Lol, this is not anything new or crazy - All of NA infrastructure is built the same way. I’d be surprised if there were many places in the world that weren’t built this way.

Ah yes, the urban hotspots of…Scotland?

I’d guess grift. The pic shows gravel beneath the asphalt in those potholes. For any major road, you should be having more asphalt than that. Ontario major series highways have large amounts - 200-350mm is standard, 400 I’ve seen in areas with constraints. From the pic, I’d guess youre at 1-2 lifts, so maybe 100mm, at most? Given the speed of deterioration, likely only 1 60mm lift.

Interesting. There must be some serious differences between there and here (Canada). I have no doubt companies fail here too, but even for companies that have soon gone out of business, they always finish their jobs.

We often only hire companies who can show past experience on similar sized projects, our bonds cover the full contract amount (every municipality around here has that requirement), and the contracts are generally pretty stringent on things like working days with severe liquidated damages for projects that go over the deadline (I’ve seen $500/day up to $3,000/day).

Road projects fall through an average of two times

Do you have a source for this? I work in consulting and have never had a construction project fall through. Part of the mandatory bidding process is the contractor securing a bond against the value of the work, so that if they walk away, the Municipality can claim against the cost of the bond to complete the works.

NGL, you’re fighting the drivers for this, just in a different medium. You think the government is just doing shit for kicks and giggles? Nah, they don’t put in bike lanes because too many residents complain when they lose their parking lanes to bike lanes, or the road gets widened solely to add a bike lane.

Sure there are some cases where the govt is making a bad decision, but don’t think that you don’t need to argue with those same people, just in a Public Information Session instead of on the road.

This came from Age of Empires, where priests could heal units by shaking incense/holy water over them, including ones that didn’t make sense like trebuchets or seige rams.

Something also not touched on in the article is the HUGE number of ukrainians we have in our country, particularly in the praries. We’re ranked in the top 3 for ukrianians/Ukraine heritage, below Ukraine and Russia.

I’d argue most Canadians are pretty pro-Ukraine, and the US wiffle-waffling on that as well stings deep.

It’s still going to hurt - we import so much from the US that this is going to impact Canadians no matter what (even before price hikes in unrelated businesses starts).

I mean yeah, but Canada produces an ENORMOUS percentage of the world’s potash.

Edit: checked the numbers. Canada produced ~38% of the worlds potash (25mil lbs), while Belarus produced 5-7mil lbs, most of which already goes to China, Russia, and India. Canada exports 46% of our potash to the US, meaning the US could buy ALL of belarus’ potash and still not meet current supply.

My point is the “cost” you’re describing as a nice balance has been artificially deflated. Property taxes need to be ~doubled for those areas (in my province) in order to properly account for those costs.

Also this thread was initially posted in c/196, which is where I came across it.

Suburbs are not feasible, cost wise, from a municipal standpoint. They’ve been heavily subsidized by the denser parts of the municipality, and surprisingly by the rural parts too.

The cost of maintaining infrastructure in a fit state of repair (water main, sanitary sewer and treatment plants, roads, bridges, storm sewer, curbs, sidewalk, street lighting) for these semi-spread out houses is the same as maintaining it in denser areas without the benefits of the higher tax income.

Additionally, the spread out housing, at least here, has overtaken lower lying wetlands, filled in creeks, and increased water flow down the water courses that do remain, causing erosion, sedimentation, and killing off the aquatic wildlife. Ontario has just started to require Low-Impact Development, standards that require constructing artificial wetlands, soak away pits, raingardens, green roofs, or similar measures to reduce water flow off site and encourage aquifer refilling. These all cost extra money above and beyond what the cost of repair has been up to now.

I work as a consultant designing infrastructure repair and rehabilitation for municipalities, and have seen the cost of these projects. For most of them, it’s the equivalent of their property tax for ~40yrs, and typically has a lifespan of 50-75yrs on the high end.

Suburbs are being subsidized through grants provided by our Federal or Provincial government, which is funded through other taxes.

To be clear, you think there would be an actual war with any safe space to store prisoners? The US would roll over Canada’s military in any open conflict, and crush any official bases. Any war would be entirely guerilla warfare, in which case taking prisoners is entirely unrealistic

Our 200 kyr track record of survival **cannot rule out much higher extinction probabilities **

I mean the video shows him going into an abandoned mining town they’re now using as a military training ground, not like he walked into a military base

Really? Every single item is wrapped in plastic at your grocery store? No loose apples, cucumbers, potatoes, or leafy greens?

If those are all wrapped in plastic, then look for what options have less plastic. Avoid double wrapped items, for example, or anything marketed as single servings.

I feel like none of this is that hard to come up with. It’s unfortunate you don’t seem interested in an actual conversation. Hope you have a better rest of your day.

You should blame them and still choose options with less plastic where possible? I don’t see where this idea of black and white, one or the other comes from

Where it’s feasible given your financial and geographical means, avoid food wrapped in plastics, foods shipped from far away, and meats. Not every single item in the store comes in plastic. It will require adjusting your habits, for sure.

No need to demonize anyone for not being able to if it doesn’t work, but every time you choose something better, it’s an incremental step forward.

At the same time, send an email or phone call to the grocery store manager. Write to your local politician and push for laws regarding stricter use of plastics, more comprehensive recycling programs, or funding and grants for local farmers.

Simply being angry online and not changing your own habits or lobbying for change isn’t actually improving anything.

Not the person above, but Corporations are built around the idea of selling something. The biggest way to reduce your environmental impact is to not buy shit. Doesn’t matter if the shit is eco friendly, more shit means more emissions.

Corporations don’t pollute for shits and giggles. They pollute because they want to make stuff for us to buy. Shell doesn’t just make pollution, they pollute on the way to producing gas.

If we cut back on how much gas we use, Shell pollutes less because they have less gas to sell.

That doesn’t absolve Shell of their role in chasing profits over environmental protection, and there’s plenty of space for demanding better and holding them accountable, but acting like these corps pollute just cuz is disingenuous. They pollute because we want shit.

EVs make a difference for anyone in an area with low density. I live in the country relatively close to population centres, but it’s impossible for me to ever imagine transit being even near me.

We will literally always have a need for small, individual vehicles of some kind for most the population. If we could reduce that to one car, then supplement with transit, where available, or carpooling? Then also make that car an EV instead of ICE? That’s a huge emissions reduction

I’ve got the 2021 Kona EV and while you do lose range in the winter, it’s more like 100km/450km. That’s with intense grip heavy winter tires and the heater running. In Ontario, so regularly ran it with -35c temps. It’s cold and you lose some range, but not 400miles out of a 700mile range