That’s 82 years of Amtrak funding, but we don’t have money for trains!

The island of Lindau, Germany (pop. 3,000), sees 115 train departures per day. The entire state of Texas and all of its cities combined, by comparison, sees 56 daily Amtrak departures.

Objectively, the highest-impact use case for AI is automating code compliance and permitting. You should be able to propose a townhome development and find out if it’s code and zoning compliant within 60 seconds, with a human giving final approval.

Is anyone here an Ireland rail expert?

A casual reminder that the federal government in 1974 killed a plan to build a 75-mile, BART-like rapid transit rail system in Detroit, which called for 3–12 minute headways and a 150-mile BRT system feeder system, for being “too ambitious.”

A sentence I'd never think I'd read from a fellow American in 2026. Long live the people.

Abolish ICE

Hot take but transit vehicles should not have cloth seats.

What projects or trends do you hope to see with transit in 2026?

Ohio, an economy the size of Switzerland, sees just 48 trains a week and has no rail links between its major cities. Yet the state found $600M for a new Cleveland Browns stadium, 136× more than it plans to spend on rail projects over the next two years.

My family knows exactly what gift to get me. Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas 🎄❤️

Wishing you all a safe and Merry Christmas. 🎄❤️ (I’m logging off and you should too)

At max speeds of 110 mph, Michigan could provide rail service between Grand Rapids and Detroit in 95 minutes, 20% faster than driving. For fun, you could name it the "Polar Express," given Grand Rapids is where the movie takes place!

If I won the lottery I wouldn’t tell anyone but there would be signs. (NY Botanical)

At least the Hunger Games at high speed rail…

That could’ve been an email

A really tough weekend. Hug your loved ones close and log off.

Providence will always be home. If you live in the state and are able to donate blood, the Rhode Island Blood Center needs it, especially O-negative and B- blood types. Link below to find a place to donate.

Huh, wonder why this is happening?

Because the state of Connecticut doesn’t want to provide rail service to Norwich, they claim it would cost around $650 million to provide 13.6 miles of rail service. I propose it can be 3x the length and cost $140 million to do.

An older man I’ve become friends with from my alumni network told me tonight he’s giving me his childhood Lionel train sets from the ’60s as he downsizes. Proof that to be loved is to be seen, and tonight, I was.

What is a DMU train you’d use to run a hypothetical rural branch-line rail service in a place like Northern New England?

People from Vienna in the suburbs of Kansas City next year for the World Cup:

It would take 2 hours and 20 minutes to travel between Boston and Washington, D.C. at this speed. This country is so behind, it's laughable.

Mecklenburg County voted in November to raise taxes to fund the Red Line. To me, anything short of an electrified rail line would be a failure, and the Red Line should be seen as the foundation for a future 176-mile S-Bahn/Regional Rail network. Thoughts?

You don't say...

I’ve never seen a sexier way to use my taxpayer dollars

Say what you want, but Mayor-elect Mamdani's transportation transition committee is absolutely fantastic. Having a roster of people who have written reports on how to make subways cheaper, along with the biggest pedestrian and transit advocates in the city, makes me very happy.

What a year this week has been

NYC needs a Chili’s so badly

The Transit Guy, LLC is officially open! 🧵

Project 636 of Project 2025, btw.

Vanderbilt University’s new campus, its first outside of Nashville in the institution's 150-year history, is absolutely stunning, and it’s hidden in plain sight.

So we got 218 votes for a discharge petition to release the Epstein files for Congress to unanimously pass them? Why wasn’t there unanimous backing for the original discharge petition?

What if Providence had actually built its planned subway in 1914? thetransitguy.substack.com/p/what-if-th...

The transformation of Williamsburg’s Domino Park over the past decade has been insane.

Someone said Megyn R. Kelly 😂

Due to this country's lack of state capacity for projects like high-speed rail, experts were able to save fourteen billion dollars in project costs by altering designs that had been based on freight-rail standards. In-house capacity saves money!

When I watch a Godzilla, superhero, or Transformers film, I’m always thinking about the financial, logistical, and economic hurdles of the destruction. Who pays to rebuild Chicago after it’s been leveled in a Transformers movie?

What do you think is the smallest city/metro that could support one or two-line light rail system?

I’m really excited about the NYC Ferry route optimization plan announced today, which will go into effect next month. The new network (1st image) will provide direct connections from Queens to the Bronx and Staten Island to Brooklyn, and it will help alleviate crowding on the E. River. Thoughts?

LETS GO WE MIGHT GET OUR FIRST TRANSIT MAYOR

You can tell the US has so little rail service that if a government shutdown defunded them, Congress couldn't care less and would have no urgency to reopen the government lmao

What were some of the things I could've been doing instead of phone banking for Jacky Rosen last year 👇

All that for a promise to vote on ACA subsidies later?

I'm not really pro new city, but is there any place geographically you could see the United States building a new major city/metro?

I’m not sure what it says about the state of U.S. transit, but only five states move more people by rail each day than the people mover at Atlanta’s airport. By my estimate, it’s one of the most efficient rail systems in the world.

For all the traffic issues that Woodbury Commons has been dealing with, how come there’s no infill train station that serves the outlets directly on the Port Jervis Line? It seems like low-hanging fruit, no?

Why did NYC vote against Prop 1, which was literally to "maintain and build winter sports facilities on what is currently protected forest land in exchange for the state’s dedicating 2,500 acres of new protected land elsewhere in the Adirondack Mountains"?

So if a 1.5% popular vote margin is a "mandate", what's this?