High-capacity-transport-for-growing-cities in Australia

 https://www.infrastructureaustralia.gov.au/ipl/high-capacity-transport-for-growing-cities/public-transport-networks

Is Adelaide Is Becoming Australia’s Most Advanced City?

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34Wol0Q3zDg 

Still seems pretty small and quaint today. Nowhere close to the scale of Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Perth, but a good rival to Winnipeg. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adelaide#Economy Its already set to have many more tall buildings than cold Winnipeg.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adelaide#Transport Busses, trams, subways and commuter trains, all can help to provide people with more options than just driving. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tramways_in_Adelaide#Mid-century_decline_and_closure 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tramways_in_Adelaide#Renewal_and_expansion 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tramways_revival_in_Adelaide#Developments_since_the_2018_election

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railways_in_Adelaide#Lines Wow, perhaps backwards Vancouver might have as many lines, someday.

Australia Looks Perfect Until You Move There

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dgoeobz100

Skylines in Canada and Australia

 https://www.reddit.com/r/skyscrapers/comments/1rseitf/canada_vs_australia_who_has_the_better_skylines/

The 50 best cities in the world?

 https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/vancouver-best-city-world-timeout 

Fortunately, Australia doesn't have half a year of cold, crappy weather. Even the North Island of NZ can avoid the crappy Canadian weather. Unfortunately, if one wants to avoid the harsh Canadian winter, the best locations are in Greater Vancouver and Greater Victoria, or SW BC in general.

Returning to Canada After living in Australia

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxoPGHz5xV4

Vancouver City Council green lights funding to keep Car Free Days afloat

 https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/vancouver-car-free-days-funding-city-council 

The no+fun+city aspect of the Vancouver Mind Virus (VMV) isn't suppose to be real, but it occasionally keeps manifesting. Fortunately, these street festivals still have a chance in Vancouver. Just like some truncated summer fireworks still might be possible. 

What's really fortunate is that the VMV hasn't spread to Montreal & Toronto, Calgary & Edmonton, or Winnipeg, QC & Halifax. Especially to any of the major cities in Australia & NZ.  

https://jfdatalinks.blogspot.com/search?q=VMV

Australia’s Most CONFUSING City.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_R6ocPN9_I

Why Australia Is a Better Designed America

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67vTBXGB94c

Aerial view of downtown Vancouver in 1969

 https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/comments/1r960mq/tbt_aerial_view_vancouver_downtown_coal_harbour_c This was still a time when Vancouver didn't allow any office tower to have a 30th floor. As of 2026, no office building in Vancouver has been permitted to have a 40th floor. However, Burnaby & Surrey are planning to have their first office building over 40 stories. That's because they aren't under the extreme height restrictions that Vancouver imposes. 

Seattle had its first 50 story office tower in 1969. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safeco_Plaza 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia_Square The first 50 story office tower in Australia (1967) was possible because they don't have anything like the height restrictions in Vancouver.

Toronto had its first 50+ story office tower in 1967. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toronto-Dominion_Centre#Late_20th_century

SF had its first office buiding over 50 stories open in 1969. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/555_California_Street 52 stories, but the equivalent of 60 when counting all of the mechanical plant floors.

Why Greater Toronto Has Several Skylines

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eI9WJa9Q8dA 

Of course many large urban areas around the world have more than 1 or 2 skylines or tower clusters. 

For the longest time, no building in Vancouver or BC, was allowed to be as tall as the 1930s CIBC tower, which is now a stump.

https://www.blogto.com/city/2017/05/toronto-lost-observation-deck-commerce-court-north/

https://www.torontojourney416.com/canadian-bank-of-commerce-building/ 

https://www.25king.ca/the-history 

It wasn't until the early 1970s when stumpy, Vancouver allowed a building to be taller than the L.A. City Hall, or the Smith Tower in Seattle. 

The 1930s CIBC tower, the L.A. City Hall and the Smith Tower, would still be prominent towers in Vancouver, but stumps in their own cities. 

Despite Vancouver being divided by an inlet and a river, the city wasn't able to build a huge wall along Boundary Road. Thus, the KEEP THEM OUT agenda was a little thwarted. The various White city councils tried to do the next best thing. That was to symbolically impose various restrictions as a reluctance to think, plan and build on a BIG city scale. The time especially from 1960 to 2000 had predominantly White City Hall and its councils continually impose several overlapping restrictions. 

Since Vancouver can't control immigration or the movements of non-white people, keeping things small and backwards, means that less people will move there than to Toronto, Montreal, Calgary and Edmonton. However, with a mild winter climate, more and more people want to move to backwards BC, especially small-minded Vancouver and provincial Victoria. 

In spite of immigration and Multiculturalism, Vancouver was to perpetually promote its small scale agenda. 

While the first Skytrain line can finally run 5 car trains, the stations weren't designed to become long enough to eventually accomodate 9 car trains like the big city Montreal Metro has. 

The 2nd and 3rd Skytrain lines are still only running 2 car joke trains. Running 8-10 car trains is what a proper big city would do, but not backwards Vancouver. 

Narrow bridges provides strong symbolism of the cities narrow-mindedness. When bridges are too narrow, its difficult to have a proper express or rapid bus system. The reluctance to build parallel bus and HOV bridges helps to maintain the congestive planning approach that is vancouver and the Greater Region. 

Vancouver's refusal to build parallel bike bridges has meant that 2 lanes were removed from the Burrard Bridge, 1 lane from the Cambie Bridge and 2 lanes from the Granville Bridge. 

Keeping buildings symbolically short when compared to what scenic Sydney, Auckland, SF and Seattle allow, also helps to maintain Vancouver's reluctance to enter the big and tall urban scale. In fact, the scenic setting that Vancouver is in has been used as the main excuse to continually scale the city down. Yet, several scenic cities around the world are either able to have wider bridges, wider roads, longer trains or taller buildings. 

The world is mostly composed of non-white people. Canada has less than 1% of the world's population and stubborn Vancouver symbolically remains as a small provincial backwater on the Pacific Rim. 

https://centralparktower.com.au Unlike Perth, Vancouver forbids 50 story office towers and Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne size residential towers. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/108_St_Georges_Terrace In fact, no office building in Vancouver has been permitted to have a 40th floor. However, since Burnaby and Surrey aren't under the restrictive controls of Vancouver, they will eventually allow office towers over 40 stories. 

Despite Australia having less people than Canada, Perth is allowed to have taller buildings, wider bridges and longer trains than Vancouver. Taller buildings, wider bridges and longer trains are even less likely in Halifax than whats in Brisbane or Queensland.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q1_(building) To see buildings on a similar scale of what Brisbane allows, one has to get to Greater Toronto. Brisbane is allowed to have some buildings that would even be impressive in Melbourne and Sydney. 

While Montreal is allowed to have taller buildings than Vancouver, Montreal isn't allowed to have Sydney size towers. Especially not on the scale of what Melbourne and Toronto permit. 

Australia Day

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia_Day , https://www.australiaday.org.au/about 

Australia Day 2026 should be celebrated ‘loudly and proudly’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cW_oufA8Sbw

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia_Day_debate#Protests

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia_Day_debate#Suggested_alternatives 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia#Cities

Perth, WA, Australia

 https://www.mainroads.wa.gov.au/travel-information/driving-in-wa/driving-in-perth 

https://www.mainroads.wa.gov.au/technical-commercial/smartfreeways While WA take a spart aproach, backwards BC still takes a dumb approach to things.

https://www.mainroads.wa.gov.au/projects-initiatives/all-projects/metropolitan/smartfreeways/ 4 lanes each way with 2 track in the middle. You won't find that in Vancouver or anywhere in backwards BC. 

https://www.mainroads.wa.gov.au/projects-initiatives/all-projects/metropolitan/canning-bridge-bus-interchange 

https://www.mainroads.wa.gov.au/technical-commercial/smartfreeways/how-to-use-a-smfy/making-way-for-emergency-vehicles

https://www.mainroads.wa.gov.au/projects-initiatives/all-projects/metropolitan In contrast, the Metro Vancouver Region is a joke!  

"Perth is Australia’s fourth biggest city, with a population of 2.3 million. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhS-fiJ14GU Perhaps surprisingly, Perth has an expansive suburban railway network. 8 lines, 85 stations and 270 km of track – it’s a large system for a relatively small city." 

https://jfdatalinks.blogspot.com/search?q=Perth

Bridge and Tunnel Projects in Australia

https://www.webuildvalue.com/en/reportage/sydney-harbour-bridge.html 

https://www.smec.com/mm/project/west-gate-tunnel-project/

 https://lpclawyers.com/bridging-the-gap-part-1-bridge-projects-in-australia 

https://www.ballina.nsw.gov.au/Council/Major-Projects/Bridges-Duplication-including-Evacuation-Routes 

https://www.mainroads.wa.gov.au/projects-initiatives/all-projects/regional/mandurah-estuary-bridge-duplication/

https://www.georgiou.com.au/project/mandurah-estuary-bridge-duplication/

https://www.bridgewaterbridge.tas.gov.au/about/history , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQJIdGUlFqg , https://www.bridgewaterbridge.tas.gov.au/

Some Ontario civil servants told to get to office in snowstorm or take vacation day

 https://globalnews.ca/news/11615259/ontario-office-mandate-snow-day 

As Australia & NZ get some intense summer weather, Canada is constantly reminded that winter isn't always a fun time. While its sunny and well above freezing in Vancouver & Victoria, Toronto & Montreal are stuck right in the middle of total winter conditions. 

https://jfdatalinks.blogspot.com/search?q=Toronto+snowstorm

Skylines in Australia and New Zealand

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPVBYkEszVw

History of the Port Mann Bridge in BC

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4aYxObfjJ8 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Mann_Bridge#Original_bridge The original PMB had only 2 lanes each way with no emergency lanes or wide shoulders. It was designed to be a classic BC bottleneck-chokepoint right from the start. Eventually, a 5th lane was squeezed in.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Mann_Bridge#Opposition_to_twinning_plan While bridge duplication isn't that big of a problem in Australia or the US, it is in the BC part of Canada. Australia is allowed to have 3 proper big cities on the Pacific. Thus, the urban scale of infrastructure in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane are much larger than what's allowed in the Greater Vancouver Region. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Mann_Bridge#New_bridge Given that this is supposed to be part of the main East-West highway in Canada, a significantly wider bridge was eventually approved. While it was designed with a provision for a potential future rail line, there should have also been a provision for a lower deck. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_crossings_of_the_Fraser_River#Main_Watercourse_(New_Westminster_to_Yellowhead_Pass)

First Day in Sydney Australia was a Culture Shock

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qt3gjetsDtQ 

How Sydney is Designed To Crush Poor People https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ni1bk-yEstg 

Australia’s $5BN Mega-Airport Just Finished 7 Months Early https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7NpHKX1z_8

Canada's next tallest building just crossed the 100-floor mark

 https://dailyhive.com/toronto/canada-next-tallest-building-100-floors 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia_108 Opened between 2018 to 2020.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/875_North_Michigan_Avenue Chicago's first 100 story building opened in 1969. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_State_Building Opened in 1931. 

https://www.dezeen.com/2025/07/09/one-park-lane-skyscraper-australia

Why The Worst Designed Cities Are Always In Texas

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCFxiQZfdGg 

Texas has more people than Australia.