The Holiday Lights Trains are back! We'll be doubling the holiday spirit this year with the addition of a festive diesel train, bringing bright lights and spreading holiday cheer to even more stations! These Holiday Lights trains will make their debut on Friday and run through New Year’s.

Not that you asked, but here's a thread of intriguing (real!) food facts to amuse/bore your friends and family. Great for gatherings when you need to change the subject!

This is one of the most delightful things I’ve read in a long time.

How did a (spam) post that did not mention me and is not a reply to me end up in my notifications? (I blocked and reported, but I am still confused.)

On the other hand, Portland, OR is further north than Portland, ME!

I love this city and the subway so much.

I really, really would like to be able to turn off reposts by user on here. I have found myself muting people I *like* and whose actual posts I'd rather see than not because they repost so much, and often it's not even content objectionable to me but it's just more than I want in my feed.

The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law passed 4 years ago. In new research @urbaninstitute.bsky.social we study its effects. US transport spending increased by 30%, but: —Funding for non-highway projects flatlined —Construction cost increases resulted in no actual increase in infrastructure

This can't possibly be serious, right? Surely this was written by someone making fun of the whole thing, and the people who signed off on it just didn't realize they were being made fun of...

The most interesting thing about the Edmund Fitzgerald is that it was built and owned by Northwestern Mutual. Insurance company that owns an ore freighter is primo midcentury investment diversification.

REMINDER: Next month, starting December 8, the F and the M will swap routes between Manhattan and Queens on weekdays. Here's everything you need to know! Learn more: mta.info/fmswap

The final ridership numbers for last week are in, and Wednesday's total ridership clocks in at 4,601,948. That's new post-COVID number to beat, and the first day above 4.6 million since the first week of March 2020.

Recent subway ridership records: Busiest post-COVID day, Wednesday, 10/29: 4,589,477 Busiest post-COVID Friday, 10/31: 4,428,750 Busiest post-COVID Sunday, 11/2: 2,825,658 2nd busiest post-COVD Saturday, 11/1: 3,093,309 This is how people get around NYC.

I appreciate the convenience of early voting but I do feel a bit like I’m missing out on the fun today.

hard pill to swallow for some technologists/futurist tech fetishists out there that the most efficient, greenest form of land transportation was invented 200 years ago and it just keeps reinventing itself

a very somber “50th anniversary of the wreck of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald” week to all who commemorate when the gales of November came early

AFC: AUTOMATIC FARE COLLECTION AND YOU (1969) | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UqO9tnRlcY

Spot the “ghost” trains that no longer run!

So not only does the massive transit package passed last night fill the funding gap, it *boosts* ops funding by roughly the size of the gap, eliminates parking minimums within a half mile of rail stations, and gives the new regional transit board sweeping powers to do public development

Happy Halloween! 🎃👻

The Illinois Senate last night passed significant transit & intercity passenger rail funding, with the House already having passed their version. Now on to Governor Pritzker to become law. Aside from NY’s Congestion Pricing, this is the best state response to fiscal cliff threats.

This is exceptionally good news to wake up to.

From the Transportation Library's Instagram - the C&O's Chessie and her family Peake, Nip, and Tuck for #NationalCatDay. www.instagram.com/p/DQaAaRzEiXO/

Happy Subway Day! Not looking a day over 120!

As we say farewell to the MetroCard, we've teamed up with iconic NYC vendors for some MetroCard-themed items! Limited-edition items from Carvel, Golden Krust, ALIDORO, Zabar's, Stretch Pizza, and Gong cha will be available through December 2025: mta.info/metrocardfarewell #MetroCardFarewell

I am here to reveal the truth about pumpkin spice lattes, by way of *deep* archival research (and 3,600 words) snackstack.net/2025/10/21/t...

Albany, here we come! Gov. Kathy Hochul announced that Metro-North plans to add a round-trip train between Grand Central & Albany on the Hudson Line, with additional stops at Rhinecliff, Hudson, and Albany-Rensselaer Station. Planning is currently underway with an anticipated launch of Spring 2026.

For decades, everyone has been wondering: would the Pittsburgh Skybus actually have worked? 50 years after the project was canceled, we have the tools* (Subway Builder) to find out. (*This is, at best, half-serious.)

Seattle bike riders! Looking for confirmation of some work being started/done in University District on eastbound Northeast Campus Parkway bike lane barriers. If you see work start/end, would appreciate confirmation and a pic!

We've got extensions opening to an automated metro, a streetcar, and light rail. Really covering all the options here.

I'll do a proper write-up for Snack Stack soon, but my initial takeaways from this research: 1. Pumpkin spice lattes (and other coffee) were around for YEARS before Starbucks "invented" them in 2003 2. It started as a small-town, mostly MIDWEST thing, more nostalgic/kitschy than hip

in new @findingspress.org paper, PhD candidate shirin qiam (now at Minneapolis Met Council). uses a deep learning model and post processing pipeline that outlines surface parking lots. Tulsa has a lot, Oakland surprisingly little. findingspress.org/article/1452...

The standard—and not totally incorrect—narrative is that the US basically abandoned transit after WWII, but there was a real revival underway in the 1970s that stalled out by the mid-1980s as the political winds shifted. Things have improved since, but we've never fully recovered that ambition.

The #1 piece of advice that TransLink's CEO offers other North American transit agencies: Provide frequent service

the financial district is too funny … tell me why every old office building has a name etched in stone like The Amalgamated Steamship, Corn Refining and Horse Insurance Co., 1888 and now it’s a WeWork with a salad place

Absolutely wild ad pull on an M3 today, I think car 9876?

True New Yorker quizzes are fun and all but there is only one question in the actual True New Yorker test: Do You Take The Subway?

Atlanta proved the sheer efficiency of complete separation of airside and landside functions at a hub, Tasso Katselas improved on the idea with a more passenger-friendly airside layout for Pittsburgh. The sun sets for Pittsburgh's landside terminal. byerussell.substack.com/p/pittsburgh...

hello from the central valley

Beginning December 8, F and M trains will permanently swap routes between Manhattan and Queens from approximately 6 am to 9:30 pm on weekdays. This change will provide faster, more reliable service to the 1.2 million riders who take the E/F/M/R trains every day. Details: mta.info/article/f-m-swap

BNSF OCS leaving Long Island after the Ryder Cup

Not to be outdone by the LIRR, Metro-North has released its newest member of the fleet into active service today - SC42-DM #301, seen here running in electric mode through Scarborough

this is actually my great frustration of walking around in new york.

BNSF Office Car Special headed out to Garden City for the Ryder Cup. Incredibly rare move to see something like this on the LIRR!

I wrote about the perhaps surprising American railway boom this week: www.economist.com/united-state...

I have a major piece in Bloomberg Citylab today. Should the US let transit fail, as Pennsylvania is already doing? And if not, what are the arguments we need to let it succeed? www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

The NYT takes on the question of whether freight railroads are serious about growing their mode share: www.nytimes.com/2025/09/18/b...

Strongly agree with this—both the architecture and the exhibits are worth traveling to Sacramento for.