Denis Agar (he/him)

@denisagar.bsky.social

2687 Followers 2132 Following

Transit polls well. We use that popularity to push for more reliable & abundant transit. Let's make it better than driving. I'm in Vancouver, unceded xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, and səlilwətaɬ land. ED @movementyvr.bsky.social cohost @dwelltime.ca pod

aerial view of tendrils of suburban housing stretching into forest and farmland
A map of NC's intercity bus network, showing coloured lines criscrossing the state.
A google maps satellite view of the Burke Mountain neighbourhood of Coquitlam, showing tendrils of suburban streets gradually eating into beautiful forested hillside.
A double decker bus with Go transit livery - it also has a graphic of a plug on it and it says "charging to a greener future"
A coach bus on a busy freeway in the fog. The bus says Sound Transit on the front and the destination is 594 Tacoma
A single family home with a big driveway and towers behind it
Tim Robinson saying the more the lines crisscross and the patterns overlap
A TransLink bus stop pole in Vancouver, with a blank/faded schedule sign at top and an "Attention" notice below stating that due to cruise ships, the stop will be temporarily discontinued from 06:00 to 12:00 on several dates in May (May 3–5, 9–11, 13, 14, 16–19, 24, 25, 28, 30, and 31), directing riders to board at the previous stop. A parked car and city street are visible in the background.
I found a blackberry bush!
Two graphs from wowa.ca that show the relative rate of property taxes in a bunch of canadian cities. The left one is based on a $700k home, and the right one is based on the value of the average home.
Screenshot of an app showing the options to book a car to travel from New York to Boston. The cheapest is $484 for up to 3 people.
Screenshot of busbud showing bus trips for 4 hours at around 50 bucks
The front of my kayak on a sunny day facing Senakw and the Burrard bridge
Governor JB Pritzker
Google maps view of the site at 184 and 70 in Surrey
A map of the 41, 47, and 48 bus routes at GO Transit. It shows many patterns, branches, and routes that touch basically every part of the GGH.
Dave Nichol doing an ad for presidents choice
A crowd of people at a rally under the sky train with signs
Aerial image of a modal filter on a neighborhood Street leading to a major interchange
A map of the great Bear Rainforest
"Why should rich people pay different taxes based on whether they want to spend their money on cars or vacations?" asked Matthew Lau, an adjunct scholar at the Fraser Institute. He argued the wealthy pay too much as it is, and that additional financial burdens weigh on economic activity and ultimately on workers. "If people are buying fewer luxury cars, because now it's taxed, there'll be fewer jobs making these cars and fewer jobs fixing these cars," Lau said.
Google maps screenshot of a 35 minute walk
Me looking perplexed at the camera on a sunny day next to a BC transit bus stop
A photo of the sign at the entrance of the parkade at Pacific centre. It says there are over 1000 stalls available.
Tweet from @BenRabidoux (Ben Rabidoux, verified) reading: "Montreal developers have pivoted to rentals harder than anywhere else. What a WILD chart." Below is a line chart titled "Montreal dwellings under construction," spanning 1998 to approximately 2026, showing three categories: Rental (orange): Relatively flat below 5,000 units until around 2013, then rises sharply and dramatically, reaching a peak near 27,000–28,000 units around 2022–2023, dipping briefly, and rebounding to approximately 28,000+ by 2026 — by far the dominant category. Condo (gray): Grew steadily from the late 1990s, peaking around 13,000–14,000 units circa 2015–2019, then declining steadily to near 1,000–2,000 units by 2026. Single-family (blue): Consistently low throughout the entire period, peaking modestly around 5,000 units in the mid-2000s and declining to near zero by 2026.
Orange Plastic traffic barriers that have diagonal white lines making it look like raw salmon
Table of survey results showing overwhelming support for dropping home prices in Canada
Game over: overcrowding at this station has forced your Metro to close. 2515 parents traveled on your Metro over 56 days
Vancouver stop sign
Stop sign from backrooms
Will Vancouver Council pass a motion on Wednesday to fill this major gap in the transit system? Movement’s campaign highlights the fact that most other cities in North America already have a LIT Pass. Even Calgary. For Immediate Release June 2, 2026
Cal trans infographic explaining why induced demand is real and bad
Two grinning people standing under a sign that says Canada France border crossing
A long line of people on a sidewalk in a downtown area
Philomena cunk
Horizontal bar chart titled "Barrier category" showing transportation obstacles for people with disabilities. Barriers are categorized into Transit (light blue), Ride (green), and Pedestrian (dark blue). The top barrier is Lack of reliable fixed route transit service at 65%. Other major barriers include: Unsafe crossings (29.4%), Missing sidewalks (19%), Scheduling difficulty for paratransit (16.6%), and Little sidewalk maintenance (16.6%). Mid-tier barriers: Burden of asking for rides and Lack of intra-city transit options (both 13.5%); Drivers not yielding and Fear of assault (both 9.8%); Cost of taxis/ride hail, Missing accessible pedestrian signals, and Missing curb ramps (all 8.6%). Lower-tier barriers: Lack of benches/bus shelters (8%), Cost of housing near transit (7.4%), Lack of tactile space on buses (6.7%), Difficulty finding routes (5.5%), Cost of transit (3.1%), Wheelchair accessible vehicle unavailable (2.5%), and Insufficient lighting (1.8%).
Here is the verbatim text from the image, followed by a detailed description of the bar chart. Verbatim Text "However, the speed variation throughout the day is not as pronounced across all jurisdictions. The following chart illustrates the Median Absolute Deviation (MAD) of the half-hourly rolling average for each city between 7 am and 8 pm. The MAD is a measure of statistical dispersion that indicates how much the half-hourly rolling average deviates from the median for each city. The value is expressed as a percentage of a city's median speed to control for differences in baseline speeds across cities. This measure is a synthetic indicator of the daily variability of transit running times during the core of a weekday, excluding the early morning and late evening service hours which tend to have much faster service. Munich, Vienna, Zurich, Bologna, and Eindhoven exhibit the lowest relative MAD, indicating that their scheduled speeds are more consistent throughout the day, suggesting that surface transit in these cities is less affected by recurrent sources of delay, such as longer boarding times and congestion during peak hours. In contrast, cities like Birmingham, Boston, Auckland, and Vancouver exhibit higher MAD values, indicating greater variability in average speed throughout the day and suggesting that their surface transit is more sensitive to factors that cause delays and increase running times (and thus reduce speed) during peak hours." Bar Chart Description The image features a horizontal bar chart titled "North America" that ranks 13 cities based on their relative Median Absolute Deviation (MAD). The bars represent the level of transit speed variability; a longer bar indicates higher variability (less consistent service), while a shorter bar indicates lower variability (more consistent service). The cities are ranked from highest variability to lowest variability as follows:
A heat map of Metro Vancouver based on the mean speed of transit vehicles - downtown is red/orange as well as New West while places like West Van and Richmond are green
A guy putting up boards on a sidewalk beside some overgrown derelict cars
Alt text: A close-up of a printer toner cartridge being held open, with a handwritten label reading “The Randy Jones Yellow Toner Cartridge.” In the background is a printer with a small display and a banner for “MOVEMENT Metro Vancouver Transit Riders,” with text below joking about selling naming rights for office items.
A canon printer with masking tape saying "The Dan Hendry Printer" on it.
Screenshot of the Vancouver Sun website showing a trending articles sidebar with two stories: "Richmond parents push back against gender-neutral, non-competitive elementary track meets" (#1) and "Pete McMartin: As a taxpayer and citizen, I've given enough" (#2), alongside a news article featuring a photo of a chain-link fence and apartment building in the background.
A long queue of cars on a sunny day
Screenshot of a website called bus train ferry showing that my bus is 13.6m late
map of planned routing of the Northlander train with stations shown.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, the seventh-richest person in the world with a net worth of $180 billion, has said he is "perfectly fine" with the proposed tax.
A very long queue of people at a bus stop in a downtown looking place with the hotel Vancouver in the background
Patrick condon says on FAcebook: We need to spend seven billion extra to speed up rides by five minutes in a subway why? And there's a picture of young racialized women on a bus looking at their phones that was undoubtedly take without their permission.
High voltage transmission line
Idyllic sunset scene at English Bay Beach
A Jane's Walk event listing for "Can we Make Downtown Bus Routes Better?", led by Denis Agar and Michelle Scarr of Movement Vancouver on Saturday, May 2 at 4:00pm. Four photos are shown: a cyclist on a busy downtown street with traffic, a downtown Vancouver street scene with congestion and a green bus lane sign, a headshot of Denis Agar (a white man with curly hair, round glasses, and a mustache in a colourful scarf), and a headshot of Michelle Scarr (a white woman with shoulder-length hair, glasses, and a dark toque, photographed outdoors in winter). Transcript: Can we Make Downtown Bus Routes Better?* Denis Agar and Michelle Scarr – Movement Vancouver Saturday, May 2 @ 4:00pm *This walk is available by registration only. Registration for this walk is managed directly by the walk leader. Please click HERE to register if you would like to attend this walk. Starting Place: Art Phillips Park, where Melville and Dunsmuir meet, behind Burrard Station Ending Location: Main St and East 2nd Ave – lots of options for gathering after depending on how people feel. Duration: Two hours! It's long. Feel free to leave at your leisure! Accessibility: Busy sidewalks, Fast-paced, covering lots of ground, Will use speakers/voice amplification, Loud noises About the walk: You may recognize this walk from 2024! Yes, this is the same walk, although some things have changed. Cities similar to Vancouver are taking big steps to transform their downtown cores. Seattle has bus lanes on many major streets. New York's buses automatically issue tickets to cars that illegally use the lane. And on Toronto's King Street, cars aren't banned, but they also aren't allowed to go more than a block. On this walk led by a pair of passionate transit advocates, we'll take a look at some of the worst transit pain points in Downtown Vancouver and talk about how they have been solved in other cities. After all, in this region we have nearly one million people riding transit at least once per week, b…
A Jane's Walk event listing for "The Solution to North Shore Traffic," led by Denis Agar of Movement Vancouver on Sunday, May 3 at 12:00pm. Three photos are shown: congested highway traffic on a bridge, a bus lane painted red on a street, and a headshot of the walk leader (a white man with curly hair, round glasses, and a mustache wearing a colourful scarf). Transcript: The Solution to North Shore Traffic* Denis Agar – Movement Vancouver Sunday, May 3 @ 12:00pm *This walk is available by registration only. Registration for this walk is managed directly by the walk leader. Please click HERE to register if you would like to attend this walk. Starting Place: McDonald's, 3444 E Hastings, outside the entrance Ending Location: Main St and Mountain Highway in North Vancouver Duration: 80 minutes Accessibility: Uneven terrain, Stairs, non-accessible curb cuts, or other barriers, Mud or poor drainage, Will use speakers/voice amplification, Strong odours, Loud noises About the walk: You may have heard the headline recently that the Ironworkers/Second Narrows Bridge is the most congested bridge in the region. Many often call for a third crossing, or a rapid transit link to the North Shore. Is that a good idea? You may have also heard about a RapidBus being extended from the North Shore to Burnaby in September, along with a future Bus Rapid Transit being in the works. We're going to discuss all that, but we'll focus on the things that can be done in a matter of months to make transit significantly better across the Second Narrows. We're going to walk around the north and south ends of the Ironworkers Bridge to witness first hand: What measures are already in place to make buses faster; and what more could be done! This means lots of loud cars, exhaust, and potentially rain. We will ride a bus across the bridge, so be ready to pay with your Compass card, or credit/debit card.
A goofy person, me, grinning and standing next to a rolled up red carpet
A covered walkway between two buildings with a patio and a big craggy sculpture. In the distance, trees and water.
A clear bus lane beside a completely congested Street. There's a bike in the bus lane
jane lynch glee meme: For 2.4b I could design an intercity bus network that would be so *noticed*