Thread by @grescoe

In the 1660s, this French philosopher came up with an invention that solved the problem of urban transport forever.

It had nothing to do with Robo-taxis, flying cars, or Tesla Tunnels.
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His name was Blaise Pascal (he of the famous Wager). After inventing one of the first mechanical calculators, the Pascaline (below), he turned his mind to the problem of traveling around #Paris ...

Paris was then the most populous city in Europe, and the most densely settled. The wealthy got around in private carriages, drawn by horses, which they paid vast sums to maintain. The poor walked—but nobody got around very fast. Pascal conceived a system...

...buy which “les petites gens,” the little people, could move as quickly and reliably as the rich. His “carrosses à cinq sols” were horse-drawn carriages, each seating 8 passengers, “infinitely convenient,” and “leaving at regular times, even when empty.”

For a fare of five sous, the carrosses carried passengers along five lines, on both sides of the Seine River.

Pascal had invented fixed-route transit, the ancestor of omnibus, streetcar, subway and bus rapid transit systems that would follow. His idea is commemorated in the streets of #Paris...

It's easy to get distracted by Tech Flavor of the Month "solutions" to urban congestion—which are usually based around jitneys, which aspire to offer door-to-door service. They're the modern equivalent of the private carriage, which Pascal sought to democratize.

I explore the past and future of urban transport in my @longnow Ideas essay, "Pascal's Other Wager," which you can read here:

longnow.org/ideas/pascals-…

And while the world's eyes are on #OlympicGames , it's a good time to recall how the Métropolitain—which, if not the world's first subway, was certainly its most elegant—transformed #Paris and the cities of the world. More in this #Straphanger dispatch:

straphanger.blog/secrets-of-the…