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.)

Ever heard of the train-tram?

Not the same thing as the tram-train!
A system that lets lightweight trains travel quickly between cities, but also operate on city streets like trams. The RegioSprinter is currently operating in Zwickau, #Germany, though above video is from #Czechia

I’ve been to Lago di Garda in northern #Italy—spectacular! (olive trees and lemons on a blue lake with the Dolomites looming).
Seeing the bicycle route they've built since makes me want to go back.
🧵 global bike path #bucketlist Submarine cycling.
In Limburg, #Belgium, the Bokrijk bike path takes you below the surface of a lake in a national park...from a distance, it looks like bike riders’ heads are plowing through the water at speed.

The city of #Llubljana in #Slovenia, population 280,000, kicked cars out of its center 15 years ago.

It's become a paradise for walkers, children, bike-riders.
People with limited mobility can use the free Kavalier electric shuttles to take them where they need to go... ...more on this great service here.
visitljubljana.com/en/visitors/tr…

Design your transit, service, and emergency vehicles to fit your city—not the other way around. Tiny buses serve narrow streets of #Rome's centro storico. #Roma

Room for 42 compact, self-powered, low-emission vehicles.
Or 1 fucking Tesla. FYI: Follow @Tweetermeyer, author of Ludicrous: The Unvarnished Story of Tesla Motors.

1: #Tokyo metro map in 2D.
2: The same map in 3D. Tokyo Train #Transit:
2 interlinking metro networks and 12 separate rail companies
882 stations
43 million users a day
(2.5x number on all US transit)

What's missing from these pictures?

No on-street parking makes all the difference in the cities of #Japan. The 1962 "proof-of-parking" law means you buy a car, you've got to show you've got a place—off public streets—to warehouse it.

🧵 In the three #Tokyo neighborhoods I spent time in over a decade, the streets were refreshingly free of on-street parked cars—certainly compared to North America.

This year, cars will be banished from streets around 168 schools in the #Paris area—students and parents can access them on foot or by bicycle. These "rues aux écoles" (School Streets) are a big win for the safety of kids.

paris.fr/pages/57-nouve…

"NASA has declared automobiles are the largest net contributor of climate change pollution in the world."

Your regular reminder that cars aren't part of the problem—they *are* the problem.

giss.nasa.gov/research/news/… ...and SUVs are the absolute worst.

“In 2010, there were 35 million SUVs in the world’s car fleet. Now there are over 200 million. SUVs were the second greatest contributor to the world’s increase in carbon emissions from 2010 to 2018.”

vox.com/the-goods/2020…

THIS JUST HAPPENED—AND IT'S BIG.
Speed limiting tech on cars is now mandatory in the European Union.
"From July 2022, Intelligent speed assistance (ISA) will be mandatory for new models/types of vehicles introduced on the market."
road-safety-charter.ec.europa.eu/resources-know… These are speed governors in new cars and trucks that stop them from exceeding maximum speeds limits.

The population density of the American Midwest is comparable to that of #Spain.
Spain has 2,240 miles of high-speed rail.
American Midwest: 0.
🧵 High-speed rail in this region would replace short-haul flights, and go a long way to reducing carbon emissions. Should be a no-brainer for Amtrak Joe Biden—you'd think, anyway...
(Fantasy map below)

This will sound unbelievable to most people. (Not to me!)
A classic study from #Denmark followed 30,000 people of all ages for 15 years.
Those who rode a bicycle to work were 40% less likely to die—of all causes—over the study period.
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10847255/ A more recent study of cyclists in the UK had similar results.
bmj.com/content/357/bm…