Brandon Donnelly — Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly. — Page 813

This blog has been a little too serious as of late. So here's something fun. Last week, Toronto street artist birdO , StreetARToronto , and Slate Asset Management unveiled the new 10-storey mural that I wrote about last month . The large-format art piece is part of the City of Toronto's StreetARToronto Monumental Program and our (Slate's) ongoing effort to do things that are great and remarkable at Yonge and St. Clair. Below are some photos of the mural by Riley Snelling. I love how these turned out (birdO in his bird mask, of course, helps make them).

For the full press release, click here .

Photos: Riley Snelling

Each year, Bloomberg NEF (New Energy Finance) publishes a long-term forecast of how electric vehicles and shared mobility will/might impact our cities. Predicting the future is never easy. And forecasts are never right. But they're valuable to do.

By 2040, BNEF believes that 57% of global passenger vehicle sales and 30% of the global passenger vehicle fleet will have some form of an electric drivetrain. Either full battery electric (BEV) or plug-in-hybrid electric (PHEV). Looking at this another way, we have about 17 years (2037) until ICE and electric vehicles are expected to intersect and hit 50/50 in terms of global sales.

A big part of what is driving the adoption of electric vehicles is that the price of lithium-ion batteries keeps coming down. Assuming this trend continues, the price of EVs and ICE vehicles (in most segments) should reach parity sometime in the mid-2020s . Meaning, yes, it's more expensive to produce an EV today.

All of this will also impact mobility services (ride-hailing and ride-sharing). Today, less than 5% of annual kilometers traveled by passenger vehicles around the world is thought to be done through some form of a ride-hailing app. That's still a pretty significant number, actually. Though only about 1.8% of this fleet is electric.

By 2040, shared mobility services are expected to rise to 19% (see above) and -- because their costs are coming down -- 80% of this fleet is expected to be electric. Autonomous vehicles are not expected to meaningfully impact global mobility until the 2030s. But the growth in shared mobility services is still expected to reduce the demand for car ownership, and likely parking.

Other high-level findings from BNEF's 2019 Electric Vehicle Outlook can be found here . If you want to access the full report, you'll need to be a BNEF client.

Images: Electric Vehicle Outlook 2019 (BNEF)

Venice has been keeping flood records for 150 years, though it is generally understood that the city has been regularly flooding since the very beginning. It usually happens between the fall and the spring and the earliest record is believed to be from the 6th century.

This past week, Venice saw its acqua alta (or high water) peak at 187cm (6'2") above its normal level. This is the second highest number on record and is just below its 1966 peak. At these numbers, about 80% of the historic center is underwater. Here is a chart from the WSJ explaining that:

Venice has been working on a flood management project called MOSE since the 1980s. The name is an acronym, but there's a deliberate biblical reference here. Remember when Moses parted the red sea?

The project has been mired in engineering delays and corruption scandals, and so it's not yet operational. If it were, it would have, in theory, protected the city this past week. 2022 is the anticipated completion date, but I don't know if that's realistic or not.

The system consists of 78 mobile gates that fill with water and sit flat on the seabed when the tide is low. When a high tide is predicted, the gates are then to be pumped with air so that they rise (hinged on one side) and close off the three inlets that connect the Venetian Lagoon to the Adriatic Sea.

As I was reading about this project and everything else that has been going on in Venice this past week , I became curious about how exactly the Dutch have been managing to hold back the sea. I mean, a big chunk of the Netherlands sits below sea level.

If you're also curious, here's a video that explains how they do it.