in part the regular creep of “end-of-year” media, but also because I actually managed to hit most of my 2023 goals early, and planning and releasing a bunch of videos in December means doing some things a bit early!
My Personal Sphere of Public Transit and Urban Development in 2024.
A lot of new transit projects should be completed or see major progress in 2024, and that will mean lots of topics for videos and blog posts.
Toronto
The Finch West LRT has been moving forward a lot over the last year or two, and recently having travelled the corridor, the actual transit infrastructure looks almost all complete — I’d suggest this means that full testing of the line and replacement of the road can happen during 2024, and an opening during the year feels pretty likely. I’m not hugely excited for the Finch West LRT, but it should help ridership on the Spadina line of the subway, and it will possibly be the first big new transit project Toronto has opened in a long time, so I imagine it will have a positive impact on peoples attitudes and outlook for transit expansion. It will also be nice to have a rail option the odd time I am travelling around the area, and it will cause a number of stats for the TTC system to change, which is always fun. The opening of Finch could be the beginning of a decade of very positive growth for transit in Toronto, and so it will be an exciting moment in that.
The Eglinton Crosstown — as frequently delayed as it has been — feels like its in a state which is only a little behind Finch. Most construction work is wrapping up (including around Yonge and Eglinton) and a lot of testing should be able to happen in 2024. That being said, if the line opens in 2024, it will be late in the year, and I’d probably say the chances of it happening are only about 60% (and that might be very generous — it’s a bit hard to tell). Of course, when Eglinton opens, it will be a huge boost for transit across Toronto — the eastern section of the line is sort of like another Finch West LRT with two below-grade stations and tons of surface stops, which will have a similar positive momentum-building effect as opening Finch. The bigger thing will be the opening of the section from Laird to Mount Dennis — this effectively creates another substantial east-west subway line in Toronto with two subway interchanges and a GO and UP interchange. The impact of opening the “subway” section will be huge: not only will people be excited and I think impressed by the stations, but overnight a lot of trips that are slow on transit today will get much faster and that will be great for ridership.
I’ve already mentioned some of the “side effects” I expect from Toronto finally opening some new stuff, such more of a positive public outlook on public transit — but I also think there’s a good chance it provides the push needed to fix some longstanding problems, like expanding off-peak GO service so that less “not in this direction and not at peak hours”-qualifying will be needed, as well as improving wayfinding issues that have existed for a long time. I sort of imagine that we will not only have the initial sugar high of new stuff opening, but also several years of getting to reap the positive rewards.
But as these projects wrap up, focus will shift to other, frankly more important, projects.
The Ontario Line construction is already super visible, but by the end of 2024 substantial work should actually start to be completed, I also think tunneling for Eglinton West and Scarborough should be substantially completed as the year comes to a close. Hopefully, on top of these three important projects, we will also see major works start for the Yonge North extension, and if we do that will mean that despite a ton of complaining and FUD on Twitter the Ontario government problematic as it is, has actually started building all of the rapid transit it promised. I should also mention that the Hurontario LRT is making good progress, though it’s running what feels like a year behind Finch — that means we will have a good idea of what the line will look like by the end of the year, but we won’t be riding trains.
There will also be other projects to follow during the year, including accessibility upgrades on the subway network, GO expansion works like station upgrades and additional track, and the Bloor Yonge rebuild which might be Toronto’s first with screen doors (depending on how the Ontario Line goes).
In the background is the incredible urban growth of Toronto. I am not quite a skyscraper enthusiast, but I do think it’s exciting that the city has several supertalls under construction. There’s also a lot of interesting big developments happening around the downtown, and the Port Lands project that I covered in a video in 2023 is also moving along!
Montreal
While Montreal seems to be desperate to get no transit built, the REM continues to pick up the slack for the whole region. In 2024, the West Island and Deux-Montagnes branches will open, which actually make up the vast majority of the track length and stations on the network. These sections opening will mean through operation in the Mount Royal tunnel, the opening of the two proper metro interchanges, and the reopening of service on the Deux-Montagnes line. The first section of the REM in 2023 was exciting, but in 2024 we will be getting far more!
Ottawa
After a few years of no new rail opening (and a lot of problems), O-Train Line 2 — which was supposed to open in 2023 — should finally open. This project is really just a big upgrade and extension of the previous route, and I expect things to go well with it. I think that should help offset a lot of the negative sentiment around the O-Train system as a whole and help things moving back in the right direction.
The Blog in 2024.
One of the biggest changes for me as a creator in 2023 was that I was writing a couple blog posts a week alongside YouTube. This both took up some time I freed by making less YouTube videos than usual, and also helped me explore a ton of different topics.
I really love YouTube, and it remains my main creative outlet — but blogging has been great. I can cover topics in even greater nuance (a focus of mine when so many commentators don’t seem to scrutinize public transit nearly enough, especially in North America), and I can also go into way more detail than with a YouTube video.
Continuing down the path of writing a lot, I’m hoping to write more and better articles in 2024, covering transit issues both locally in Canada and around the world just as with my YouTube channel. I also will continue to write a couple subscriber-exclusive articles every month for those that support my work directly.
As I’ve been dabbling with the last few months, I also plan to write some more “Off Topic” posts from time to time in additional to my usual transit/cities/infrastructure content. Writing these additional posts lets me dabble in different areas and talk about other things I’m passionate about — which I find often overlap with the interests of those who like the stuff I create about transit. Over the last year, it was my goal (and one I surprisingly met) to read 24 books - 2 per month, and writing my thoughts on some of these reads is one of the things I’d like to do in these posts.
Something I have discussing with a close friend a fair amount in 2023 is creating a video podcast where we talk about infrastructure and various elements of it on a global scale — from power generation, to shipping, airports ,and of course public transit. I’m not sure when we will start uploading these discussions, but this is something which will start in 2024 and be exclusive to paid supporters. With Substack’s new video features, I’m also interested in doing a bit of an edited-down Q&A every so often where I discuss topics suggested by readers — this can be less heavily-edited and more detailed than something like this I might do on YouTube.
I also want to continue to make adjustments to the visual style and brand of the blog — while I like that it’s more clearly me who’s at the centre (because ultimately so much of my content is about my thoughts and the topics I find interesting), a name that could bring together all my interests is something that could be nice — if you have suggestions leave a comment!
YouTube in 2024.
YouTube has really been a journey since I started doing it back in 2016, and while I am happy with what I’ve achieved, there are changes that I need to make to the channel and the way I do things. My last video of the year will talk about some of these changes in much more detail — which are likely to include less videos and a different approach to making those videos.
While I love YouTube and it’s certainly changed my life for the better over the 15 years or so I’ve used the site, the reality is I also do not like a lot of the things that happen on it and the engagement it sometimes fosters. It’s kind of obvious that the things I make are not really meant for everyone — transit is a niche topic, and the amount of horrible comments I have read from people who clearly aren’t on board with transit makes the idea of having less of a “open to the world” presence attractive. At the same time, the way YouTube drives creators to make certain types of videos and to try and maximize certain metrics can make you feel a bit like a robot, with all of the creativity sapped out of you and a very limited mandate.
On top of what YouTube itself pushes creators to make, the proliferation of derivative, low-quality explainer channels really turns me off. People have given me a ton of flack over the years for being insufficiently-qualified to talk about public transit, which is obviously ridiculous (but which makes me sympathetic to people not needing to have a degree to be an expert commentator). However, what a lot of the content I see online reminds me is that a lot of people don’t make things because they have something unique to say or because they want to share information or have discussions that aren’t really happening — Many people are just shotgunning YouTube with content that provides little more insight than a quick Google search as well as inaccurate info, all to drive up the same metrics that every YouTube creator has to deal with. What’s unfortunate is that it seems a lot of these channels put the content behind the production values. I’ll say it up front: my videos are far from the most attractive — probably even in the transit and urban planning space, but thats because I see the actual video as being secondary to its content — the message it’s meant to deliver. When I watch a video (which is derivative of a derivative) that refers to a transit system that doesn’t exist and wraps it all in a pretty animation, I feel like I am seeing what YouTube is going to devolve into.
I recognize this probably comes off as pretty negative, but having done YouTube as long as I have, whatever glitz there is in being someone who makes online videos is kind of gone, and the sudden explosion of content that is rather unoriginal and often inaccurate (at least within the niche I make videos within) is pretty disheartening. Ultimately, this is probably a good thing though — with production quality unlikely to be a major differentiator, I can hone in on the thing I started making videos about in the first place — the technical details of public transit.
Ultimately, my goal with everything I do is to share knowledge, teach people something, and possibly most important try and convey my thoughts about the world of infrastructure and transit, and how I go about developing them. 2024 will be a year where I niche down more, and return to making the kind of in depth stuff that gets me excited.
I also like seeing stats get updated and interested in how Toronto transit and ridership evolves.
I can't believe you haven't mentioned the Valley Line in Edmonton