Good morning everyone! It’s nearly 5am, I’m standing at a lonely bus stop and I’m in my way to try and visit every train and Metro station in Montreal in a day.
Follow along here to share in the mirth, and we’ll also see how long a single Mastodon thread can become!
"The priority should not be to replace every car with its electric equivalent but rather to rethink #mobility in general.
"Placing so much focus on the automobile and even now the electric automobile is not the way that we solve our mobility problems, but rather it's time to invest in #transit, in #cycling, in walkable cities, to get people out of #cars altogether," they said."
Here's how to make green #transit even greener. Put the tram tracks on a carpet of grass or sedum. 2 kms of track creates 1.5 football fields' worth of green space, reducing air pollution and urban heat island effect.
Walking through Griffintown and again I’m reminded what a hostile place it is if you’re on foot:
• Tonnes of construction blocking sidewalks
• Lack of pedestrian crossings
• Fast moving traffic and aggressive drivers
• Car parks galore
• Pollution level off the charts!
There are some charming corners if you know where to look, but my god it’s in desperate need of that promised REM station.
You think it’s close to Gare Centrale until you try and walk it.
Bring your bike on BART. However, many elevators in BART stations don’t work so I would hesitate to bring heavier bikes, e-bikes or loaded touring bikes I can’t carry.
Every other subway car has a bike area. This one is in one of the newer trains, which are much nicer.
I’m sort of fascinated by this 1982 metro map I saw at Exporail:
• It shows the projected Blue Line extension, and in 2023 people are still waiting for it
• There used to be a train to Repentigny from du Collège, the precursor to today’s Mascouche Line
• The line to “Laval” is presumably today’s Saint-Jérôme line. Did it go all the way then?
• The Orange Line was still one stop short of Côte-Vertu
• No Laval extension of the Orange Line, yet
• Where the hell is “Beloeil”?
Good breakdown of the new system in Toronto. I’d still argue Montreal’s new zonal system is more logical and easier to understand, but then Torontonians can tap in with their credit card or phone which I’m insanely jealous of. OPUS just can’t be killed off fast enough in my opinion.
This is an impressive (but very long!) read with some great analysis and tonnes of photos along the proposed alignment. Very much worth your time to digest over the Christmas break if you’re following along with high frequency rail developments in Canada.
As someone used to southeast Asian and East Asian malls, the Westfield and all of SF’s malls are kind of silly. There aren’t any interesting shops, the food selection is poor and there isn’t a train station in its basement (what do you mean I have to walk outside to get a train.. that isn’t very frequent?!)
As someone who lives less than a mile from the Westfield, I’ve never once wanted to go there for anything. Who are the people who are surprised / sad it’s closing?!
Looks like the Boring Company's Las Vegas tunnels are going about as well as you'd expect from an Elon project...
"The muck pooling in the tunnel at the north end of the Las Vegas Strip had the consistency of a milkshake and, in some places, sat at least two feet deep. ... At first, it merely felt damp. But in addition to the water, sand and silt—the natural byproducts of any dig—the workers understood that it was full of chemicals known as accelerants.
"The accelerants cure the grout that seals the tunnel’s concrete supports, helping the grout set properly and protecting the work against cracks and other deterioration. They also seriously burn exposed human skin. At the Encore dig site, such burns became almost routine, workers there told Nevada’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration. An investigation by the state OSHA, which Bloomberg Businessweek has obtained via a freedom of information request, describes workers being scarred permanently on their arms and legs. According to the investigation, at least one employee took a direct hit to the face. In an interview with Businessweek, one of the tunnel workers recalls the feeling of exposure to the chemicals: “You’d be like, ‘Why am I on fire?’”"
The #MTA is off twitter! If you live in NYC or use the service
(including metroNorth, CT friends!)
Please contact the MTA and let them know they would be more than welcome on the fediverse. They could probably have their own instance "@mta.info" just the way it ought to be.
I was asking myself recently why we don’t see DMUs (Diesel Multiple Units) in Canada, especially in situations where giant loco hauled passenger trains don’t seem to make sense (exo Montreal, I’m looking at you!)
It turns out North America has had them in the past, including this very sprinter-like train which used to serve Peterborough, Ontario amongst other places now devoid of any trains: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budd_Rail_Diesel_Car
Over the next three years, the Federal government is building more than 1,200 homes in #Kitchener. The $42.4 million federal investment encourages high and medium density around Kitchener’s Light Rail #transit stations.
At minimum, #Detroit needs a train between the Detroit Metro Airport and Downtown.
Come on now.
This was last weekend.
Waited over 2 hours for a bus at the airport.
I am patient, but this should not happen.
Bus service cannot hope to (even remotely) satisfy a region the size of the Detroit Metro.
It simply cannot.
Not sure how many are coming in out-of-town for the #GrandPrix this weekend, but the #NFL Draft next year is going to be a disaster from a transportation perspective.
In the 1980s, the firm that had the contract for upholstery of BART seats paid people to slash the seats. People slashed in specific patterns so the company would know who to pay.
Looks like Sydney Trains is going to drop the jargon from its PA announcements.
From the SMH:
"Commuters will soon be told to “get off” the train, rather than “alight”, after Sydney Trains resolved to overhaul its station announcements to favour colloquial language.
"The phrase “this train terminates here” is also being retired, due to concerns the word “terminates” is difficult to understand."
"Universal #farelessTransit makes fiscal sense. The report notes that for every fare dollar Metro collects, Metro spends $0.75 on the expenses of collecting & enforcing fares." 💸
US #transit agencies that must scale 5-10x to meet CO2/GHG emission reduction goals in the next decade need to learn how to run #trolleyBuses + create a sustainable funding source that can deliver that level of service, not nickle & dime riders while play-acting as a business. #transitTooter 🚎