Jedwin Mok
Transport Planner & Researcher
Creative Director | cityux.com
Research Lead | infrastoryinsights.com
youtu.be/vAygH6SZg28?si=lY-5…
- Reposted by Jedwin MokThe most frustrating thing about the sanctimonious nature of a lot of the transit city and surface "light rail" talk in Toronto is that it is distinctly not *light rail* that we built, but the St. Clair streetcar with nicer stops.
- Reposted by Jedwin MokVery happy to have collaborated with CSA Group on this report examining successes and challenges in transit project construction in Canada and the lessons we can learn for future projects. www.csagroup.org/article/publ...
- Reposted by Jedwin Mok"Maybe the city's full" says the man living in a 2.7 million dollar house on Palmerston, while sipping $170 scotch after defeating a multiplex proposal across the street. www.pressreader.com/canada/toron...
- Reposted by Jedwin MokFrom a pure operation expenditure efficiency perspective, making only the buses free means pushing users into a mode with higher marginal costs of production. If really free transit should be, it's definetly better to have it mode-neutral.
- Reposted by Jedwin MokDoing the good work. We also are spinning up a little group to advocate for changes @fasttracktoronto.bsky.social
- Reposted by Jedwin MokI was in Shantou two days ago, the heart of arguably the largest metro region (with +10 million people) in China without urban rail. However, they are constructing a Regional S Bahn system connecting the region's airport, high speed railway stations and 3 major centers. A 🧵
- Reposted by Jedwin MokWe're proud to present A Better Billion: how New York should be spending an extra $1b a year on subway expansion, in lieu of Zohran Mamdani's free bus proposal. transitcosts.com/a-better-bil... See gift article for a New York Times writeup here: www.nytimes.com/2026/01/30/n...
- Reposted by Jedwin Mok41 miles of new subway for the cost of free buses. Here’s an audacious, expansive plan to expand the subway’s reach & catalyze housing to attack the affordability crisis. An incredible effort from NYU Marron team. Excited for this to be out in the world: www.nytimes.com/2026/01/30/n...
- Reposted by Jedwin MokWe have a consultation problem. I write about a Toronto rec centre that will have taken 14 years to plan, cost at least three times the original budget - and be a bad building. www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/artic...
- Reposted by Jedwin MokWhat if better cities require short-term sacrifices? 🤔 In our new #UMX video podcast, experts unpack why urban change often meets resistance and how it leads to healthier, more liveable cities. ▶️ Watch now & join the debate 👇 youtu.be/LQ_hg2LI1X4?...
- Reposted by Jedwin MokA ton of interesting stuff in here: The Lenox Ave and Broadway station structures look ~rightly sized. The box looks to be about 20% bigger than the platforms, which is a *huge improvement* from the SAS 1 and SAS 2 designs. They're just massively expensive because they're 100+ feet deep. BUT...
- Reposted by Jedwin MokGood piece for people to think through. If you want housing prices to stay where they are now or (gasp) decrease further, we need to reduce construction costs and so you have to pick the pathways to push on. Your menu of options is here.
- I’ve just learned about state-issued baby kits and now extremely pissed off to learn that this is no longer a thing.
- Reposted by Jedwin MokUpdate: the new mayor of Montreal, Soraya Martinez Ferrada, has cut this program.
- Reposted by Jedwin MokDear North American station designers, this (first two pics) is not how you deal effectively with vertical circulation on a 120-130 ft (35-40 meters) deep station. It's either the Moscow way (long inclined escalators) or the Barcelona/E-M REM way (elevators-only).
- Reposted by Jedwin MokNEW VIDEO: North America’s Elevator’s Problem Elevators are absolutely essential to modern cities..... and it turns out North America kind of sucks at them. We partnered with @sightline.org to look into the many issues plaguing our elevator industry, and what it might take to fix it.
- The United States has the fewest elevators in the rich world, with Canada only a bit ahead. We teamed up with @uytaelee.bsky.social of About Here Videos to investigate why, exactly, North America sucks at elevators.
- Reposted by Jedwin MokSkinner "I'm I out of touch" meme .gif
- Reposted by Jedwin MokThe recently opened 19km long underground fully automated Xi'an Metro Line 15 Phase 1 costs less to build per km than the Toronto Finch West Tramway and the project is overall cheaper to build than the 19km long Phase 1 subway-surface Eglinton Crosstown tramway.
- Reposted by Jedwin MokThe Pfaffensteig tunnel to connect Stuttgart airport to the Gäubahn (railway to Zürich) has been approved. Big problem is that it’s a single tracked railway with not much in between Stuttgart and Zürich. Do it hasn’t been upgraded and is now getting a billion euro tunnel that’ll be empty
- Reposted by Jedwin Moklove welcoming my best friends to toronto by making them suffer on our worst transit line 💜
- Reposted by Jedwin MokI know you've been thinking "we need way more podcasts". Your prayers have been answered! @chanface.bsky.social and I have a podcast about transit advocacy in Canada and around the world! LISTEN TO IT
- My new podcast DWELL TIME IS OUT! Join Denis Agar and Rodney Chan in their discussions around transit in Canada. From buses to trains and everything else transit, learn about advocacy happening in Canadian cities and beyond. Apple podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/d... Spotify link below:
- Reposted by Jedwin MokMy new podcast DWELL TIME IS OUT! Join Denis Agar and Rodney Chan in their discussions around transit in Canada. From buses to trains and everything else transit, learn about advocacy happening in Canadian cities and beyond. Apple podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/d... Spotify link below:
- Reposted by Jedwin MokFunicular-oriented development in Künzelsau. A train every 15 minutes to the city centre for the 5,000 people living in Taläcker
- Reposted by Jedwin MokI love videos like these. I've also been dreaming up a metering system that would also clear up the delays that buses faces after that merge at the end of the video
- Reposted by Jedwin MokThe Lions Gate Bridge bus queue jump is beautiful and anxiety-inducing at the same time
- Reposted by Jedwin Mokon the issues with how we view the role of tramways in canada (US, too), i am reminded of a very recent paper showing how modal shifts vary by transit mode in european cities, and how much higher they are for cities with metro systems than tram-only systems in larger, sprawling cities
- Why I’m Less Excited About Trams Than You youtu.be/JLzkcfGfnDg
- Reposted by Jedwin MokThe Finch LRT will hopefully force Toronto to reckon with two things: that street based transit will *almost* never compete with driving (especially in the burbs) and that people really care about speed. My new piece in the Toronto Star highlights that and makes the case for subways and railways.
- Happy New Year from Taipei! Tonight, major roads are CLOSED as the metro works overtime as the primary mode of transport. 1M+ people will celebrate, with 200K+ at the busiest site. Dodgers stadium can’t host a 50K event without crippling traffic. We got lots to learn… 1/🧵
- As an attendee, everything flows well without car traffic. - 2km^2 of city closed to cars - pedestrians use the entire road width - crowd control by thousands of staff - extra tap points installed in stations These measures work only because Taipei has been preparing for DECADES! 2/
- How do you get 200K+ people out of a tiny area all at once? With Taipei’s metro grid, of course! 3 metro lines, EACH capable of moving 40,000 PPHPD serve 8 different stations (120,000 PPHPD). Car infrastructure taking up the same amount of space would move only ~3000 PPHPD. 3/
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View full threadWithout reform to governance and institutions, we’ll always be too afraid to propose a vision like Taipei or Paris or Istanbul or Hong Kong. This new year, let’s stop being afraid. Demand more from our institutions. Hold politicians accountable. Speak truth to power. Let’s dream big again! 9/9
- Reposted by Jedwin MokAnd a second post for the day: How do we get more passionate people to be involved in Toronto's transit? nextmetro.substack.com/p/an-observa...
- Reposted by Jedwin MokWhy I’m Less Excited About Trams Than You youtu.be/JLzkcfGfnDg
- If we are EVER to learn from the disastrous Line 6 opening and (incoming) Line 5 disaster, Toronto must objectively reflect on their history & conception. @jrurbanenetwork.bsky.social latest piece does exactly that. These are 2 badly planned, politicized ideas choked by poor delivery & discourse.
- It’s been a depressing few weeks filled with revisionist history… TC supporters point to various excuses - P3! MX! “It was never about speed!” Rob Ford’s cronies act like they had the solution all along. Industry professionals continue the 20+ year gaslighting campaign of low-income communities.
- TC’s promise of road median trams just as fast but 1/10th the price of subways was never possible. No, tunneling the entirety of the Eglinton tram doesn’t fix all problems. And no, spending $200M+/km on a streetcar that doesn’t materially improve conditions for Jane + Finch isn’t an equity win.
- Reposted by Jedwin MokI have not been shy on my coverage of transit issues in Toronto. With the disastrous opening of the Finch West LRT in early December, I have some thoughts from Hong Kong using my historical experiences with Toronto in this longform post.
- Reposted by Jedwin MokTTC Planning & Engineering has been proposing and implementing exactly this type of infrastructure for decades but they face opposition from the City. Queue Jump Lanes constructed by the TTC include: WB Lawrence & Dufferin EB Steeles & Don Mills WB Finch & Yonge EB Finch & Markham
- Reposted by Jedwin MokI do think this type of approach of identifying and fixing bottlenecks with targetted cheap transit priority, is the most best thing the TTC could be doing and blows away basically everything in the TTC's capital budget from a value perspective.
- Reposted by Jedwin MokI need to update my map after the new lines opened last week. Chengdu has opened 722km of metro lines in 15 years.
- Reposted by Jedwin MokOnly Toronto would spend 220 million INT$/km (the cost France or China builds an underground city center metro line) on a tramway that is significantly slower, less frequent and more unreliable than the bus route it replaced.
- Reposted by Jedwin MokRode Line 6 again off-peak as an experiment to see how much faster service could be with optimisation. Trip time: 41 min Dwell from lights: 11 min Dwell from schedule padding: 4 min Actual run time: 26 min Increase the speed limit, and I'd say we could safely do 25 min off-peak/30 min peak.
- Reposted by Jedwin Mokjust took line 6 this evening, two weeks since opening. a smooth 8 min to jane, and then an 8 min ride back (faster than scheduled). -dwell times average 20s per stop -in both directions, my train never hit a red light except at jane st -green transit phase insertion/rotation being tested 1/2
- Reposted by Jedwin Mokto inaugurate the new blog, i've written about a local and contentious topic that's been on my mind for years. at its heart, it's about understanding the information that transit riders need. the case for splitting TTC Line 1:
- Reposted by Jedwin MokToday Futian HSR Station in Shenzhen just installed a dual layer PSD system. Similar to the one I visited in Osaka, Japan; two layers of PSD units can shift around to match the door positions of any train. China has over 50 different HST models with a bunch of different door locations...
- Reposted by Jedwin MokPeople defending the slow speeds on the grounds of social equity have no legs to stand on. Transit (including on Finch) being faster is exactly what delivers big equity gains. It closes the gap with the car for people who *don't* drive.
- Reposted by Jedwin MokSpeed Matters. Some thoughts about transit and speed, life, space and time. open.substack.com/pub/marcochi...
- The suburban centres of Sydney are MUST SEE TV! - Masterful urban integration between indoor/outdoor space - Small retail units for street activation & entrepreneurship - Centered on fast & frequent suburban rail We’ve got much to learn from Australia… (📷 Chatswood, Parramatta, Hurstville)
- Reposted by Jedwin MokThe results from Toronto's Finch West project suggest it will be very important for the function of Muni Metro's on-surface CBTC system to be worked out well before it is installed.
- Reposted by Jedwin MokPlaces that do not understand tram operations: let's run them with train-like positive protection. Places that do understand tram operations: let's build a 100 m-long platform at our busiest stop so both trams and buses can board simultaneously. We trust trained drivers to handle this. (Ulm HB)
- Reposted by Jedwin MokQ: how can we make the street below safer for people outside of cars? toronto transportation services: 💡 force the LRT to operate 20 km/h slower than the adjacent traffic! vision zero! 🥰
- Reposted by Jedwin MokFor people not familiar with the matter: any tram line I'm aware of globally works in so-called "line-of-sight", i.e. it's 100% manually operated by the driver with some protection for single track and switches None use PTO signaling (i.e. that enforce max speed), except on off-street sections
- Reposted by Jedwin Mokif the city truly believed in "vision zero" for finch avenue it would make transit the fast, compelling option to get people out of cars. also, ban a bunch of left turns. also, force tankers to use keele to access the oil terminals. but instead we get the dumbest idea: slowing down the tram
- Reposted by Jedwin MokNot Just Bikes vs. Montreal (Two Years Later)
- Reposted by Jedwin MokThanks to the signaling system, Line 6 drivers can hardly ever drive faster than 30km/h all in the name of safety. The vehicle on a fixed guideway in the middle of the street needs to travel at half the speed limit. Meanwhile cars and big trucks close to the curb can travel at 60km/h.
- Reposted by Jedwin MokVision Zero for motorists, who regularly injure or kill pedestrians and other vehicle occupants 👎 “Vision Zero” for trams, on fixed guideways, keeping them moving at half the speed of motorists 👍
- It’s great that stronger TSP is now a political priority. Unfortunately, our $3B+ tramway will STILL take 46-min to go 10km, slower than the bus. This is due to: - “Vision Zero” speed limits of 35 midblocks, 25 intersections, 15 platforms - speed limits and gradients enforced by unnecessary CBTC
- We’ve blown hundreds of millions on a “high performance” signalling system meant for separated railways, that, on a streetcar, simply imposes a more conservative operating regime. Why? - “Safety never stops so we need the safest signalling ever!” - “LRT is rapid transit, just like the subway!”
- Is system safer if more people choose to drive because we’ve made transit SLOWER? Is Jane & Finch suddenly lifted out of poverty? It’s INDISPUTABLE that the political, myopic, procurement-by-committee project delivery process has yielded high costs and terrible outcomes on Finch West and Eglinton.
- Reposted by Jedwin MokThe TTC Finch W Tramway is a walking disaster and the Montreal REM is a runaway success.
- Reposted by Jedwin Mok
- Reposted by Jedwin MokA new video from Paige Saunders on Canadian High Speed Rail landing on the day we announce the first phase from Ottawa to Montreal? This is amazing. www.youtube.com/watch?si=hyy...
