Actually, Canada is a leader in high speed rail studies.

I can’t tell for BlueSky because I have not joined yet, but I did create a Mastodon account months ago and I’m not sure what to do with it or how to interact with others. I find it confusing.

On Twitter I was mostly following a bunch of like minded people, liking their stuff, and I could see what they liked too. But on Mastodon there’s uuh, boosts and favorites?! I’m not sure of how it works or what I’m doing. I can’t just “like” posts? I have to boost them?! I found the people I liked that were on Twitter, but on Mastodon I feel like there’s nothing I can do aside from seeing posts and it’s just not attractive.

Yes, same for me.

I’ve been working nights for about 20 years and it was easier when I was younger. Now that I am in my early 40ies I find it more difficult to just go to bed and sleep.

Some weeks I can keep a steady schedule, sleep during the day and feel well rested, but other weeks I can’t get more than a few hours during the day and feel miserable when I work.

However it’s also changing with seasons and things I do during the weekend. I tend to sleep less in summer because of the heat and the light. Also I go camping during the weekends and have to sleep during the night, then switch back to day sleeping during the week. It’s much easier in winter because it’s always cold and dark and I just stay home.

So, it varies a lot for me.

Yeah pretty often. It goes even further, as in, I don’t want to participate in society, or forced capitalism, in general. I’m aware I’m part of it but I always tried to not be a part of that shitty system. I’m not buying a house, no car, no gas to buy, no superior education, no certifications or high paying job. I just wasted my “potential” and will continue to do so.

To me it looks like a big chuck of people have some sort of Stockholm syndrome towards capitalism and how our society makes us think this is some sort of meritocracy.

That being said, my behaviour can also be linked to my spicy brain. I’m probably neurodivergent but the health system where I live doesn’t help adults with that.

In short, I’m disappointed by what I see around me and I don’t want to join the game. I don’t want to join the competition of poors against poors

Je vais le croire quand je vais le voir.

I’m not sure about the circlejerk thing. I am vehemently anti car and would like to circlejerk on one of the many “fuck cars” communities, but any post that gets some attention gets filled by comments of people not from those communities.

So I very often see posts where I agree with the content but the discussion and the comments are all over the place, from car apologists that are like “but IIIIIIIII live in the woods therefore public transit is not feasible for anyone”, and it makes “circlejerking” difficult.

Like, if you have a community about mushroom and want to have enthusiasts discussing mycology, it’ll be fine until a thread becomes popular and fills with users not from that community, asking what is mycology and why they should care.

To be honest, I had the same issue on reddit too and that’s a major reason why I stopped going there.

I go camping for an additional night. I already planned to bike and camp to the closest national park one last time before winter, this weekend, but I would gladly add one night to the trip and go right now instead of tomorrow.

Left alone, as in “colonize” a bit more on the land they are stealing? Ah but we must understand Israelis, they just need a little Lebensraum to “defend themselves” from the people they stole land from.

Israel just need to “colonize” and expand on other people’s land by killing those already living there. They obviously just want to be left alone doing their “colonizing” and bringing civilization to otherwise barren lands.

I’d show you images of Israel expanding and taking more Palestinian land over the decades but you’ll probably say those are propaganda and that since Palestine is not recognized, killing their people and stealing their land is totally fine and in the line of wanting to be “left alone”.

Well, the tower was also supposed to be temporary and yet, it’s still there 137 years later.

The last liberal government in Québec did that, but for a transit line (the REM).

They killed the only profitable commuter train line (DM) and literally gave it to a for profit entity (CDPQ) so they can transform it into a metro line. So now the public transit entities cannot compete with the private one, and even has to pay it royalties for something like 99 years.

I repeat, the public transit entity (ARTM) cannot compete against the for profit one, AND must pay it royalties for every passenger.

So now the ARTM doesn’t have the revenues from its defunct most popular commuter line, and must pay royalties on top of that. Public money, going straight into a for profit organization.

The new light rail line was not even working in 2023 and the public already had to pay $2.4 million to the CDPQ.

And those defending that model say that the CDPQ is a retirement investment firm that is profiting Quebecers, but their goal is still to make money. Unprofitable lines will be cut or never developed, even if needed.

They are literally privatizing public transit and some people are encouraging it saying that’s how we now have to build transit. It’s the way of the future!

Meanwhile the public transit entity says it’s not sure it can now maintain some of the other commuter lines and will have to look into cutting expenses and/or service.

Sigh…

EDIT: Source for the price the ARTM has to pay: https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/rem-hikes-per-passenger-payment-from-artm-even-before-it-starts-running

deleted by creator

The one about the memorial built in advance for a damn disaster that they all saw coming but did nothing about, except for the memorial of the future victims.

This disaster will have been preventable. All of the warning signs are here now. Yet, no one will have fucking done anything about it.

I have no idea. Electricity, heat and hot water are included in my rent.

And I’m sure they already have a team filtering through that crap. Poor them.

That reminds me that the mayor of Paris decided to just quit that shit hole last year.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/27/paris-mayor-anne-hidalgo-quits-x-calling-social-media-site-a-gigantic-global-sewer

It also reminds me that lots of media sites won’t allow comments on their YouTube videos or on some of their articles because they can predict exactly the kind of BS they are going to get, and nobody from the Canadian Civil Liberties Association is saying that it’s unreasonable and limiting people’s freedom of expression.

They can still reach the mayor’s office through official channels. They can write open letters in the media. They have multiple other ways to make their shitty opinions heard. X formally known as Twitter is not fundamental to freedom of expression.

And those same people were thriving and doing much better when Trump was president?

When I saw the title through my news feed, I knew exactly what it was about.

And it’s totally ridiculous and unrealistic to expect her to allow every right wing asshole on X formally known as Twitter to send her heinous messages and ad hominem. She should just quit that cesspool.

I went there for a while and every fucking post that I tried to make, or follow, within my “community” and followers, ended up being flooded by hateful messages, the worst ones being from paying accounts and highlighted by Twitter itself. I really liked the small community of people that were progressives and pro-cycling on Twitter, for Montreal. But every time they comment or if you dare reply something nice, you or them will get flooded by loads of insulting, hateful, shitty replies. I gave up. It’s untenable.

If you spend just a few minutes through her posts and their replies, you can see exactly why some of them are being blocked. The people criticizing her are unrealistic. They are not receiving personal threats and insults as “messages from their constituents”.

Again, I think she should just quit the cesspool that is X formally known as Twitter. There is nothing to gain there.

Yeah, I can understand as I have been car free for over 20 years. At least this route does have a baggage car allowing you to do this. It would be impossible in the Corridor as they don’t take baggage anymore.

With VIA you can bring a bike and lots of checked baggage with you between Toronto and Vancouver, because they have a baggage car and serve smaller communities that need it. But this is not possible between Windsor and Quebec City.

I can’t even bring a bike with me from Montreal to Drummondville, even if their new trains have bike racks. And they can’t say when it’s gonna be possible.

I also sometimes have no choice but to use VIA Rail, and that’s why I’m so critical of them.

Good luck. Bring snacks and water with you, just in case.

They are pretty rare. However, he doesn’t seem that much aware.

As you know, since we lost Greyhound [bus service], people have very few passenger transportation options in northern B.C. and right across rural Canada.

Not everyone can afford the cost of flying across the country, and so we need to have a better balance between the need to ship goods, which is a very real need and connected to the health of our economy, and the need to transport passengers and provide people with safe, convenient, affordable and low carbon transportation options.

AFAIK flying across the country is cheaper than taking a train, priority over freight or not. A flight from Vancouver to Toronto take less than 5 hours, there are daily departures, and is around $150 depending on the transporter. A train from Vancouver to Toronto is $685, takes days, and only has two departures a week. And if you plan a month in advance, it’s “only” $514.

From my point of view, nobody really wants to cross the country on a train, except those doing it for the trip itself. To me, what is lacking is, as he stated, intercity services. Going from one city to another, without a car, is a horrible experience in Canada right now. I’m not even talking about rural places, like he dares. Just cities. Even if we give priority to VIA’s trains, they are still going to require planning your trip weeks in advance to get anything other than exorbitant prices. They will still only have a few departures a day, or a week.

It’s a very good first step to prioritize passenger trains, but it’s going to take much more than that!

The country, especially the central and western parts, was populated by the railways. When looking at old railway maps, it’s just fascinating to see how every little town and village was connected by a rail line.

It’s understandable that through the years the network will shrink and consolidate, but passenger trains have not been consolidated, they’ve been butchered. Freight is king. Even old abandoned railways can’t be converted to bike paths because freight companies, while not using the line, will also not relinquish it. The government gives freight companies like CN and CP(KC) everything they want, and even lowers safety standards and regulations so those companies can make even more profit. Yet, VIA Rail and their passengers have been reduced and cut to pathetic levels.

I doubt that any minister have to take a train on a regular basis or they would be painfully aware of how bad it is. Just the airline model is making me fume a little bit every time that I board a VIA train. VIA (and Amtrak) prefers to make passengers form a long line in the station and insists on scanning every ticket before even being allowed on the platform, then checks tickets AGAIN once the train is moving. I wish they would do like in Europe; allow passengers to board like a metro, and just validate tickets once in the train.

It’s all sad and disappointing that we can’t have ‘normal’ intercity services. Even coaches are bad. The message from our leaders, whether it’s provincial (in my case), or federal, is “get a car, loser”. But get an EV! You know, for the environment,

Uh, VIA Rail is already kind of nationalized?! If you’re talking about the rail network, one can only dream! But those are billion dollar companies so I doubt any minister would dare to do that.

Aside from nationalizing the network though, we could also force freight companies to let passenger trains go before cargo and merchandise.