Another railway station opened in Naples today, Monte Sant'Angelo. As always over there, stunning architecture but abysmal construction times (works started in 2008) and mediocre service (line 7 will operate as a 1-station shuttle initially). youtu.be/rGdrMcuV3r4?...

If you are in Rome in the next two months, there is an exhibition at Palazzo Venezia about the history of Italian railways since Unification, on the occasion of the 120th anniversary of the creation of the Italian Ferrovie dello Stato in 1905. vive.cultura.gov.it/it/le-ferrov...

I was going through some old pics and I found one that really conveys why the Brenner basis tunnel was necessary. This picture was taken in Sterling/Vipiteno, pointing north toward the Brenner. Here starts the 2.3% ramp that brings the line from 950m to 1,374m at the Brenner in 22km

What have the Romans done for us?

Below, the 1958 city plan of Bologna for a sector of the inner modern expansion characterized by a mix of "planned" and "unplanned" growth, that was poised to be reorganized with the introduction of many new throughfares (blue) alongside the existing ones (white)

Today, after 20 years of stop&Go works in very southern Italy fashion, the Baia new station on the Cumana line near Naples has been inaugurated. As always, fantastic architecture, but poor execution and mediocre service, unfortunately. youtu.be/w22lUQO99Nk?...

My new downstairs neighbours are using the bathroom ventilation much more than the previous ones, and now I have a constant low humming noise in the house. I really hate these cardboard houses. This continent should learn how to build properly.

If only there was a technology that allowed the contemporary flow of trains and cars crossing each other. Something that would make them go at different levels, for example. I'm sure there is some Silicon Valley start-up that is looking into this problem right now and will save us.

I've done something that I don't do very often. I wrote a short, quick polemic post. It was prompted by a discussion in here. It's about why I'm still skeptical about ALTO's HSR project and why there is no way around transparency in public projects. open.substack.com/pub/marcochi...

We have zero hints right now about alignments, service levels, station locations, urban integration, etc But they want it to break ground in four years. Good luck, folks. Especially when the generic "I love the idea of HSR" crowd will turn into a "don't want that massive infra in my backyard" crowd

Canadian suburban planning can be really weird. Just the most vanilla staple sprawl complete with the fake urbanist strip mall cosplaying as a main street (Marketplace Ave 🫣)... but with a random transitway across it. And this is Barrhaven, a far flung leapfrog suburb outside of Ottawa's greenbelt.

On one hand, I hate the fact that the Italian road code imposes an unnecessary overuse of oversized road signs. OTOH, 🥰😍🥰😍

Saturday 15 th and Sunday 16th the REM will open to the public for free between 9am - 6pm for its grand opening. Revenue service will start on the 17th. rem.info/fr/evenement...

I need to know more about this digital map thing. But I also fear what I might learn (P.s. : congrats, New Yorkers!)

Folks, what terms would you use to translate the French "hypercentre," which is used in planning jargon, to refer to the very core of the city center? Would "inner city core" or "inner core of the city center" work?

From an Egis presentation at CUTA yesterday about integrating bike infras and trams. The French do multi-phase pedestrian crossing, and that's why they can have absolute priority and we can't. Also: their TSP philosophy is fundamentally different >>> Paging @florianbonet.bsky.social

This is just really depressing. I've lived in this city through two elections without the right to have a say in the policies that impacts my everyday life, and 2/3 of voters can't actually spare 15 minutes every 4 years to vote.

My first time voting in Canada. I confess I was excited like a kid on his first day of school.

Repost to scare a North American transit operator. (Good idea for a Halloween costume, too. Dress as a five-door artic and go to the APTA Halloween party to spread panic)

Killing time in an airport, I was thinking how much more "urban" most North American airports are compared to European peers. Even those built far out like Dulles have been overtaken by sprawl now.

Me: I don't understand why the northbound Adirondack takes 12 hours while the southbound takes "only" 11 hours. Amtrak: let's make it 13 hours!

My brain is melting but this thing is starting to look like something finally...

🚋🚋 (Pics from Comune di Bologna)

Almost unrelated comment, but it's interesting how successful Renaissance has been at "public relations", especially for non-italians, while the actual urban and economic renaissance of Italy (and most of Europe) really happened two centuries earlier, in the 13th century rather than the 15th.

The difference in the time it takes a streetcar in Amsterdam vs. Toronto to clear an intersection after servicing a nearside stop.

Nothing of this would have been possible without the people I have been reading online for more than a decade (I keep a list of references you can look at: docs.google.com/spreadsheets...). This is mostly a reframing about 15 years of housing discourse in a convincing and coherent way. I hope.

When I was hired at @vivreenville.bsky.social in 2020, I had about a decade of exposition to anglosphere discourse on housing and found that in Québec professional circles, almost no one else did. We had failed to learn from the failures of English Canada and the US, and it was already too late.

I wish there was a way to convey how much of a big deal this is to me, I wish you could feel it. Our work on housing policy, condensed in a single report, has finally been translated to English. You can download it here: carrefour.vivreenville.org/publication/... (Click "Télécharger le PDF")

I cobbled together four photos of the same corner of via Rizzoli in Bologna, taken between the 1930s and the early 1970s. They show the evolution of road use and design in the early days of mass automobility. A pattern similar throughout the so-called developed world. 🧵

BTW, for this line RFI "invented" a new civil engineering beast that they called "gallerodotto", that is a tunnel-(via)duct, which is essentially a very low-rise viaduct with minimal spans that works as a "permeable embankment" in flood-prone lowlands.

Today, RFI opened the first section of the "fast double-tracking on a partial new alignment**" of the Palermo-Catania railway line. 38 km for €600 million ** de facto, a brand new line. www.rfi.it/it/news-e-me...

The M66 eastbound at 11 pm might be bus with the most elegant clientele in the world.

I finally completed my second long form post dedicated to the problem of High Speed Rail and the city, or "who goes with whom in the puzzle of traffic separation around large urban areas?" I hope you enjoy. open.substack.com/pub/marcochi...

🚋⬆️↗️🚋

Interesting data from TILO, the Trenord-FFS joint venture that has operated the regional service b/n Ticino and Lombardy since 2008 It's probably the most interesting cross-border rail success story, with booming ridership and ever-growing service @jonworth.eu source: www.cifi.it/download/til...

I think we underestimate how appreciated the existence of non-car alternatives is for the layperson. The mayor of Deux-Montagnes says that he loves the REM, and recognizes that mobility has changed, that car- & bike-sharing are picking up even in his far-flung suburb. www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCxW...

The rest of the planet, since the late 19th century: let's move our tramways in a central alignment away from the curb, to diminish conflicts and make it faster. US streetcars: Wait, what?

Genova is ending fare-free access to the metro and public lifts for residents and will raise fares. Transit will remain free for <14 yo, low-income >65 yo, and at night and on Sundays for all. www.genovatoday.it/politica/amt...

I'm planning to visit Lyon again next year, for many reasons but especially to walk along the new T6-Nord, which has a priority strategy heavily based on an aggressive reorganization of the circulation plan in the neighborhood, more than most recent French lines @florianbonet.bsky.social ;-)

Train cosplaying as a plane (Seriously though, I have nothing against providing safety info to travellers, but it's just that they are so inconsistent across train operators that they feel pretty random, unlike for flights were there is string consistency in safety provisions worldwide)

When @alonlevy.bsky.social and i started working together, we both thought that a wall of text with a picture and maybe a chart/table was advanced design. We know that’s wrong. We attempted to take our NEC work and add some good design. We are very happy with how this came out: nec.transitcosts.com

The next bet is: what will open first, Eglington Crosstown or REM's West Island branch (which is generically announced for spring 2026)? Or maybe REM airport branch?

Your semi-regular pic of Bologna's incoming tramway The green roofs of the Operation and Maintenance facility pics from www.comune.bologna.it/novita/comun...

It's challenging to evaluate the long-term effects of broad mobility policies due to the lack of consistent time series and the difficulty in controlling for external factors. But keeping bus speed stable or even slightly increasing it in the face of rising automobility can be called a success.

It's fascinating how traffic control practices tend to evolve in different ways between countries and are so hard to change later Like the French making two-phase signals a quasi religion to the point that it's hard to find directional traffic lights in Paris.

I guess the REM won the race with Eglington LRT ? Opening of the Deux-Montagnes branch announced for November 17th rem.info/fr/actualite...

Take these numbers with a grain of salt, but that's how transit ridership in Bologna look like 1932-2024. If we exclude the 1975-85 period (I explain why in the next post), ridership per capita has been above the late 1960s lows until now, and reached an all time high in 2019

We have a new website for the Northeast Corridor High-Speed Rail project, with illustrative graphics. nec.transitcosts.com

Very interesting detailed video showing all the steps of the track renewal process using a track renewal train. youtu.be/4B1jZBNqhJQ?...

Italy, that country that can be simultaneously overrepresented in the category of regions with the highest and the lowest risk of poverty and social exclusion. Really two (or more) countries in a trenchcoat. ec.europa.eu/eurostat/en/...