Brandon Donnelly — Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly. — Page 1053

I was recently with some New Yorkers and we got on to the topic of their subway system. I made a comment about how extensive their network is and how their express trains work so well for traveling further distances. 

They responded by basically saying: “Yeah, it’s great, when it works .” They then went on to tell me that most of the time they just use Uber to get around the city because the subway has become so unreliable.

Admittedly, I don’t use the NYC subway system enough to comment on its declining performance. But this recent New York Times article describes it as an utterly failing system.

Here is a diagram from the article that shows performance on every line (2007 to 2017), measured as a percentage of trains that reach their destinations on time (i.e. less than 5 minutes late):

In 2007, more than 90% of trains reached their destinations on time. Today, the weekday average is around 65% and some of the lines are in the 30s. This is the worst it has been since the 1970s when NYC was almost bankrupt.

Apparently this also awards NYC’s subway the title of the worst on-time performance  out of the world’s top 20 biggest systems.

I suppose one of the lessons here is that subway lines on a map will always be far sexier than the nuts and bolts of maintenance, performance, and ridership. But we can’t forget the nuts and bolts. Maybe those are the most important parts.

Steve Aoki  was in Toronto today for a collaboration with Saks Fifth Avenue – namely the launch of his fall/winter Dim Mak Collection . 

The after party was at Junction House (the pre-development version). Here is a photo:

I actually wasn’t there (because I’m fighting off some sort of cold), but a friend sent me this photo. 

It’s such a great space for events and production. It used to be an artist studio, but they moved out because they outgrew the space.

If you have a need for a large warehouse space, you can actually rent it by visiting here .

If you’ve ever wondered how Facebook figures out all of the people you may know , here is some reading material. 

The short answer is that Facebook doesn’t just know the things you’ve told it about yourself, it also knows what other people have told it about you. 

One of the ways in which this is done is through its so called “shadow profiles". These are profiles that get created when other people share information about you with Facebook. 

For example, you may not want to share your work email address with Facebook, but if it’s sitting in someone’s phone and that person decides to share his/her address book with Facebook, then it could show up in your shadow profile.

And if there’s a common data point, such a phone number, then Facebook can fairly easily link that work email address back to you and start suggesting people from your work that you may know.

The scary part, of course, is that Facebook is getting your information without you explicitly sharing it with them. It could be coming from that person you gave your business card to at the bar.

It goes to show you just how fierce the competition is for our attention. It may be an assault on our privacy, but more Facebook connections means a higher likelihood that we’ll stay engaged on the platform.

Over the past year I have been growing increasingly intolerant of this demand for my time. Slowly but surely I have been turning off all nonessential notifications on my phone. 

Very few now remain, which is why if you’ve been trying to reach me on Facebook, WhatsApp, LinkedIn or some other platform, and I’m not responding, it’s because there’s a good chance I’m not seeing the notifications.

And let me tell, it feels liberating.