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Jedwin Mok

@jedwinmok.com
2.2K followers 459 following 255 posts

Transport Planner & Researcher Creative Director | cityux.com Research Lead | infrastoryinsights.com youtu.be/vAygH6SZg28?si=lY-5xtbZl6y…

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Jedwin Mok @jedwinmok.com · 12/08/2026
No, I don't agree with that line specifically, we are 10x-15x higher cost on a per-km basis vs global peers. This is clarified in the article with some NYU data. I think this may just be a miswording: everyone is facing pressures, *yet* inflation-adjusted costs have not risen in low-cost countries.
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Jedwin Mok @jedwinmok.com · 02/08/2026
Can confirm. As Gabe posted this I'm in beautiful Prague riding trams that are nearly 10km/h faster on average than Toronto's, despite having large sections in mixed traffic. Let's catch up with the rest of the world, reduce emissions and boost the economy!
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Jedwin Mok @jedwinmok.com · 15/07/2026
Neuperlach in Munich would give any Canadian planner a heart attack… - suburban transit has to be fast and well integrated - the indoor mall does not suck all life away from the street - suburban towers can have good street-level activation - cheap street experiments can work in the suburbs
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Jedwin Mok @jedwinmok.com · 23/06/2026
How can we even begin addressing the problem if we can’t even acknowledge we have one?
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Jedwin Mok @jedwinmok.com · 23/06/2026
Montreal’s Blue Line Extension believes they are building at “competitive” costs. The project is over $1B/km… Italy, Spain, and South Korea (democracies with environmental laws!) are building underground metros for ~$150M/km. The global average is ~ $300M/km! montrealgazette.com/news/costs-o...
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Jedwin Mok @jedwinmok.com · 17/06/2026
Metrolinx will soon “set up a procurement to think through how to best procure 1400 rail cars - specifically EMUs” Disappointed that we need a procurement for the procurement for a world-standard technology, but 11 years after GO RER, a decision has been made. baby steps, baby steps…
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Jedwin Mok @jedwinmok.com · 27/05/2026
Toronto’s transit cost disease has hit… metal fences. Just a reminder that $2M CAD is about the cost of half height PSGs for one platform in Hong Kong. Then we use NYC to justify our wild cost estimates for actual screen doors. The incuriosity and Anglo echo-chamber here is astounding.
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Jedwin Mok @jedwinmok.com · 31/12/2025
Without 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
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Jedwin Mok @jedwinmok.com · 31/12/2025
What might’ve looked like a series of short, nonsensical stub lines just 20 years ago now form the basis for one of the best planned metro networks on earth. 200K+ people attending this year’s festivities can use all 3 lines across 8 stations no matter their destination! 7/
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Jedwin Mok @jedwinmok.com · 31/12/2025
Pulling this off required an incredible feat of long-term planning & engineering: - preserved ROWs for lines & junctions - ‘overbuilt’ stations for their expected final state - weaving, underpinning, & tight tolerances Line colors in this 2007 map are set in preparation for the end state. 6/
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Jedwin Mok @jedwinmok.com · 31/12/2025
Look closely! The secret of the network lies before the primary lines enter into a grid pattern: a series of 4 cross-platform interchanges across 4 high-capacity lines. Each line interacts with every other DESPITE the grid, creating easy directional transfers & distributing the load. 5/
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Jedwin Mok @jedwinmok.com · 31/12/2025
This metro grid facilitates trips from anywhere to anywhere, meaning event attendees don’t really care what line they take. It’s only possible as a result of steady investment and careful planning towards an ambitious vision first dreamt up by consultants in the 1970s. 4/
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Jedwin Mok @jedwinmok.com · 31/12/2025
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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Jedwin Mok @jedwinmok.com · 31/12/2025
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/
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Jedwin Mok @jedwinmok.com · 31/12/2025
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/🧵
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Jedwin Mok @jedwinmok.com · 16/12/2025
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)
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Jedwin Mok @jedwinmok.com · 15/12/2025
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
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Jedwin Mok @jedwinmok.com · 07/12/2025
We’ve gotta talk about the Finch West megaramp… There’s no way that the additional excavation required for all that station volume isn’t more expensive than a simple elevator. It’s also such an insult to force anyone with mobility issues to walk 3x the distance!
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Jedwin Mok @jedwinmok.com · 07/12/2025
Foamer szn
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Jedwin Mok @jedwinmok.com · 07/12/2025
Bunching and short turns, just like the streetcar network :)
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Jedwin Mok @jedwinmok.com · 07/12/2025
Finch West LRT, day one
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Jedwin Mok @jedwinmok.com · 29/11/2025
At $240M/km, Finch West LRT is… - MORE expensive per-km than the Sheppard Subway - 2X the per-km cost of the Montreal REM & underground metros in other developed nations … for a tram that’s SLOWER than a bus in traffic. Let’s not mislead the public; Line 6 should be the 536 Finch West streetcar!
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Jedwin Mok @jedwinmok.com · 24/07/2025
Some GTFS data for REM was released recently and… holy shit will this project fundamentally change Montreal’s geography. I suspect ridership is underestimated, particularly if feeders are done properly. This is how high impact, low cost transit projects create modal shift folks (📷 via agoramtl)
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Jedwin Mok @jedwinmok.com · 19/07/2025
Did I mention the Zandvoort F1 Dutch style bike valet??
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Jedwin Mok @jedwinmok.com · 19/07/2025
Meanwhile in Winnipeg, Manitoba, a city of 783,000…
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Jedwin Mok @jedwinmok.com · 30/06/2025
Ah. Classic
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Jedwin Mok @jedwinmok.com · 30/06/2025
Lives rent free in my head
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Jedwin Mok @jedwinmok.com · 30/06/2025
👏 MORE 👏 OF 👏 THIS
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Jedwin Mok @jedwinmok.com · 30/06/2025
Hurontario LRT construction, as seen from above… … showing the stupidity of building it as a surface tramway. The line will cost $300M+/km, more than 2x the cost of fully underground metros in other developed nations…
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Jedwin Mok @jedwinmok.com · 25/06/2025
Toronto city council’s reaction to literally anything is demanding more consultation. Bus lanes, Pedestrian streets, Platform screen doors, legal apartments… BASICS in any global city. The horror! Council is literally afraid of getting anything done - and it’ll cost Chow the mayoralty in 2026.
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Jedwin Mok @jedwinmok.com · 17/06/2025
Chinese century (📸 @yonahfreemark.com )
Cities with PSDs in the AmericasCities w PSDs in Asia
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Jedwin Mok @jedwinmok.com · 11/06/2025
Unfortunately, as we know, two pillars - RapidTO and GO Expansion - are currently in a sorry state. RapidTO originally consisted of 5 initial corridors - Jane, Dufferin, Bathurst, Steeles, and Eglinton East - which by my rough math would’ve served more than 272,000 RIDERS PER DAY. 10/
RapidTO Plan
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Jedwin Mok @jedwinmok.com · 11/06/2025
This is a common misunderstanding about the project: OL provides network relief precisely because it makes 2nd order connections to the bus network through GO - not just because it connects to the existing subway at Pape! Our 3 pillars MUST work together to deliver the new transport paradigm. 9/
Ontario Line boardings by station per hour (incl. transfers), Preliminary design business case
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Jedwin Mok @jedwinmok.com · 11/06/2025
Our second pillar, GO Expansion, takes advantage of trunk-feeder travel patterns & increased service from RapidTO to provide relief for the subway system. Here’s the trick: By establishing a radial network of frequent express rail lines, GO can intercept bus riders BEFORE they reach the subway. 7/
Bus riders on Finch East (one of Toronto's busiest bus routes) no longer have to slog all the way to Yonge street on the bus, instead transferring to a frequent Stouffville Line
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Jedwin Mok @jedwinmok.com · 11/06/2025
Take the Yonge subway - the city’s most important transit artery. Many people think that its crowding comes from all the dense development along the line - this is FALSE. The vast majority of trips on the subway - 77% - come from Toronto’s world-class grid of connecting local busses. 3/
The Yonge Street corridor - lined with towersToronto's frequent connecting grid of suburban busses
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Jedwin Mok @jedwinmok.com · 11/06/2025
Today, congestion is crippling NA’s fastest growing city - its rail network is far beyond capacity, surface transit is constantly stuck in traffic, and roads are too dangerous for active transportation. ALL 3 pillars above are CRITICAL to solving this crisis. For example: 2/
crowded Toronto subway. image from cbcstreetcar stuck in traffic. image from global news
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Jedwin Mok @jedwinmok.com · 08/06/2025
With the opening of the REM, RTL’s local busses (and soon STM, Exo, & STL) no longer have to make long, duplicative trips into the city center, freeing up THOUSANDS of service hours for better local service. There’s certainly problems with the REM’s execution - but this isn’t one!
RTL services across the Champlain Bridge, 2022RTL services post-REM opening, terminating at Panama
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Jedwin Mok @jedwinmok.com · 14/05/2025
Clearly the correct solution here is to rip out the useless, ugly, 1900s ass, bad for ops, “heritage” trainshed; replace it and electrify with OCS. The fact that “municipal heritage” overrides the most important infrastructure project in the country is a MASSIVE indictment of our planning process.
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Jedwin Mok @jedwinmok.com · 14/05/2025
Also spoken about publicly for the first time yesterday: MX has been cornered into a “better” solution. EMUs running fully electric on the lakeshores using the new south platforms at Union (where there is no trainshed). Then hybrid BEMUs for discontinuous electrification on Kitchener-Stouffville.
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Jedwin Mok @jedwinmok.com · 11/05/2025
I cannot stress enough how crippling this is to BASIC CITY FUNCTIONS. If civic projects are subject to endless process, everything will be expensive. If everything is expensive, NOTHING is feasible. If nothing is feasible, then livable urban places are IMPOSSIBLE. 2/ (By @hudsonyuen.bsky.social)
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Jedwin Mok @jedwinmok.com · 11/05/2025
Why does Toronto & nearly every other NA city, seem so slow, costly, & dysfunctional? It’s partly because “Functioning City 101” projects (in this case, RED PAINT) ‘won’t happen unless the public shows up.’ Instead, we endlessly litigate them to coddle fear-mongering homeowners & politicians. 1/🧵
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Jedwin Mok @jedwinmok.com · 19/04/2025
The time for extending the Sheppard subway is NOW, before Toronto’s largest housing sites begin construction: - cheap C&C tunnel under the massive new Downsview development ~63,000 housing units - elevated eastern extension to STC, an existing bus hub and expected for ~20,000 housing units
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Jedwin Mok @jedwinmok.com · 06/03/2025
The crazy thing is that it (mostly) exists already
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Jedwin Mok @jedwinmok.com · 05/03/2025
$10B of the $18B budget is dedicated to risk management. That’s enough to build the previous regional metro plan (REM d’lest) that would actually deliver the network-level benefits being claimed. A street-level tram is also the lowest risk transit project possible - what is being managed here?
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Jedwin Mok @jedwinmok.com · 05/03/2025
An $18B feeder tramway that does the job of a bus worse than a bus. I don’t think I’ve hated a rail transit project this much in my life…
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Jedwin Mok @jedwinmok.com · 29/12/2024
Who says elevated railways can’t integrate into the surrounding urban fabric? Here in Taipei, the Muzha line plugs directly into the upper levels of surrounding developments, creating fantastic indoor public spaces. This mall even facilitates transfers to an underground line!
Front of metro trainPlatform adjacent to mall
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Jedwin Mok @jedwinmok.com · 06/12/2024
The easiest way to explain why contingency is considered a “soft” cost is this passage from @egoldwyn.bsky.social and @alonlevy.bsky.social . Contingency is a cost - representative of process - because it is budgeted for and set aside, which sets precedent on what can be spent during delivery.
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Jedwin Mok @jedwinmok.com · 05/12/2024
Green line is exactly the example we use to illustrate this problem!
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Jedwin Mok @jedwinmok.com · 05/12/2024
If we get our costs down, the region-shaping projects Canadian planners have dreamed of for DECADES can be delivered within the CURRENT budget. This is just a sneak peek - read the full report to learn how we can drive down capital costs, and more! 8/8 stateofcitiessummit.ca/report
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Jedwin Mok @jedwinmok.com · 05/12/2024
High costs are NOT inevitable. Other developed nations build complex, cutting-edge metro projects at half the cost of surface tramways in Canada. Domestic projects like the Vancouver Canada Line, Montreal REM, and Waterloo ION show that low-costs are possible in Canada. 7/
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