Sign in

Reece Martin

@rmtransit.bsky.social
18K followers 231 following 4.8K posts

Writer & Reader & Communicator. YouTuber. Focused on infrastructure & technology. Bylines: Globe & Mail, Maclean's, Toronto Star. www.thetransitbrief.net

PostsRepliesMedia
Reece Martin @rmtransit.bsky.social · 1h
A masterful plea for proportional representation from Paige Saunders (contains lots of swears) youtu.be/1iaXqhX0Edk?...
youtu.be
Time To Stop Voting Like Americans
YouTube video by Paige Saunders
070
Reece Martin @rmtransit.bsky.social · 1h
It would be like someone saying "Europeans say passenger rail works but we've seen time and again that that's not true in North America"
100
Reece Martin @rmtransit.bsky.social · 1h
But again, this seems like it's most likely downstream of poor contracting not of the idea of contracting being bad. Saying the EU has a bad idea because some American cities have a problem is not compelling to me.
100
Reece Martin @rmtransit.bsky.social · 4h
I don't know the common denominator here is North America not contract operations
100
Reece Martin @rmtransit.bsky.social · 11h
Not necessarily, its the global lingua franca, there is good to be found.
110
Reece Martin @rmtransit.bsky.social · 11h
I'm much less sure of that. Contracting out transit operations has been quite successful!
100
Reece Martin @rmtransit.bsky.social · 13h
Canadian public transit agencies should work more with the uitp (the international public transport association) and less with apta (the American public transport association), we just have so much to learn from the world and a lot of our mistakes are common with the US.
18316
Reece Martin @rmtransit.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Not really, the system isn't being run very well but it could be run quite well and if it was it would be a good system
120
Reece Martin @rmtransit.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Ottawa has so much potential for its transit network to be excellent.
1250
Reece Martin @rmtransit.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
I mean there are multiple redundant signs which are blocking one another!
010
Reece Martin @rmtransit.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
I'm the wrong person to test this stuff on
110
Reece Martin @rmtransit.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
We should address sign pollution
7611
Reece Martin @rmtransit.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
this is the exact type of thing I’d like to see from Toronto politicians, who frankly should be ahead of the curve on this stuff compared to Vancouver given how much bigger Toronto is
2271
Reece Martin @rmtransit.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
see I don’t think that’s true at all, I’m watching the Vancouver municipal election happening and there’s really substantive discussions about all kinds of things, including Transit signal priority
0140
Reece Martin @rmtransit.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
My political position is to support politicians and policies that make a Transit better. I think FasttrackTO he is doing great work and I’m going to try to continue to push that forward.
0150
Reece Martin @rmtransit.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
I really appreciate anyone who runs for public office, it’s really not easy and I think everyone should try to treat others with grace and kindness.
1100
Reece Martin @rmtransit.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
I like some of Brad’s ideas, legitimately, but the issue for me just comes down to being quite clearly disingenuous about one’s viewpoint. I’m 100% sympathetic and appreciating of people changing their views, but it needs to be a sincere thing.
260
Reece Martin @rmtransit.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
I really am not a partisan, which can sometimes make life hard. I think different political movements get different things right and wrong and obviously progressives are usually better on Transit, but not always!
1100
Reece Martin @rmtransit.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
My goal is to be critical, but never to be a jerk. Being mayor is obviously not easy, but we also legitimately do need to sort out the Transit network because it’s not getting better at the moment.
1120
Reece Martin @rmtransit.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
I know I’ve been hard on Chow in the lead up to the election. This is because I think she’s the most likely winner and I am truly not happy with the state of transit in the city. I know she has her heart in the right place. I hope she will make Transit a bigger focus.
3341
Reece Martin @rmtransit.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
This has essentially not come up at all despite a municipal election this month. It makes me want to bang my head against a wall.
3445
Reece Martin @rmtransit.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
🫠
12600
Reece Martin @rmtransit.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
A train every 30 minutes lol? But for real if Bart was overlaid on Los Angeles and covered sort of a long north-south and a long East-West corridor and ran every 4 minutes then I think it would be more comparable (also probably like 70% underground to follow super direct alignments)
020
Reece Martin @rmtransit.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
I mean not really because if you look at the GTX train it looks like a metro train with bench seats and the end-to-end journey really isn't that long so I wouldn't call it similar to original train in really any way
100
Reece Martin @rmtransit.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
We got lots of questions and discussion on what exactly makes high speed metro different, this new post hopes to clarify why this really is something distinct! open.substack.com/pub/thetrans...
open.substack.com
High speed metro really is something new.
Not an interconnected suburban line, but a very fast metro.
3286
Reposted by Reece Martin
Alon (they/them) @alonlevy.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
When the condemned tells jokes about the hanging, it's gallows humor. When the executioner does, it's part of the humiliation of execution.
3272
Reece Martin @rmtransit.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
I don't think she wants it to happen but there is some element of acceptance in joking about this. Especially when the person doing the joking is not the person whose country is under threat.
170
Reece Martin @rmtransit.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
My personal view has less to do with intent and more with the lack of intent. Casually talking about or joking about this makes it feel less absurd and like it is in some sense real. It's hard to describe exactly what I'm feeling.
040
Reece Martin @rmtransit.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
I think it's best to not try to decide where other people's lines for humor on stuff like this is I don't think I'd ever joke about 9/11
110
Reece Martin @rmtransit.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
It's not that I think someone's a maga supporter because they joke about this stuff, it's that I think joking about someone's country being disappeared is in poor taste
190
Reece Martin @rmtransit.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
I think the problem is that even this rubs people the wrong way and I think for good reason
2170
Reece Martin @rmtransit.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Very good if a very improbable way of acting.
000
Reece Martin @rmtransit.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Of all the things you can do, people still seem to underrate… just being around good people. Read my latest post now: cinqpersonnes.substack.com/p/surroundin...
cinqpersonnes.substack.com
Surrounding yourself with great people is the highest leverage thing you can do.
The most important thing that has happened in my adult life.
0110
Reece Martin @rmtransit.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
It's remarkable that "this isn't funny" itself isn't even well understood.
2352
Reposted by Reece Martin
Oh The Urbanity! @ohtheurbanity.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
I started watching that video but stopped when she made jokes about "Lake America" and referred to "Toronto, America"
3301
Reece Martin @rmtransit.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Most things taken to their extreme are bad
000
Reece Martin @rmtransit.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
This is very good to see but I remain extremely concerned. From Bill Gates interview with Ezra Klein
2244
Reece Martin @rmtransit.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Well, at one point the design had the new tunnels serving a new southern stub end facility, idk what the plan currently is
320
Reece Martin @rmtransit.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Sad to see hundreds of workers laid off in a single tariff driven swoop.
0110
Reece Martin @rmtransit.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Is that a no
120
Reece Martin @rmtransit.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Re what?
120
Reece Martin @rmtransit.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
For obvious reasons I haven't been talking a lot about Transit issues stateside but good to see gateway tunnels progressing. Do we know if the Penn Station design is one of the ones that prevents through running?
3220
Reece Martin @rmtransit.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
To be clear we don't even have enough signs for the amount of slow zones we have
1180
Reece Martin @rmtransit.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
"Stick with what's working"
1220
Reposted by Reece Martin
Thomas something @thomassomething.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
I asked ALTO people during consultation if they would take up other Canada HSR projects or even extensions to the Toronto-Quebec city line, & got an extremely strong "NO"
1101
Reece Martin @rmtransit.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Absolutely but it seems unlikely at this point
000
Reece Martin @rmtransit.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
The one notable policy is trivial Fare freezes that ultimately starve the system of one of its big sources of funding
0200
Reece Martin @rmtransit.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
I saw a progress Toronto ad today that was talking about how things are going really well in the city and I just felt gaslit given the state of the transit network. Transit should be a key part of a progressive vision of Toronto and it doesn't feel like it currently is getting much attention.
1441
Reece Martin @rmtransit.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
There is a desperate need for something common across the different provinces less we continue to reinvent the wheel again and again
050
Reece Martin @rmtransit.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Thank goodness
020