We love a good guide! Thanks @wired.com! www.wired.com/story/how-to...

Having traveled around the US quite a bit the past few years, we've seen a lot of this in person. Pretty much every city has at least *something* that looks like a recent improvement.

Ok

Annual refresh of our Transit & Urbanism Directory is under way! We're checking all the links. About 400 orgs. 60 checked so far. We found... - 33 new socials (incl. 10 Bluesky) - 6 relocated socials - 2 orgs newly active - 3 orgs newly dormant www.howdoyou.guide/orglist

Having taken the bus when visiting Providence, this is just a massive self-own on the part of Rhode Island. Props to @pvdstreets.bsky.social for doing the good work and bringing receipts!

Welcome to the modern world, Orange County! Buses now have tap-to-pay and fare capping. The old app was a nightmare, this is a huge improvement! howdoyou.guide/transit-gett...

We checked out the new LAX/Metro Transit Center. It's nice! Added some pics to our Getting Around LA page. howdoyou.guide/transit-gett...

Getting Around: SAN DIEGO, CA San Diego had surprisingly good transit! Good rail, good buses. The tap readers were hard to find sometimes, and a *little* more frequency would help. howdoyou.guide/transit-gett...

Sometimes you can just do the nice things. Thanks, @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social!

There's an ease/preference gradient for ways to pay for transit, and it's probably gonna be different for everyone. Mine is: Tap > Phone Wallet > App > Transit Card > Ticket > Cash

LATE WEEKEND THOUGHT: A common approach to riding transit in a new place is to try to understand a city's system and paradigms... But successfully riding transit might be more about a robust set of TOOLS and SKILLS.

Sometimes we take transit somewhere and it's a headache. Then we go back and they made something work better. Props to Orange County, CA, on their new payment system, joining the ranks of DC and Philly as places that became easier for us to ride.

Today's "oh that's different!": You have to push a button to open the trolley doors in San Diego. Also props to the fare inspectors for an impromptu mini orientation.

Just tapped to pay for the bus in Orange County, CA. Long overdue, much appreciated! New app is better as well.

We went to Baltimore! It's really close to being a great transit system, but the devil was in the details. Really hard to catch sometimes. But great once on board. Lots of lessons learned! howdoyou.guide/transit-gett...

We have stickers! Check out our sticker and guide bundles for your loved ones this holiday season. We have coffee and cocktail themes. They're fun and, dare we say, educational! shop.howdoyou.guide

"How Do You Avoid Hitting People with your Car" mini guide. Now in French! 🇫🇷

Getting Around: Albuquerque, NM We rode their Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) called ART. ✅ It was fast! ✅ It was free! ❌ It didn't come very often. howdoyou.guide/transit-gett...

Baltimore threw us some curve balls! Many lessons learned. Our transit guide still needs some work. Write-up coming shortly...

Planning to test our first prototype "How Do You Ride Transit in a New City" checklist soon. Destination: Baltimore!

Extremely Dishonorable Mention to this bike lane:

Getting Around: ORANGE COUNTY, CA Last week was LA, this week let's look at OC! ✅Buses are clean and fast ❌Buses come once every 40+ minutes ❌Most routes are East-West or North-South, so you'll probably need to transfer... and wait another 40+ minutes howdoyou.guide/transit-gett...

We love curated things. You get insight. Context. Opinion. A refreshing change from the algorithmic and AI landscape. Currently updating our transit org list (hdy.guide/orglist) and listening to Iowa Public Radio. www.iowapublicradio.org/classical

Congratulations to our new transit-friendly mayor!

We rewatched Volcano, one of our favorite disaster flicks, recently. It holds up surprisingly well. Key to the story is the Red Line (now D) extension. This fictional extension was preparing to open... in 1997. Better late than never! www.imdb.com/title/tt0120...

And yes, we love you up in Toronto as well. Making plans for a visit next year. 🇨🇦

Would love to see this reformed. It's so arbitrary.

Go Dodgers! ⚾ We rode transit in LA. - Better than you'd think. Amazing if you're lucky. 🎰 - Frequency can be poor.⌚ - Difficult crossing county line. ❌ - TAP fixed the old nightmare of fares and transfers. 💳 howdoyou.guide/transit-gett...

This is the kind of playful whimsy we happily pay 2.90 for.

Looking forward to this read! @thewaroncars.bsky.social

Playing around with an idea. Who can identify what this is a sketch of?

Congrats to Kansas City on their streetcar expansion! We rode it earlier this year. Free fares made it really easy and low-stress for an out-of-towner, and it took us from Amtrak right to our hotel (give or take a couple blocks)! howdoyou.guide/transit-gett...

We walked through NYC's West Village on Halloween once. Closed to traffic. The feeling of safety was amazing. No threat of being maimed or killed if you carelessly wandered a few steps to the left.

Love a guide like this! It takes a lot of mental labor to keep rehashing the same explanations over and over. Read it, bookmark it, save yourself some sanity.

Getting Around: GROVER BEACH, CA Cute town. Gorgeous beach. App sent us on foot, along PCH, with no sidewalk. LESSON LEARNED: Take care to verify app directions. Read on for coyotes. howdoyou.guide/transit-gett...

Here's a nice guide on writing about crashes!

Poked around the city. Took some pics of our stickers.

New Guide just dropped! HOW DO YOU Step Onto the Subway - Let People Off First - Step All the Way In - Sit or Hold On Pre-order in the shop, or print at home for free: howdoyou.guide/mini-guides

A friendly request: Include which city you're referring to with your transit and urbanism takes, and at the start of articles. There's countless places that call things "Metro," and readers are tuning in from all over the world.

They're here! "How Do You Avoid Hitting People With Your Car" cards are now in stock and ready to ship! If you preordered, they're on their way! shop.howdoyou.guide/product/mini...

Love a good map! The skyway feels a bit like the dungeons in the original Legend of Zelda: a grid where each room has 1-4 exits to adjacent rooms, and you're not sure which are going to open.

We love to see it!

Preview, work in progress...

Our guide to not hitting people with your car is now available in Italian! Check us out on Mastodon (mastodon.social/@howdoyouguide) where we give a shout-out to our translators! If anyone would like to see it in other languages, we'd love to collaborate!

Week Without Driving: GALESBURG, IL Our favorite story of the week. People don't walk much in Galesburg. But we did! And we had a much better time than we would have if we drove! #WeekWithoutDriving @americawalks.bsky.social howdoyou.guide/transit-gett...

Week Without Driving: HARRISBURG PA Harrisburg's big win was how easy it was to buy a ticket. Right in the @transit.app app! Wish the buses ran more often and later though. #weekwithoutdriving @americawalks.bsky.social howdoyou.guide/transit-gett...

Week Without Driving: BUFFALO 👍 Buffalo had better transit than expected, and the light rail is free within downtown! Got around without driving just fine. 🤷‍♂️ Not sure what's up with cars driving on the tracks. #weekwithoutdriving @americawalks.bsky.social howdoyou.guide/transit-gett...

We love a good illustration! Some people are claiming we should only daylight (make it easier to see pedestrians) at intersections with crashes. Luckily, there's a map of crashes! Play with it yourself here: crashmapper.org#/ Golly, looks like people could use our guide! (data Sept 2020-2025)

Week Without Driving: FLAGSTAFF, AZ We actually didn't take transit in Flagstaff. But we learned some lessons about how you get a different impression of a city on foot. A complete rediscovery of somewhere we *thought* we'd been before. @americawalks.bsky.social howdoyou.guide/transit-gett...