Reece Martin
Canadian transit commentator; creator of the RMTransit YouTube channel and founder and principal writer of The Transit Brief, a newsletter on public transit and infrastructure policy. Has written for The Globe and Mail, Maclean's and the Toronto Star.
Reece Martin did not write this page.
We collected these quotes from things they published elsewhere, and every quote links to where it was said. They have no account here and have not endorsed this site. Quotes are word for word; the short line under each one is our own restatement, not their wording. Their own site. Is this you? Claim it or ask us to remove it. Or tell us what is wrong here.
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Their wordsWaymo and driverless vehicles have enormous long-term implications for the transportation system, particularly in North America where road capacity is very high.
↗Waymo is coming, and we must act.thetransitbrief.net 1st of 3 in this piece
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Our reading
Poor policy regarding driverless vehicles could lead to short-term traffic congestion and chaos.
Their wordsPoor policy will lead to a mess in the short term, with vehicles blocking traffic, driving congestion, and creating chaos.
↗Waymo is coming, and we must act.thetransitbrief.net 2nd of 3 in this piece
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Their wordsOf course, over time, this price difference is likely to flip.
↗Waymo is coming, and we must act.thetransitbrief.net 3rd of 3 in this piece
- 2 days earlier
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Their wordsthe shambolic state of the transportation system, which wastes hundreds of hours of citizens' lives each year, reduces our productivity, and has all kinds of collateral damage is one of, if not the biggest problem staring us down.
↗GTA transit is a mess, and we have only ourselves to blame.thetransitbrief.net 1st of 2 in this piece
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Their wordsThe streetcars in Toronto are likely to be the slowest trams anywhere in the world by a fair margin
↗GTA transit is a mess, and we have only ourselves to blame.thetransitbrief.net 2nd of 2 in this piece
- 5 days earlier
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Their wordsThe Quebec City-Windsor corridor indisputably must be better connected if Canada is to thrive.
↗If not high-speed rail, then what?thetransitbrief.net 1st of 3 in this piece
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Their wordsAirports ought to be well-connected to regional and intercity trains because of how complementary the services can be.
↗If not high-speed rail, then what?thetransitbrief.net 2nd of 3 in this piece
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Our reading
The lack of a single body responsible for connecting interconnected regions is a problem.
Their wordsRight now, there isn't a single body responsible for connecting all of these naturally interconnected regions, and that's probably a problem.
↗If not high-speed rail, then what?thetransitbrief.net 3rd of 3 in this piece
- 6 weeks earlier
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Their wordsTransit projects - from subways to bus rapid transit - in Canada, and in the English-speaking world writ large, cost far more than projects in many other developed and developing countries, even when adjusting for inflation and differences in the relative value of currencies and inputs.
↗Why transit suddenly costs so much.thetransitbrief.net 1st of 3 in this piece
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Their wordsthe problem leading to 5 or 10 times more expensive infrastructure in Toronto or New York is not generally that any one thing is being done ten times worse, but that factors are multiplicative - they compound.
↗Why transit suddenly costs so much.thetransitbrief.net 2nd of 3 in this piece
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Their wordsThis is reflected by the fact that soft costs - that is, not heavy construction, but planning and engineering - now sometimes cost as much as the entire project might in a place like Italy or Chile.
↗Why transit suddenly costs so much.thetransitbrief.net 3rd of 3 in this piece
- 13 days earlier
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Their wordsTransit-oriented development has taken over Canada. What used to be largely limited to Vancouver and Toronto has gone nationwide, while in Toronto and Vancouver it has become ubiquitous.
↗Transit-Oriented Nation.thetransitbrief.net 1st of 3 in this piece
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Their wordsWhile critics sometimes highlight the embodied carbon of concrete, the reality is that people living in apartments emit dramatically fewer greenhouse gases than those dwelling in single-family homes - thanks to dramatically smaller transport emissions and smaller living spaces.
↗Transit-Oriented Nation.thetransitbrief.net 2nd of 3 in this piece
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Their wordsMany Canadian cities will have 10% to 30% more electric rail a decade from now, unlocking far more land for potential TOD.
↗Transit-Oriented Nation.thetransitbrief.net 3rd of 3 in this piece
- 5 weeks earlier
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Our reading
Rail automation in Canada could unlock massive transit service expansion and improved speed.
Their wordsRail automation should be much more widespread in Canada, and would unlock a massive expansion in transit service as well as improvements in speed, but this doesn't look how you imagine.
↗Automate the trains!thetransitbrief.net 1st of 3 in this piece
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Their wordsThe old way that GO ran trains, with a crew taking a train from the suburbs to the city, hanging out for a few hours and parking the train on the most expensive real estate in the country, then driving it back at night, is horrifically inefficient
↗Automate the trains!thetransitbrief.net 2nd of 3 in this piece
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Their wordsThe biggest problem is honestly the lack of any modern signalling system on GO, or for that matter any mainline railway in Canada, which means we have a shocking number of train derailments, constant near misses that could easily become mass casualty events, and a rail system which most developed countries would find unacceptably unsafe.
↗Automate the trains!thetransitbrief.net 3rd of 3 in this piece
- 3 weeks earlier
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Their wordsI've talked about this before, but I think redundancy is a really underrated part of great transit networks. Giving you multiple ways to get from one place to another is important because when you need to shut down for inevitable maintenance, when there are inevitable problems, or when you want to reroute people because of an event or something, having redundancy is what allows you to do that.
↗Quality Still Matters in Transit.thetransitbrief.net 1st of 3 in this piece
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Their wordsAnd that's because ultimately what makes it transportation system good is less at scale, but it's ability to connect to important places and cities only have so many important places.
↗Quality Still Matters in Transit.thetransitbrief.net 2nd of 3 in this piece
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Their wordsI've argued in the past that a model of transit building where you add a new line every couple of years is probably a healthier place than one where you do it every couple of decades because it keeps the institutional capacity to build new infrastructure alive and well.
↗Quality Still Matters in Transit.thetransitbrief.net 3rd of 3 in this piece