Its easy to conveniently ignore that other countries in Europe have developed cycling infrastructure to combat the negatives of biking in the winter.

Countries in Europe are also a lot more densely populated. Towns and cities are a lot closer to each other. The distances most people have to travel are shorter.

Yes, there are a lot of lessons we can learn from Europe and other places, but not every solution will work universally.

It’s not a small minority who cannot manage as pedestrians, with active or even better public transportation.

Easily said, for a healthy young adult who doesn’t have to support young children.

Having been entirely car free until we had young children, it was a true eye opener to have to confront how difficult it is to get kids to medical appointments and activities without a car.

Urban design doesn’t provide infrastructure for families in the core. It’s not just a transportation choice issue. Cities would need to be designed very differently and greater physical and social accommodations for children and persons with disabilities and neurodivergence would be needed.

When kids became part of our lives, we deliberately chose to live as close to the core and public transit as we could and still be near schools, community centres and hospitals. It still put us in a semi-suburban style older neighborhood where some reliance on a car became necessary.

Unreliability of public transit is much more problematic when you have to transport young children who chill quickly when not moving in deeply cold weather.

Also, many children cannot consistently meet the behavioural expectations adults on public transit or elsewhere.

Adults aren’t shy to tell parents that they shouldn’t bring their kids into public spaces when they can’t meet behavioural expectations, but getting a kid having a meltdown home or a sick kid to a physician or hospital without a car is nearly impossible.

We made the choice to be a single car family to limit our environmental impact but that in itself was very challenging.

By the time our kids were independent teens, we found our own physical limitations with ageing reduced the viability of active transportation as our main approach. We could choose to move to another area but not without pushing our kids out to find their own housing.

Sure, I’ve done the same in the city. Doesn’t work that well in rural settings.

Try biking in a couple miles in -20C and black ice on the road

Its easy to conveniently ignore that other countries in Europe have developed cycling infrastructure to combat the negatives of biking in the winter.

Its just called prioritising bike infrastructure on par with cars, i.e. clearing snow and bike paths that aren’t reliant on car infrastructure in the first place.

K but the V = trains.

You’re saying that as if I don’t understand, I have a physical disability, as well as kids and now grandkids, and being able to bike offers greater freedom than the financial burden of a car, most people cannot handle the financial burden of a car, including one that costs $5000 + ongoing insurance premiums.

Stats Canada says that the majority of people are only using their cars for very short trips. We’re talking less than 15 minutes. Some use it for less than a half hour and even fewer use it for an hour or longer. The problem is we’ve gotten used to taking the car for everything, including those less than 15 minute trips. Even if you weren’t physically able to be a pedestrian, you still have options, and if not, we should make those options available rather than restricting movement to car owners.

We have so many examples of this being accomplished all over the world and it’s such a disservice to our country and our municipalities to say that it can’t be done. Clearly it can be done with effort and that effort has to come from the ground roots all the way up to our municipal provincial and federal governments.

Most of what you’re describing is car dependency, quite literally. We can change that as a society, but not if we continue to resign ourselves to cars.

In northern Canada, it gets so cold that bikes aren’t viable. Try biking a couple miles in -20C and black ice on the road before you make blanket statements like this.

In northern Canada, it gets so cold that bikes aren’t viable. Try biking a couple miles in -20C and black ice on the road before you make blanket statements like this.

And very fast trains.

Very convenient, for you, to ignore that there’s more than a single solution to the issue.

If you build the infrastructure, make it safe, reliable, and more importantly useful, people will come.

Distance also becomes much easier to deal with when you build usable neighbourhoods with working transit solutions mixed use neighbourhoods reduce car use because the cornerstone, now created and only a block or two away from you, sells your food, the train/tram/subway is just a bit further, that takes you elsewhere in your town or city.

This isn’t rocket science, the reason Canada is so car dependant is that we cater our business to large stores with larger parking lits to satisfy car based businesses rather than anything else.

You don’t need density to create viable transit infrastructure, you need a will to move beyond cars as the default and only perspective. You don’t need a universal, one size fits all solution (this is what cars are touted as), you need a solution that suits the environment that its created within.

We don’t really have places to put them domestically, until we do a buttload of complicated and expensive land acquisition, and I wouldn’t want to try and sell HSR abroad built in a country that doesn’t really have much.

In northern Canada, it gets so cold that bikes aren’t viable. Try biking a couple miles in -20C and black ice on the road before you make blanket statements like this.

That said, with a changing global market in mind, countries have been more willing to get involved in the planning and development of national automotive companies. Mexico’s “Olinia”, for instance, is a planned EV line set to be led by a new federal ministry, with a focus on affordability. As noted in its initial press release, the target demographic is families and young people, with three models expected to cost between US $4,400 to US $7,400—significantly lower than other EVs sold in the country.

The idea is that a nationally led framework will aid in the project’s coordination, with production intended to take place across several regions to keep costs down. Government ownership will also ensure a reliable stream of investment and that the end product is something attainable by the average Mexican family.

Turkey is pursuing a similar project through its Automobile Joint Venture Group (TOGG), a consortium of companies with the support and financial backing of the government. The goal is to create a national brand of EVs, with some models already being available for purchase.

With Mexico and Turkey offering prospective templates, Canada need not reinvent the wheel in pursuing its own, publicly owned automaker. Only the federal government has the ability to operate a program of this magnitude by bringing together our natural resources, skilled workforce, and industrial capacity to create a sustainable and affordable Canadian brand.

There are a lot of fine options indeed, but nowhere near the affordability they could achieve today IMHO. EVs can be made very cheaply and every month the price of LiFePo4 (the cheaper and more robust, slightly less dense type) batteries is going down. Very few small cheap BEV cars are available. A Citroen Ami is like ~8-10k€; that (very cute) thing should cost maybe half of that.

I’m sorry but I just don’t buy that. Canada built its original rail system coast to coast in the 19th century with a population of 4 million and a highway coast to coast in the 60’s with a population of 20 million. We can make HSR happen today with a population of 40 million. We just need some vision.

We don’t really have places to put them domestically, until we do a buttload of complicated and expensive land acquisition, and I wouldn’t want to try and sell HSR abroad built in a country that doesn’t really have much.

We could build two right now - one in Ontario and one in Alberta (parallel to QEII) - on existing land grants. Instead, we just keep making the highways wider.

In northern Canada, it gets so cold that bikes aren’t viable. Try biking a couple miles in -20C and black ice on the road before you make blanket statements like this.

That said, with a changing global market in mind, countries have been more willing to get involved in the planning and development of national automotive companies. Mexico’s “Olinia”, for instance, is a planned EV line set to be led by a new federal ministry, with a focus on affordability. As noted in its initial press release, the target demographic is families and young people, with three models expected to cost between US $4,400 to US $7,400—significantly lower than other EVs sold in the country.

The idea is that a nationally led framework will aid in the project’s coordination, with production intended to take place across several regions to keep costs down. Government ownership will also ensure a reliable stream of investment and that the end product is something attainable by the average Mexican family.

Turkey is pursuing a similar project through its Automobile Joint Venture Group (TOGG), a consortium of companies with the support and financial backing of the government. The goal is to create a national brand of EVs, with some models already being available for purchase.

With Mexico and Turkey offering prospective templates, Canada need not reinvent the wheel in pursuing its own, publicly owned automaker. Only the federal government has the ability to operate a program of this magnitude by bringing together our natural resources, skilled workforce, and industrial capacity to create a sustainable and affordable Canadian brand.