As 2025/26 has proved, rumors of the death of winter are greatly exaggerated.

[straphanger@urbanists.social]

As 2025/26 has proved, rumors of the death of winter are greatly exaggerated.

That's a big problem for sustainable transportation in North America.

I believe *not* planning for severe winters links breakdowns of the REM light-metro in #Montreal ...

🧵

[straphanger@urbanists.social]

...the stranding and cancellation of VIA Rail trains in #Ontario and #Quebec — thanks in large part to snow blowing into new Siemens Charger locomotives...

[straphanger@urbanists.social]

...and the failure to perform basic maintenance of bicycle lane infrastructure in #Toronto and #Montreal by plowing the snow. That's going to prove to be a big problem as we move farther into the era of climate breakdown.

[straphanger@urbanists.social]

In this week's HIGH SPEED dispatch, I make the case that cities in North America are suffering from a seriously unsustainable case of winter-denial.

Winter? What Winter?

When Our Transport Systems Struggle with Climate Breakdown

High Speed (www.highspeed.blog)

[jfmezei@cosocial.ca]

@straphanger Underestimating the costs of a project you started on the back of a napkin to impress politicians may have forced CDPQ to skimp on many areas needed to handle winter service once they got their reality check on the cost of rebuilding the Deux Montagnes Line.

Exo had working tracks to Deux Montagnes for their electrified train.
The knowledge and technology is there.

[tezoatlipoca@mas.to]

@straphanger

Snow? in the engines? Would just like to point out that that is a wildly unexpected and rare occurance, especially in Canada. Chance in a million really. How could anyone reasonably expect to design against such a random occurance.

[gurre@mastodon.nu]

@straphanger @peterbrown
Except we don't really do that. More common for bike lanes to be dumping grounds for the snow from car lanes. And the companies* doing the plowing have sometimes even been convicted of faking their plowing when just riding around with the plow up and GPS on.

*Sweden went all-in on New Public Management. For-profit school system