The Interstates were planned in a very different way from most infrastructure. They were built on New Deal-era ideas of universal service provision rather than evaluation of demand. That had major rebalancing effects on the whole country's economic geography. open.substack.com/pub/infrasto...

Troubled transportation infrastructure projects are nothing new. This is the chaotic story of the Northeast Corridor Improvement Project, a 1970s program to fix the dilapidated corridor that fell way below promises. It has definite lessons for the projects of today. open.substack.com/pub/infrasto...

Los Angeles is, counterintuitively, one of the best potential places to implement the Toronto Model for transit. My post on Infrastory talks about why. open.substack.com/pub/infrasto...

We can only get better at building infrastructure if we consciously learn from previous projects’ challenges and figure out how to address them in future projects. Here’s an example of that being done successfully. open.substack.com/pub/infrasto...

When someplace suddenly becomes the hot new tourist destination, it could have a bit to do with the economics of aircraft belly cargo. My new post on Infrastory looks into this.

A great review on Toronto's ambitious historical plans for burying mainline railway corridors in the city center. Written with perspective of the broader context of other similar N American schemes characterizing the era that no longer seem viable today. I can't help but contrast....

You sometimes find amazing things poking around in the archives. In this case, it was a clear illustration about how ambitious North American cities once were when it came to infrastructure. open.substack.com/pub/infrasto...

Our first guest post on Infrastory, this time a deep dive on inland water transport from @jrurbanenetwork.bsky.social

I wrote a piece for Infrastory about why we should think a little more long-term about megaprojects. When a megaproject is successful, we usually forget it was once a megaproject! open.substack.com/pub/infrasto...

In case you missed it, my article on the creation of the Paris RER and how it shows the value of solving problems creatively through interagency cooperation rather than just engineering (solving none call problems!) open.substack.com/pub/infrasto...

Paris’ RER is a perfect example of solving phone call problems. Instead of duplicating infrastructure because different agencies controlled it, Paris made sharing work. It saved a fortune and created Europe’s most impressive regional rail network. open.substack.com/pub/infrasto...

My latest Infrastory post looks at New York's airports and how infrastructure planning choices based on jurisdictional boundaries can lead us badly astray. We didn't need to pave over thousands of acres of marsh and force thousands of trucks to drive through NYC. open.substack.com/pub/infrasto...

Another aviation post! This one on why New York should have had a major (think O'Hare size) hub in Newark, and why it doesn't . . . .weird political boundary ideology.

Flying has never been better. It's a bold claim (but we really think so!) to bookend the launch of Infrastory, we've been so happy for the support and are excited to keep sharing! open.substack.com/pub/infrasto...

Dr. English is one of the originators of the "Toronto Model" concept. Where successful bus based transit service can be achieved in the most transit hostile locales, showing that built form is not the only determinate on the viability of a public transport system.

A few years after opening, Islington station handled 50,000 riders/day. Even amid a sea of parking, fully 70% arrived by bus. At Warden, 17,000 came by bus, just 2,000 parked, and 3,000 were dropped off. The Toronto subway has always relied on its connecting buses: open.substack.com/pub/infrasto...

“On Finch Avenue East in the postwar suburbs of North York and Scarborough, a bus (both express and local) is scheduled to come better than every three minutes during rush hour, every four minutes through the middle of the day, and about every six minutes even at 11 at night.”

Infrastory is back with more posts this week - today’s is about how Toronto completely inverts expectations of what is possible for transit in car-oriented areas. Much to learn here for cities in North America and across the world! open.substack.com/pub/infrasto...

"The lesson isn’t complicated: If transit is frequent and convenient enough...even many people who can afford a car will choose to use it." Toronto is an incredibly fascinating case study, and I can't wait until @englishrail.bsky.social's book is ready to read more!

A must read piece by @englishrail.bsky.social as to why Toronto transit puts all American cities except for NYC to shame! It's not subways, but rather the frequent suburban bus service introduced in the early 1960's. #TTC #TOpoli #UrbanTruth

This outlines Toronto Model of transit that I’ve been talking about for many years (and am working on a book about!). Basically, principle is that universal network of frequent, all-day, every day bus service is essential ingredient for genuinely useful transit. open.substack.com/pub/infrasto...

This is a brilliant way to think about infrastructure: “for every obstacle encountered: is this a rock, or is this a person?”

I cannot emphasize enough how much anyone interested in infrastructure and public transport should be reading this. People ask time and again why things cost so much and this is one of the biggest reasons. We solve coordination problems by throwing money at them.

Un des meilleurs papiers que j’ai lu récemment sur les surcoûts des projets complexes Engineering Problems and Phone Call Problems infrastory.substack.com/p/engineerin... par @englishrail.bsky.social Je crois qu’ALTO devrait prendre des notes car son isolement risque de coûter très cher #polmtl

Infrastructure projects routinely spend billions of dollars to avoid difficult conversations. I wrote a new piece on Infrastory on how we need to be better at recognizing the problems that can be solved with a phone call rather than big infrastructure. open.substack.com/pub/infrasto...

I posted a second article to my new Substack, Infrastory. This one is about the history of the digital revolution and its history in the guaranteed market provided by the Cold War. open.substack.com/pub/infrasto...

It's happening. On Friday, 5/15, we are soft-launching our Transit Priority Atlas 1.0 website. Come join us in person at 370 Jay Street to explore this knowledge-sharing tool and get lost in circulation planning layouts and intersection management strategies for better on-street transit.

I've decided to start writing a newsletter. Its name is Infrastory, which I've long thought captures what I focus on. It's a portmanteau of infrastructure and history, but it's also about telling the story beneath ("infra") the surface. You can find & subscribe at infrastory.substack.com

My good friend @englishrail.bsky.social has told me so many great stories about infrastructure over the years, really excited today that he's launched a blog (I'm helping out). First post is about how Canada became an enormous amount of the American oil market. open.substack.com/pub/infrasto...

Big news for Toronto's streetcars ! 🚋💨 Tomorrow, the TTC Board is reviewing a major report on streetcar and LRT reliability. It's really incredible to see that the TTC's official recommendations align so closely with FastTrackTO's 10-point plan. 🧵👇

Happy to have helped @torontorbot.bsky.social with new report calling for more fare and service integration. Includes supporting improving service across GTA (so we have base reliable service everywhere) and full fare integration so TTC and GO fare are same. bot.com/Resources/Re...

A few of us advocates got together to start enumerating all of the things the city and TTC should be fixing (and should have a long time ago) and created a group with a ten point plan. We estimate you could save *billions* of dollars of peoples time in just the first decade.

Toronto’s streetcars are the SLOWEST in the world. But they don’t have to be - tram systems around the world provide far faster and more reliable service. 10 low-cost fixes, when implemented together, can launch Toronto closer to global best practice. Be sure to read our plan below!

We're thrilled to see transit experts lay out a plan to revolutionize the streetcars! When we held our Streetcar Summit, the most popular solutions among riders were effective signal priority, banning left turns, installing 2-point switches, & more. Experts & riders agree - let's get on with it!

Excited to be helping on this! We need a comprehensive plan that can show how much the streetcars can improve.we can save Torontonians hundreds of thousands of hours a day.

The Line 5 launch went quite well in my personal opinion, and I'm going to have a detailed and I would say quite positive post on the line later today. But first I want to provide some things I really think should be fixed. The TTC to their credit was actually asking for this!

Very happy to have collaborated with CSA Group on this report examining successes and challenges in transit project construction in Canada and the lessons we can learn for future projects. www.csagroup.org/article/publ...

Today I'll be presenting at TTC about a comprehensive plan to revitalize surface transit in Toronto. To be effective, it needs to be implemented as a package but it could radically improve the speed and reliability of streetcars, LRT, and buses. www.ctvnews.ca/toronto/arti...

Very excited to see rapid movement on addressing the issues with speed on Finch LRT & the streetcars too, including today's TTC motions. This is a huge opportunity to fix longstanding problems, mirroring what we recommended in our Star article.

Opening of Finch West LRT was very exciting. I love seeing the new infra, beautiful trains & people excited to ride! But we're clearly not done yet. Scheduled travel time of 46 minutes & often over 50 mins in reality just isn't okay when the local bus was scheduled at 38 off-peak and 53 at peak. 1/

Here's a video of the impossible. The UP Express has high platforms and level boarding for passengers. That is supposed make it impossible for mainline North American freight trains to pass. And yet, as this shows, CN freight trains roll past the high platform at Weston multiple times per week.

“The time [REM] went from ‘doesn’t exist’ to [revenue service] is mind blowing...” A masterpiece from @hudsonyuen.bsky.social featuring @chittimarco.bsky.social & @englishrail.bsky.social. So proud to have played a small part. MUST WATCH for planners who believe the status quo is inevitable

Happy to have written this with Reece and Narayan. There are more details to this but the point is that Spadina can be so much better with a little political will.

I was on CBC Metro Morning today (July 24 if you’re clicking the link) talking about the Bathurst bus lanes, the need for them, the opportunities they bring for further improvements like transit signal priority, and some potential mitigations for businesses. www.cbc.ca/listen/live-...

I was excited to work with Stephen on this. We’ve locked ourselves into what is really a very small market when we could have access to the global elevator market. This is low hanging fruit to fix!

@englishrail.bsky.social and I have a piece in the Globe & Mail about how Canada can make housing more affordable and accessible, and disentangle itself from its unreliable and hostile southern neighbor: give its elevator industry the option to use the European/global standard, not just the U.S. one

A real life example of how busy Brampton Transit can be! This was at the first stop on the route after 11 at night. Two more buses came right behind. We took the third, which still had many seats filled. Frequent service attracts riders. Would love the 407 route back, though!

Toronto is experiencing a lot of planned subway shutdowns. The city regularly does temporary no parking for road work, filming, etc. We should do the same for planned subway shutdowns to make shuttle buses more efficient. Temporary diamond lanes would be even better!

Great op-ed by @rmtransit.bsky.social and @wklumpen.bsky.social www.theglobeandmail.com/business/com...

Did an interview with Global News on fare integration. Very exciting that it's doing as well as we hoped. Was very proud to work on helping push this forward. globalnews.ca/video/111286...