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Yeah other than the fact that Winnipeg is constantly either 40* with 1000% humidity and the worst mosquitos in the world or -40*.
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Apr 28, 2015 17:00
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Whats with the haters of the sub 1K mortgage, take some time to reflect on your life choices if it is past 1 large.
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Apr 28, 2015 17:05
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Whilst transit and biking is all very well and good for local trips, as I've grown older I've realized that my desire for transportation comes from wanting to get out of the city, not move around inside of it. Especially if you are an outdoorsy type, you rapidly exhaust the easily accessible options in Vancouver and doing anything interesting requires a car thanks to the horrible nature of inter-city transit in Canada. Getting motorized was a pretty huge step up in quality of life in that regard.
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Apr 28, 2015 17:23
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Rime posted:Whilst transit and biking is all very well and good for local trips, as I've grown older I've realized that my desire for transportation comes from wanting to get out of the city, not move around inside of it. Especially if you are an outdoorsy type, you rapidly exhaust the easily accessible options in Vancouver and doing anything interesting requires a car thanks to the horrible nature of inter-city transit in Canada. This is where having long-distance trains could actually be useful and pleasant. We don't even have high-speed rail in the Toronto->Montreal corridor, is this the age of Charlemagne? We certainly don't have commuter rail or medium-distance trains anywhere out west, either.
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Apr 28, 2015 17:27
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PT6A posted:This is where having long-distance trains could actually be useful and pleasant. We don't even have high-speed rail in the Toronto->Montreal corridor, is this the age of Charlemagne? We certainly don't have commuter rail or medium-distance trains anywhere out west, either. Man, you can't even get the bloody greyhound to let you off except at a designated stop anymore, it's pathetic. It blows my mind that I can go to a developing nation and have a more convenient and customer-oriented spread of transportation options than anywhere in North America, or the west in general. I was going to rent a motorcycle in Armenia, and then realized I didn't have to because the bus network is so well developed and they will let me off anywhere. FFS, this is the greyhound equivalent in Rural Turkey: 
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Apr 28, 2015 17:34
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PT6A posted:We don't even have high-speed rail in the Toronto->Montreal corridor, is this the age of Charlemagne? I'm getting flashbacks to the last time I took the train to Montreal and it had to slow down to a crawl for SOME reason, adding like 2 hours to our trip. It was maddening
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Apr 28, 2015 17:39
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passenger rail shares the lines with freight and freight gets priority lmao
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Apr 28, 2015 17:41
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RBC posted:passenger rail shares the lines with freight and freight gets priority lmao They own the lines so...
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Apr 28, 2015 17:46
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Rime posted:Man, you can't even get the bloody greyhound to let you off except at a designated stop anymore, it's pathetic. It blows my mind that I can go to a developing nation and have a more convenient and customer-oriented spread of transportation options than anywhere in North America, or the west in general. I was going to rent a motorcycle in Armenia, and then realized I didn't have to because the bus network is so well developed and they will let me off anywhere. Yeah, people told me "take the bus in Spain! It's great!" and I'm like, "but won't I get my head chopped off and nibbled on by a lunatic or something?" and they said, "No, it's completely different from North America and buses don't suck horribly!" We'll see how that goes; I'm still taking the train most of the time. RBC posted:passenger rail shares the lines with freight and freight gets priority lmao The freight operators own the lines. The government should build dedicated high-speed passenger lines (and I don't mean Acela-type half-measures, I mean full on 300 km/h AVE style trains) and then that problem wouldn't exist. Rail is very much an area where I want to spend money, not an area where I want to save money, but so far the development of proper passenger rail infrastructure doesn't seem to be a blip on anyone's radar at any level. If you look at the Madrid-Barcelona route, it used to be the most highly trafficked air route in the world before the AVE became operational. Now, 70% of people take the train. It's faster, it's nicer, it's more environmentally friendly, all it requires is a large up-front investment by the government which will almost certainly pay off in the long run. We're retarded for not doing this, and it maddens me that even the NDP don't seem to treat it as a priority.
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Apr 28, 2015 17:47
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PT6A posted:all it requires is a large up-front investment by the government which will almost certainly pay off in the long run. We're retarded for not doing this, and it maddens me that even the NDP don't seem to treat it as a priority. Yes but how will that balance the budget?
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Apr 28, 2015 17:50
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jm20 posted:They own the lines so... you mean the lines the government used to own and privatized in the 90s like a bunch of loving idiots?
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Apr 28, 2015 17:56
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Even Russia, which at the turn of the 20th century had approximately 150km of rail lines in the entire country, has a vastly more developed and passenger-oriented rail network than Canada and is our direct comparative in terms of size and climate. The more I think about it and look at eastern european nations, the more I realize that this easy car-free movement of goods and people through rural regions is what is keeping them alive while our hinterland is strangling on the goddamn vine. We should be ashamed.
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Apr 28, 2015 17:57
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triplexpac posted:Yes but how will that balance the budget? 
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Apr 28, 2015 17:57
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RBC posted:you mean the lines the government used to own and privatized in the 90s like a bunch of loving idiots? Privatizing is all the rage these days, I think it's stupid policy. We should make public the fiber lines too, and have the telecoms lease their use so we can get with the times.
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Apr 28, 2015 18:02
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Rime posted:Even Russia, which at the turn of the 20th century had approximately 150km of rail lines in the entire country, has a vastly more developed and passenger-oriented rail network than Canada and is our direct comparative in terms of size and climate. The more I think about it and look at eastern european nations, the more I realize that this easy car-free movement of goods and people through rural regions is what is keeping them alive while our hinterland is strangling on the goddamn vine. Yeah this is a very known and talked about problem in urban planning. Cars are expensive, building around cars shifts a huge amount of transport costs onto the user while making it about as cost-inefficient as possible. It's not just rural areas, it's poorer suburbs, it's anywhere. And a lot of it was purposeful, poors/blacks couldn't afford cars so you're safe from them (this is why a lot of places flip out at proposed transit and will outright say the new LRT will just be full of urban ferals hauling their loot back to the city). But a lot of it was just people never imagining that driving would become more and more expensive. It makes communities very fragile. The moment your car breaks down or you can't afford insurance (if you can afford a car at all) you're absolutely hosed, there's no alternatives. A lot of it comes down to just us not funding transit or alternatives, but the other part is our land use. You can have a low density rural areas where people can still get around without a vehicle, it's called a village. You then link those villages up with a rural bus system and have on-request stops in between. But we don't really do villages in our countryside, we just space every building as far apart as possible. And yeah, I took a bunch of very rural buses around Czech Republic, most of the routes were just on little 1 or 2 lane roads between forests or farm fields, stopping in tiny villages, stopping in the middle of a field or forest to let a hiker or farmer or who ever off. Lots of people carrying home supplies and shopping from the nearest town. Even without a car and living in some fairly remote tiny village they can at least walk into the village and take a bus to a little town every weekend. Old people can still bus into town for a doctor's appointment. Kids can bus in to school. Yeah sometimes it's a 20-30 min walk to the bus but it's better than nothing, plus walking is super good for you. Most of these families will have a lovely family vehicle, but the bus means the entire family is not held hostage by their 30 year old unreliable skoda.
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Apr 28, 2015 18:17
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RBC posted:you mean the lines the government used to own and privatized in the 90s like a bunch of loving idiots? Privatisation is not relevant. First of all, we need our train system for freight, so the lines we have should remain freight-priority. Second, even if the lines were publicly owned, and passenger traffic had priority, they would not be suitable for passenger rail in a first world country in the 21st loving century. We need to do what Spain and China have done with high-speed rail.
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Apr 28, 2015 18:30
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Let's build a public high speed passenger rail system without owning any rail infrastructure, rights of way, or a goddamn clue -a loving idiot
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Apr 28, 2015 18:41
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Why don't we legalize weed and build a hyperloop
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Apr 28, 2015 18:45
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Cultural Imperial posted:Why don't we legalize weed and build a hyperloop
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Apr 28, 2015 18:51
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A high speed rail line connecting Vancouver to Seattle and Portland would be pretty nice. As it is there's a train that leaves Vancouver once a day slowly wending its way around the region, slowing to a crawl to go across a 100 year old bridge and through a popular area of a town (White Rock). Every once an a while someone gets killed by a train in White Rock and people raise the idea of moving the rail line, but the discussion usually goes nowhere with folks criticizing themselves for building a town near the train tracks and ultimately suggesting some additional safety signage as if that will do anything at all. It takes about 8 hours to get to Portland I think, but if the wifi on the train is working that's maybe better than a 6 hour drive? God it would be nice to do that trip on a 200-300 km/h train. Femtosecond fucked around with this message at 19:39 on Apr 28, 2015 |
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Apr 28, 2015 19:26
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I find it weird how every time a train hits or kills anyone it's a huge deal and trains are dangerous and we need to take them out of the city and surround them with crippling regulations, but thousands of people are killed by car accidents and it's just what ever, that's normal, cost of transportation, and don't you dare try to enforce or increase safety rules because that's a war on cars. Also when a train kills someone it's almost entirely their fault but cars frequently kill innocent people following the rules. Usually when a train kills someone I feel like that autistic onion reporter and just hope the drain (and driver) are ok. Also has there been any followup on that Vancouver condo neighbourhood that was using a railway as gardens and wanted the railway to give them the land at ridiculously below-market values so the railway just ended up bulldozing everyone's gardens and made some noise about re-instating freight ? I really liked that.
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Apr 28, 2015 19:52
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FUCKFUCKFUCK I JUST BID ON A HOUSE AT THE PEAK OF A BUBBLE.
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Apr 28, 2015 20:02
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Baronjutter posted:I find it weird how every time a train hits or kills anyone it's a huge deal and trains are dangerous and we need to take them out of the city and surround them with crippling regulations, but thousands of people are killed by car accidents and it's just what ever, that's normal, cost of transportation, and don't you dare try to enforce or increase safety rules because that's a war on cars. Also when a train kills someone it's almost entirely their fault but cars frequently kill innocent people following the rules. Usually when a train kills someone I feel like that autistic onion reporter and just hope the drain (and driver) are ok. I think the same "blame the victim" reaction that you constantly see with car accidents is there with trains as well. Similarly as when someone is hit by a car, people will find some excuse to explain that the victim got themselves killed. For example they were drunk or they were listening to their iPod. The difference between trains and cars is that White Rock locals probably want the train gone for a bunch of other reasons, so are more likely to suggest moving the train as a solution.
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Apr 28, 2015 20:06
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Baronjutter posted:Also has there been any followup on that Vancouver condo neighbourhood that was using a railway as gardens and wanted the railway to give them the land at ridiculously below-market values so the railway just ended up bulldozing everyone's gardens and made some noise about re-instating freight ? I really liked that. This isn't really the scenario. It's been City of Vancouver policy for a very long time, through several different political regimes, that the Arbutus Corridor should be reserved for a "transportation corridor" for use by light rail* and/or some bikeway/walkway. You can dig up the 2040 Vancouver transportation plan and have a look at the exact wording. This is because it would be very difficult and expensive to cobble together a contiguous North/South path through the city if the City ever wanted to build a "relief" line for the Cambie line and connect the Kerrisdale neighbourhood with Downtown. Basically they're taking a super, super long view on development and have zoned the land appropriately in case they ever want to do this. As the land is zoned purely for use as a transportation corridor and it would be impossible to build any thing on it, it is not worth very much money. The $100 million+ valuation of the land that CP is seeking has no basis to reality, as the valuation is completely hypothetical, and related to using the land in a way that is not allowed. Similarly I'm sure Stanley Park would be worth a great deal if you could build condos on it, but you can't. The City wanted to buy the land for around $20 million, which is apparently what it is worth as a transportation corridor. All this being said, supposing the City did own the land, and people had built a bunch of gardens on the land over the years because it had been unused for decades, I'm sure that if the City announced in 2040 or something that they were going to raze all the gardens to put in a street car line there would be a ton of push back by those local gardeners. I'd like to think that the City wouldn't bend on this and they'd go ahead with a street car though. * But not SkyTrain thanks to NIMBYs. Think street cars.
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Apr 28, 2015 20:19
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You can't squat on unused crown/private land because you have a garden of tomatos and cucumbers. Maybe this is common sense talking but I'm not sure how it works out west.
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Apr 28, 2015 20:29
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EvilJoven posted:FUCKFUCKFUCK I JUST BID ON A HOUSE AT THE PEAK OF A BUBBLE. I forgot to mention that the City of Winnipeg maintains a publically viewable list of properties sold over recent years that should help you determine what other stuff in the area is selling for. http://www.winnipegassessment.com/AsmtTax/English/SelfService/SalesBooks.stm You Realtor likely has you on that Matrix system, but that relies on them scooping up comparable properties. With this, you can look for yourself. Good luck.
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Apr 28, 2015 20:29
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EvilJoven posted:FUCKFUCKFUCK I JUST BID ON A HOUSE AT THE PEAK OF A BUBBLE. You've done hosed up    Race you to the Betting on -0,50% Official Bank Rate tomorrow to give us that extra push to beat you   
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Apr 28, 2015 20:30
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How did it come to this.
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Apr 28, 2015 20:44
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This is a very international thread (thought not very multicultural (sorry CI))
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Apr 28, 2015 20:46
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Baronjutter posted:I find it weird how every time a train hits or kills anyone it's a huge deal and trains are dangerous and we need to take them out of the city and surround them with crippling regulations, but thousands of people are killed by car accidents and it's just what ever, that's normal, cost of transportation, and don't you dare try to enforce or increase safety rules because that's a war on cars. Goddamnit, I had read the perfect article about how the general population was rallying against cars at its beginnings, until the motor lobby pulled a fast one on everyone by introducing the concept of jaywalkers and slowly brainwashing everyone into thinking "roads are for cars". I was certain I'd saved it in my cycling activism bookmarks, but apparently not.  This Vox article is pretty good, if not the exact one I had in mind.
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Apr 28, 2015 20:46
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Kafka Esq. posted:This is a very international thread (thought not very multicultural (sorry CI)) The housing bubble is a global treasure and a Worthwhile Canadian Initiative
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Apr 28, 2015 21:21
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jm20 posted:You can't squat on unused crown/private land because you have a garden of tomatos and cucumbers. Maybe this is common sense talking but I'm not sure how it works out west.
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Apr 28, 2015 21:31
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cowofwar posted:I don't know if they apply here but there are a number of laws or legal precedents related to squatting where the squatter gets some consideration in the event of a long history of squatting such is the case here. Haven't most of those been successfully repealed by the land owning class? I know a few european countries have drastically cut back on squatter's rights over the last decades. Can't have absentee rentiers suffering just because they abandoned a building for 30 years! That's theft!
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Apr 28, 2015 21:35
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CP rail wants to sell it, they just can't get it rezoned, so the city is like "heh heh we'll buy your useless land from you, take it off your hands, whaddaya say," and of course CP tells them to shove it and they'll use it for industrial trains if they have to, which of course is unacceptable to the multi millionaires now living beside it. Just one big game of chicken.
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Apr 28, 2015 21:41
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Reverse Centaur posted:CP rail wants to sell it, they just can't get it rezoned, so the city is like "heh heh we'll buy your useless land from you, take it off your hands, whaddaya say," and of course CP tells them to shove it and they'll use it for industrial trains if they have to, which of course is unacceptable to the multi millionaires now living beside it. Just one big game of chicken. Eminent domain, is that not a thing in Canada? 
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Apr 28, 2015 21:53
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Antifreeze Head posted:I forgot to mention that the City of Winnipeg maintains a publically viewable list of properties sold over recent years that should help you determine what other stuff in the area is selling for. http://www.winnipegassessment.com/AsmtTax/English/SelfService/SalesBooks.stm Ya I found this when looking up what to expect for taxes. It's insane. The second I started talking about putting in a bid people started congratulating me and gushing about the future as if I'd announced that I'd deliberately knocked up my wife. The cult of ownership is real.
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Apr 28, 2015 21:56
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EvilJoven posted:FUCKFUCKFUCK I JUST BID ON A HOUSE AT THE PEAK OF A BUBBLE. Make sure to attempt any and all home repairs yourself, no matter how daunting. Also take photos of the progress for us
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Apr 28, 2015 21:59
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Xoidanor posted:Eminent domain, is that not a thing in Canada? The arbutus corridor was federally granted, so the city can't eminent domain it into their hands. Besides, CP has given the city a metric fuckton of land over the decades only to have Vancouver turn around and piss it away to their developer buddies, example: quote:I also think many people on this thread are unaware of the CPRs many contributions to this City. As the largest landowner and the biggest land developer in the Citys history, on numerous occasions they donated or sold land for nominal amounts to the City which was intended to be used for public purposes including for greenbelts (eg., King Edward Avenue), parks (eg. Queen Elizabeth Park, Angus Park, Quilchena Park, Arbutus Village Park etc.) and roadways (eg., for widening Arbutus Street). [Contrast this to Concord Pacific who still hasn't provided a park in False Creek in exchange for the benefits they've received over the last 25 years, or to Westbank developments, who wouldn't give up any land for a park at Oakridge despite the huge amount of density they've been given for that site. If anyone's at fault here, it's City Council for not insisting these later developers provide the infrastructure necessary to support their developments or the amenities they previously promised to provide. I can't blame them for trying to get the real estate valuation of the corridor out of the city, when the city has done the same to all the other land that CP gave them for free.
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Apr 28, 2015 22:04
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EvilJoven posted:FUCKFUCKFUCK I JUST BID ON A HOUSE AT THE PEAK OF A BUBBLE. Still want to know why you have 5% interest. That ain't right. Is your credit horrible?
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Apr 28, 2015 22:09
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Reverse Centaur posted:Still want to know why you have 5% interest. That ain't right. Is your credit horrible? Oh gently caress no our mortgage is super low. Under 2.7% We calculate what we can afford based on 5% so we know that 5 years from now if rates go up we aren't stuck with a house we can't afford and have to sell at a loss because nobody is buying. The massive wiggle room between our actual housing costs and what we've budgeted for will be saved.
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Apr 28, 2015 22:20
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