Brandon Donnelly — Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly. — Page 1280

For those of you from Ottawa, I’m going to be in town this Thursday evening talking at an event put on by the National Capital Commission called Urbanism Online . It’s all about how blogging, social media, and online discussions can and are contributing to the betterment of cities.

The other bloggers include:

- Marc-André Carignan, Montreal, Kollectif.net

- Jillian Glover, Vancouver, This City Life

- Robert Smythe, Ottawa, UrbSite

The event is now full, but email them or tweet me if you’d really like to come and I’ll certainly ask about space availability. I’m sure it’s going to be a great discussion.

I have a bit of a soft spot for Ottawa. I used to spend a lot of time there when I was working on an office building at 150 Elgin Street . (Key tenants include The Canada Council for the Arts, KPMG, and Shopify.)

I haven’t been back since the building was completed, so I’m excited to see how it turned out.

Update: The event will also be streamed on Periscope, here .

https://500px.com/embed.js

I think we’ve hit peak millennial.

Last Friday the Governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, and the Metropolitan Transit Authority , announced that 30 subway stations will be redesigned and that “millennial-friendly amenities” would be added throughout the system . 

As you might guess, this includes adding phone chargers in train cars and buses and wifi throughout all the stations (by the end 2016). They will also be replacing the MetroCard with an all digital fare system that will include mobile payments.

But the reality is that this isn’t about being millennial-friendly. This is about joining the 21st century .

Here in Toronto, we finally have our PRESTO card working on all streetcars and in almost 40% of the city’s subway stations. This is a huge improvement over our laughable and antiquated token system, but it’s not enough. I really hope the next rollout is a mobile app that will allow everyone to pay with just their phone.

We also have wifi in about 30% of our subway stations, but again this is not enough. By the time you get authenticated (do you need to have Twitter now?), your train is usually arriving and then you enter a tunnel where no wifi exists. We need to be looking at the entire tunnel network. (Related topic: LinkNYC ) 

I say all this because I am a big supporter of public transit. Despite all the positive things I write about Uber, ridesharing, and driverless cars, I do not believe that they will eradicate the need for a strong transit backbone. This is fundamental to our city building efforts. 

So let’s do our best to delight people when they take transit.

Two of my favorite things are snowboarding and cities. 

So the 4K GoPro video below, called Japan Snow - The Search for Perfection , really does it for me. 

The video is the journey of two GoPro athletes as they go from Tokyo to Hakuba (a village near Nagano, host of the 1998 Winter Olympics) to the northern island of Hokkaido in search of untracked powder. If you’re a snowboarder or skier, you’ll of course appreciate that journey.

For you urbanists, the city shots are incredible. I also love how they describe Tokyo as a “sophisticated web of innovation and tradition.” I often describe Tokyo in a similar way, but I like their wording better.

Make sure you full screen this video and turn on your sound. It’s about 14 minutes short. Enjoy.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXpXHoDKL64?rel=0&w=560&h=315]