50 years ago, a transport revolution started in
#Zürich.

#Switzerland rejected urban freeways. Zurich decided not to build a metro, opting for an S-Bahn commuter train network.

And they gave *absolute* priority to trams over cars in center of Zurich. The result?
🇨🇭🚋🧵 Some of the highest mode share for transit and intercity rail in the world.

The Zurich tram network doesn't really on high tech vehicles—for years it operated with trams from the 1970s. They just kept on refitting them.

Hey, nobody says you can't make commuting fun, as well as easy!

In the #Netherlands, you can cycle to #Utrecht Overvecht station, drop your bike off, then ride the slide down to the platform. Multi-modal travel, Dutch-style.

🛝🧵 Here's another "transfer accelerator": a slide next to an escalator to the turnstiles of the #Budapest metro.

(My kids have been begging me to try this at our subway station for years.)

#Disney World has better transit than most US cities. Its 12-train-set monorail + 325 buses would make it the nation's 16th most ridden transit system.

People drive to a place where, for once, they don't have to drive everywhere.
Turns out that's exactly what Walt intended 🚝🧵 As a child, Disney lived in Marceline, Missouri. It became his idea of Anytown, America: park with a Civil War gazebo, bustling and walkable Main Street, the Santa Fe depot. Most of all: trains, lots of trains.

1: #Tokyo metro map in 2D.
2: The same map in 3D.

🚇🌐🧵

1. Pittsburgh streetcar map in 2D.
2. Pittsburgh streetcar map in 3D.

(#2 is a 1910 model, submitted to Mayor's office, showing the actual elevation of streetcar lines in #Pittsburgh, that city of inclines.)

transitmap.net/relief-map-pit…

This is a map of western part of the network of just one Canadian passenger railway in 1955.

You could really go a lot of places by train then.

And fast: 71 hours, 10 minutes from #Montreal to #Vancouver. (It's 94 hours, if you're lucky, from Toronto to Vancouver today.)
🛤️🧵 There were two express trains across the country that year: The Canadian (CP) and the Super Continental, run by Canadian National Railways, the "People's Road."

Great-grandfather: allowed to walk 6 miles on his own Grandfather: could walk 1 mile
Mother: could walk a half mile
Son: could walk 300 yards (to end of street).
What happened? *Cars* happened.

A flood of traffic shrunk the geography of play and free-roaming.

🧵 (Thanks to Shrinking geography of childhood in UK, thnx to @timrgill and @drwilliambird for the research and graphics.)

What's the solution? One way forward—play streets.

The UK once had 700 of them; closed to traffic, but open to kids.

This #Paris métro station is a steampunk masterpiece.

Designed by Belgian comics artist François Schuiten, to call to mind one of Jules Verne's submarines or airships.

Where else can you find secrets of the métro?

🗼🚇🧵 Look out for the original édicules, designed by Art Nouveau master Guimard
This one's at Abbesses métro station, deepest in the city, in Montmartre.
Pro tip: contrôleurs like to trap people at the bottom or the top of the spiral staircase, so make sure you've paid your fare!

"Cars make us lonely."'

—Donald Appleyard, Livable Streets, 1981.

🧵 That sums up complex research that showed how social interactions diminished on streets with more automobile traffic. (Appleyard focused on 3 residential streets in San Francisco in the 1960s)

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.
🧵 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 ...

This train platform in #Japan's Yamaguchi Prefecture has no ticket booth, no entrance or exit.

Why does it exist?

🇯🇵🚉🧵 It's only purpose is to allow passengers to stop, get out, and enjoy the view of the Nishiki River.

Sigh...I love Japanese rail culture.

soranews24.com/2019/03/19/new…

By 1910, the network of interurbans in the US was so dense that a determined commuter could hop interlinked streetcars from Elkhart, Wisconsin, to Oneonta, NY—a journey of 1,100 miles—exclusively by electric trolley. 🚋🧵

Before the coming of cars, people traveled to nearby cities and towns on the electric interurban. By 1913, there were 15,000 miles of interurban track in the US.

(Video: a rare preserved interurban...)

I’ve been in #Dublin for a few days. Yesterday I posted about how the re-design of their bus system has led to a 20% increase in ridership in 2023. Part of that is the new high-frequency “spines”… ☘️🚍🧵 Though the high-frequency network, designed by @humantransit and his team, is being rolled out in phases. A more immediate factor is the fare system…

Hey, I finally scored!

First time on a new Siemens Venture train, leaving from #Quebec City, destination #Ottawa.

First impression… 🚅🧵

…it’s astonishingly spacious inside. But feels a bit more like a plane than a good ol’ @VIA_Rail train. (Mostly b/c of the jetliner-style seats).

The #Istanbul Metro has outsourced its fare collection, and the new ticket inspectors are very strict. #Istanbul tried to use canine inspectors for a while, but they kept on getting distracted. Especially by the view of the Blue Mosque from the city ferries.

Cats stay focused.

It's weird to live in a world where @elonmusk, that swaggering, maleficient nebbish, is perceived as a force for good.

I tell my boys that it's like Gotham City: some "civic leaders" are actually Super-Villains in disguise.

After the banquet, they continue wrecking the world. #SlavaUkraini

Most of Europe has a serious fossil-fuel addiction problem.
#France is heavy on nuclear.
#Spain + #Portugal—lots of oil.
Coal in the east. But check out #Denmark (the only place where renewables predominate) and the other Scandinavian countries (hydro).

By 1920, the network of interurbans in the US was so dense that a determined commuter could hop interlinked streetcars from Waterville, Maine, to Sheboygan, Wisconsin—a journey of 1,000 miles—exclusively by electric trolley.
🧵🚋 The tracks, and often the wires, extended deep into forest and farmland, making the railroads de facto intercity highways; after nightfall in the countryside, farmers would signal drivers to stop by burning a rag next to the track.

Look what year Soylent Green (1973) is set in... World Population Clock, Sep. 18, 2022.

In #Europe, scores of places are lowering speed limits to 30 km/h. Almost 200 cities in #France have implemented the measure; traffic deaths in some have decreased by as much as 70 percent.
Meanwhile, Conservative Party in #Quebec campaigns on raising highway speeds to 120 km/h. More info on the movement in France:

20minutes.fr/bordeaux/32089…

"We'll always need big diesel trucks in our cities to deliver freight. It's just reality."

Not so fast. The electric "Cargo Tram" has long been a fixture in many cities in #Europe.

🧵🚋 The city of #Karlsruhe uses light-rail vehicles and "tram-trains" to carry consumer goods between city-center hubs, which are then delivered by electric cargo bikes.

Did you know that #Canada had one of world's fastest passenger trains?

The Turbo Train made the run from #Montreal - #Toronto in 3h 59m in 1970.

It could top out at 270 km/h... The lat time I took a @ViaRail train to #Toronto it averaged 90 km/h, and took over 5 hours. (Actually it was half an hour late, par for the course.)