Recent content by Silence&Motion

Unending construction. Lines running out of indie bookstores. Calgary's become a real city!

Is there no active frontage going into this building? Isn't this stretch of 11 Ave supposed to be the "Design District" and also the remnant of Electric Avenue? This project would probably single-handedly strangle any chance of this area to actually become a destination.

In old timey newsreel voice: "Beltline Bunker Bites the Dust!"

On the other hand, the diagram doesn't show how challenging the terrain is along some of those other corridors. The Edmonton-Calgary corridor is practically a straight line along flat ground. No mountains in the way. No Canadian Shield. No large bodies of water to deal with.

"Action for today, vision for tomorrow." Sounds like an Al Gore spoof from the Simpsons:

My first thought seeing this picture was "where in Calgary is this?" until I noticed the John Hancock Center in the background. It's a testament to how much development has been happening here that we can look like Chicago from some angles.

I think the "Ford" that @badc0ffee was referring to was Mayor Rob Ford, who tanked the "Transit City" LRT plan developed under Mayor David Miller, which had federal and provincial support. John Tory followed Rob Ford's "subways, subways, subways" campaign message. The province (under the...

If you want to know why Doug Ford cares about building transit out to Toronto's suburbs, this is what they look like:

I agree that we shouldn't pit road and transit investments against each other, in part because lack of transit investment will ultimately create negative impacts on roads as well. With the collapse of the Green Line, Calgary's existing road network will have to absorb the bulk of increased car...

There was a time when building Calgary up into a model city was a centrepiece of the Alberta Conservative agenda, and part of what made the PCs such a big tent, dominant party. Remember when Ralph Klein was the champion of the LRT network? Now that UCP is a rural grievance party focused...

It is ridiculous that we cannot build infrastructure in this country unless three levels of government are able to remain in agreement across multiple election cycles. This is why Canadian cities have fallen so far behind cities in other countries in terms of infrastructure - particularly...

With respect to geography and Calgary's population, I've always liked this video by Real Life Lore, explaining why so many more people live in the southern Canadian prairies than just across the border in the northern US flyover states. The answer he gives is that Canada really only has two...

It's not being pretentious. This is just how the design process works. There are any number of materials, colours, textures, shapes, you can use. To help guide your decisions, you begin with a concept and then make choices that seem in line with that concept.

I actually think the bigger factor for the next provincial election will not be who's leading the ANDP, but who is Prime Minister. Most likely it will be Poilievre. My sense is that Canadians are more likely to split their vote at the provincial and federal levels. I don't think it's coincidence...

I can't imagine there would be much of a civil war while Smith is still premier. Like Trump, she unites everyone who doesn't like her. As long as Smith keeps hacking away at AHS, banning renewable energy, spouting conspiracy theories, going after trans kids, etc., she'll be a strong unifying...