Johnny “Steal from Loblaws” Renton

SassyCanadiangirl🇨🇦🍁 @sassycanadian0.bsky.social [ View ] May 23, 2024 at 14:31 UTC

How you react when the icing comes off the top of the donut when you take it out of the bag is the true you.

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Johnny “Steal from Loblaws” Renton @johnnyrenton.bsky.social [ View ] May 22, 2024 at 14:11 UTC

It’s been around for a few years at least. Not sure if these are still available but I got these two mugs off the site a while ago and I do not regret the choice in the slightest.

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Johnny “Steal from Loblaws” Renton @johnnyrenton.bsky.social [ View ] May 21, 2024 at 15:33 UTC

On one hand lol On the other, yeah…no shit. Electrifying semis, and any heavy equipment for that matter, is many fold more complex than a car or truck or van. Especially when you factor in the element of one semi vs another being the difference between profit and bankruptcy. Tesla is sunk on this

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Johnny “Steal from Loblaws” Renton @johnnyrenton.bsky.social [ View ] May 20, 2024 at 21:37 UTC

So it turns out if you mute anything to do with American politics, furries, Cybertruck’s, Twitter, Elon, and anime there really isn’t much left on this site... Although I appreciate the maybe 200 Canadians, Aussies and Kiwis on here that at least create a few posts a day for me to enjoy.

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Johnny “Steal from Loblaws” Renton @johnnyrenton.bsky.social [ View ] May 20, 2024 at 20:14 UTC

Needless to VIA Rails post pandemic recovery is not going particularly well. Were it not for the Ottawa-Montreal-Quebec route they would be lucky to be hitting 2014 numbers, and maybe not even that. Whatever mojo they had going in 2019 is clearly completely gone.

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Johnny “Steal from Loblaws” Renton @johnnyrenton.bsky.social [ View ] May 20, 2024 at 20:11 UTC

It probably won’t be too long before Q1 2024 ridership numbers are released. If the overall numbers arent at 5% or less of 2019 ridership levels and SW Ontario and Mtl-TO-Ott aren’t making radical improvements, it will be a really terrible sign for the agency. They need to be doing better everywhere

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Johnny “Steal from Loblaws” Renton @johnnyrenton.bsky.social [ View ] May 20, 2024 at 20:10 UTC

On one hand its good that some routes are performing well. But the fact that VIA cannot replicate that success elsewhere, like in SW Ont, is very concerning. If VIA starts losing places like Kingston, London, Windsor, its going to be a very hard for them to gain public support for real modernization

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Johnny “Steal from Loblaws” Renton @johnnyrenton.bsky.social [ View ] May 20, 2024 at 20:07 UTC

If all the routes were performing equally it would be easy to theorize that the slow recovery is due to economic issues (the 2008 financial crisis notably lead to lower VIA ridership for a number of years). But the variation b/w routes complicates that theory being able to explain everything.

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Johnny “Steal from Loblaws” Renton @johnnyrenton.bsky.social [ View ] May 20, 2024 at 20:07 UTC

Then there is Toronto to Niagara Falls, which is doing better than it’s 2019 levels (and 2018 which was the routes peak year since at least 2005). This one is odd since GO has tripled its presence on that route since 2019. Why it’s doing so well (relatively) is unclear.

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Johnny “Steal from Loblaws” Renton @johnnyrenton.bsky.social [ View ] May 20, 2024 at 20:06 UTC

Easily the section with the biggest struggle is SW Ontario. It’s share of corridor ridership has declined 6% since ‘13 and almost 3% since ‘19. In addition it’s ridership levels aren’t even at 2013 levels and are probably around what was seen in 2005.

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Johnny “Steal from Loblaws” Renton @johnnyrenton.bsky.social [ View ] May 20, 2024 at 20:05 UTC

The Ottawa/Mtl-Toronto section only made it back to 2014-15 numbers in ‘23. This likely means it will be at least 2026 before it returns to 2019 levels. Also of note is that this sections share of corridor ridership has declined by about 5% since 2013, a pre-Covid trend that has continued.

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Johnny “Steal from Loblaws” Renton @johnnyrenton.bsky.social [ View ] May 20, 2024 at 20:04 UTC

First, the Ottawa-Montreal-Quebec route is already above 2019 levels. This is a continuation of a pre-Covid trend for that route. The chart below shows the breakdown of each corridor region as a share of total Corridor ridership. That routes share has almost doubled since 2013.

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Johnny “Steal from Loblaws” Renton @johnnyrenton.bsky.social [ View ] May 20, 2024 at 20:01 UTC

Back to the Corridor, even just looking at absolute values it’s clear some routes/regions are doing better than others. In fact the table below makes this even clearer by showing all the years as a percentage of what ridership levels were in 2019 (the peak year for ridership since the mid-80s)

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Johnny “Steal from Loblaws” Renton @johnnyrenton.bsky.social [ View ] May 20, 2024 at 19:59 UTC

It’s worth noting that although the chart shows long distance and remote routes I’m not going to talk about them. Their story is much different from the Corridor with different factors affecting ridership. However, those routes overall are recovering to ‘19 levels a bit better than the Corridor.

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Johnny “Steal from Loblaws” Renton @johnnyrenton.bsky.social [ View ] May 20, 2024 at 19:58 UTC

So I wanted to go back to looking at VIA Rails pandemic recovery in more detail because it’s really a good example of how digging beyond a press release can reveal a lot. To start with I put together a chart with semi-detailed ridership numbers from 2013-23, with 2019 and ‘23 highlighted.

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Johnny “Steal from Loblaws” Renton @johnnyrenton.bsky.social [ View ] May 20, 2024 at 19:08 UTC

Bluesky needs a way to do multi-post threads all at once, not one at a time. Just one of many things missing from this site. Kind of feels as though if they don’t get some critical features out the door in the next few months (like video, DMs, etc) this site will have missed its chance to take off

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Johnny “Steal from Loblaws” Renton @johnnyrenton.bsky.social [ View ] May 18, 2024 at 17:46 UTC

I love how much the hiker says in those two photos. Going from standing to probably having to sit because they have become so overwhelmed by the scene of the eruption, wondering “what the fuck am I seeing. That is….cataclysmic”. That’s a moment that would be impossible to forget

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Johnny “Steal from Loblaws” Renton @johnnyrenton.bsky.social [ View ] May 16, 2024 at 03:11 UTC

It was my sister…so it was great

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Johnny “Steal from Loblaws” Renton @johnnyrenton.bsky.social [ View ] May 15, 2024 at 23:51 UTC

I think it really Varys a lot depending on your rural area. I’ve seen some rural but very heavy farming regions that have really good EV infrastructure. Others…not so much. Same with cities and suburbs for that matter. The regional variation can be quite staggering

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Johnny “Steal from Loblaws” Renton @johnnyrenton.bsky.social [ View ] May 15, 2024 at 21:44 UTC

In the face of any regulatory bodies taking corporate fraud, theft and generally fuckery seriously, consumer driven class action lawsuits can be a powerful tool. I’d love for this to be first in a wave of dozens against Tesla to really start putting the boots to their deceptive and shady practices

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Johnny “Steal from Loblaws” Renton @johnnyrenton.bsky.social [ View ] May 15, 2024 at 20:14 UTC

That could potentially be encouraging. Ott-Mtl had the new trains first which could explain the huge ridership gains & point to positive increases as they are introduced elsewhere. Or its an indication that outside of their only semi-dedicated route there are some serious struggle sessions going on

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Johnny “Steal from Loblaws” Renton @johnnyrenton.bsky.social [ View ] May 15, 2024 at 20:12 UTC

So it looks as though were it not for really strong ridership on the Ott-Mtl-Quebec route (already above 2019 levels)then VIA Corridor ridership would actually be about 2 years away from recovering (so not until 2025). That’s…not great.

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Johnny “Steal from Loblaws” Renton @johnnyrenton.bsky.social [ View ] May 15, 2024 at 19:59 UTC

The rest of SW Ontario is recovering at a slower rate while Ottawa-Montreal-Quebec is already higher than 2019 levels (almost certainly driven by Ott-Mtl). TO-Mtl and TO-Ott is recovering slower than the overall average so it will be interesting to see what part of that sector is dragging it down

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Johnny “Steal from Loblaws” Renton @johnnyrenton.bsky.social [ View ] May 15, 2024 at 19:49 UTC

Redoing a few posts with more accurate info. Even with GO adding more weekday and weekend service between TO and Niagara (which lead to 630K passengers boarding or departing GO Niagara in 2023) VIA ridership didn’t fall off a cliff. In fact it increased slightly vs 2019. Not an outcome I expected.

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Johnny “Steal from Loblaws” Renton @johnnyrenton.bsky.social [ View ] May 15, 2024 at 19:17 UTC

I did find some 2023 Q4 numbers. About 1.05 million passengers for the corridor. This compares with about 1.09 mil for Q3 (the summer and back to school travel period). So not quite the banger quarter I thought it would be. But it’s still a strong result all things considered.

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Johnny “Steal from Loblaws” Renton @johnnyrenton.bsky.social [ View ] May 15, 2024 at 19:06 UTC

This isn’t to say that VIA Rail is in the clear because there are still some very serious and critical problems with the agency. But, this is still encouraging news. If VIA can still grow despite being fundamentally broken (and often unusable) it points to a lot of potential if the system was good

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Johnny “Steal from Loblaws” Renton @johnnyrenton.bsky.social [ View ] May 15, 2024 at 19:04 UTC

And if VIA can get another dozen new trains in service this year, and extend trains using older equipment to 5-7 cars (versus the 3-5 you saw before fleet replacement started), they could hit 5 million in the corridor in ‘24. This is what ridership was on track for in ‘20 before the pandemic hit

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Johnny “Steal from Loblaws” Renton @johnnyrenton.bsky.social [ View ] May 15, 2024 at 19:01 UTC

VIA Rail has finally released some 2023 ridership numbers. 4.1 million (3.93 for the corridor). That is a bit better than I expected so Q4 must have been a real banger for them. At the very least the corridor should hit 2019 pre-pandemic ridership levels in 2024

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Johnny “Steal from Loblaws” Renton @johnnyrenton.bsky.social [ View ] May 15, 2024 at 18:52 UTC

This is the kind of quality I would expect of an early-80s Hyundai Pony or a Dodge Neon, not something in the early 20’s that cost as much as a Tesla does. Absolutely brutal.

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Johnny “Steal from Loblaws” Renton @johnnyrenton.bsky.social [ View ] May 15, 2024 at 15:55 UTC

It’s so outlandish and over the top and Iranian that I just can’t hate it.

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Johnny “Steal from Loblaws” Renton @johnnyrenton.bsky.social [ View ] May 15, 2024 at 15:00 UTC

I was just about to add Cybertruck to my mute list because I was sure every kind of post about it is simply being repeated dozens of times a day now. And then comes this…. I’m still muting the word. But I think the true heart and soul of Cybertruck has finally been discovered.

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Johnny “Steal from Loblaws” Renton @johnnyrenton.bsky.social [ View ] May 10, 2024 at 17:22 UTC

Car people are like that. Tesla isn’t the only brand where owners put up with insane amounts of trouble and breakdowns and keep going back to (looks at Alfa Romeo..). From a rational perspective yeah getting another Tesla is dumb. But human are stupid balls of emotions and are often not logical

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