👀👀🚋🚋🚋👀👀 youtu.be/aWAoFMaMjTA?...

Honestly wasn't expecting the 2022 Surrey-Langley Skytrain Extension Capital Cost Memo to remind me of the Epstein Files surreylangleyskytrain.gov.bc.ca/app/uploads/...

Madrid is burying and capping yet another portion of its urban highways, putting a linear park on top. Meanwhile, we leave them as they are or do "highway to urban boulevards" (aka landscaped stroads) because we forgot how to bury things. youtube.com/shorts/tLSkJ...

That's quite the chart of the % of new starts by type in greater Montréal since 2000. More and more a metro area of apartments. From the new Metropolitan plan PMAD. cmm.qc.ca/wp-content/u...

This is exactly what happens in large infrastructure projects and ends up driving costs: many times, institutional arrangements determine the perimeter of what is technically possible. I'm pretty sure ALTO's alignment choice will offer a great example of how institutions shapes the material world

This is to say: had this merger happened a few years ago, the capacity pressure that required bulldozing housing in the first place would not have existed. It's incredible what re-configuring institutional incentives can do to the material world.

Without going into the exotic perfection of the Nordics, that's exactly what Italy does, too. AFAICT, pre-filled tax declarations for people on a payroll are the norm in most of Europe nowadays.

Today Montpellier inaugurated its 5th tram line, bringing the network to 83 km. The first line was opened in 2000. The network has grown highly interlined, with multiple trunks crossing the central area.

Epstein Files 🤝 FOIA for a Canadian infrastructure projects' cost estimates.

I guess keeping all these electric cables outside is a good idea right? This happens 2-3 times per year, at least.

Tout est en ligne sur leur site internet : www.cerema.fr/fr/actualite...

Le #CEREMA vient de publier un dossier spécial "Carrefours cyclables en milieu urbain : les règles de conception". On y trouve les clés pour réussir un aménagement qui a toutes les chances de bien fonctionner. N'hésitez pas à l'utiliser. Avec un exemple à Clermont Ferrand ;) @cerema.bsky.social

Speed Matters. Some thoughts about transit and speed, life, space and time. open.substack.com/pub/marcochi...

Does "running times optimism" also exist for grade-segregated transit? If you look at REM, the answer is not as much as for street-running projects like Finch West. D-M -> Canora 2016 ridership study = 27 min current scheduled = 29' D-M -> Gare C.le 2016 = 32' (w/o McGill & E-M) current = 37'

From Today, Rome's metro will be slightly less underbuilt: the two-station segment between San Giovanni and Colosseo-Fori Inperiali just opened, increasing by a round 50% the number of connections in the network (from 2 to 3 😁), giving Rome a partial "Soviet Triangle" Pics from various sources.

Montréal, 2025: on doit interrompre la voie réservée en rive pour permettre tous les virages à droite France, 1972: il est opportun d'interdire le virage à droite lorsque ils existent des trajets parallèles. C'est très efficace!

Hardplatz is another interesting example of how Zurich's traffic management is not just about fine-tuning of signal cycles but broader circulation planning aiming at simplifying intersections to make then manageable. Transformed from a very complex 6-leg junction to a way simpler node in the 1980s

I find it pretty hilarious that there are people fantasizing about building tramways in Montréal when one of the "frequent" lines that said tramways are supposed to replace run this kind of service. I guess I'm gonna clog the streets wirh a communauto

The existence of the letter H after any letter that is not a C or a G is a conspiracy against Italians. Sorry, foreign borrower of the Latin alphabet, you cannot just throw random H with other consonants. That's just wrong.

Places that do not understand tram operations: let's run them with train-like positive protection. Places that do understand tram operations: let's build a 100 m-long platform at our busiest stop so both trams and buses can board simultaneously. We trust trained drivers to handle this. (Ulm HB)

"Et de son côté, le promoteur ne souhaitait pas ériger ses tours sur des fondations qu’il n’avait pas lui-même construites." Densifier autour des stations ✅️ Densifier SUR les stations ❌️ (On se cherche de la complexité additionnelle sur un projet déjà complexe)

For people not familiar with the matter: any tram line I'm aware of globally works in so-called "line-of-sight", i.e. it's 100% manually operated by the driver with some protection for single track and switches None use PTO signaling (i.e. that enforce max speed), except on off-street sections

Austro-Hungarian vibes today as the new daily Vienna-Trieste Railjet arrived in Trieste, part of the new services made possible by the Koralmbahn. www.ilpiccolo.it/nordest/tren...

"Bologna, città senz'auto"* The War on Cars, Bologna edition, 1993. *Bologna, a city without cars. Policy document in preparation of the 1995 Traffic Plan.

I will hold any consideration until the actual alignment options for Alto HSR are known, but once again we are probably gonna see the curse of anglosphere urbanism on HSR, i.e. the financial and political burden of routing rail through our infinite sprawl for (not?) getting to downtown.

My understanding is that these signals double as what the French call a SAC (Système d'Aide à la Conduite) which tell drivers that the priority request has been taken into account. The French systems generally have both a priority activated (flashing diamond) and pre-green ( flashing "!")

Today is the last day of operations for Milano Porta Genova station, opened in 1870. Starting with tomorrow's winter timetable changes, the only remaining service terminating there, the R31, will be routed along the railway belt to Rogoredo.

I'm more and more convinced that there should be only two kinds of meetings: quick calls with maximum 3-4 people to solve immediate problems or Conclave-type ones where the relevant people are locked in a room indefinitely until they figure out a solution. Everything else is a waste of time

Today Austria inaugurated the Koralmbahn, offering a more direct route between Vienna and the Italian border and putting all its major southern cities on a single line. It's designed for 250 km/h, like most HSR segments in Austria.

Looking at the Montréal map, it's quite clear how people density is different form floor density Despite having similar typologies (all mostly plexes) to the surrounding ones, the three three highlighted areas are denser because of student flat sharing (McGill ghetto) or poorer (Parc Ex, MTL Nord)

One more dedicated left-turn and right-turn lane will fix it, bro, I promise. All we need is just a couple more lanes and longer cycles to increase throughput.

REM, McGill station. 2:30 pm. Platform direction Deux-Montagnes. Train is due in 5 minutes.

Everything in planning is about trade-offs. The pros and cons of the two main TSP strategies used in France: "slipping" (the transit phase will "slip" within the normal cycle) versus "overriding" (the transit phase overrides the next phase to keep it in sync). from: www.cerema.fr/fr/system/fi...

"Pour les services de transport collectif, la priorité aux carrefours est essentielle à la définition du « haut niveau de service ». " Ça paraît évident. Toutefois, ce constat n'a malheureusement pas franchi l'Atlantique…

This is an interesting example of how the strategy for signal priority is intertwined with road design. This arrangement in Besançon might look odd: a lateral queue-jump with nearside stop continuing into a center-running dedicated lane, adding an unnecessary conflict with through traffic. BUT

I think it would be possible to write a dissertation about the diverging philosophies of traffic management between Europe (or in general Vienna convention countries) and North America, just by starting from the fact that this road sign, i.e. "priority road", does not exist in North America.

Interesting drone video of the Verona-Vicenza HSR. Most of the civils and the roadbed are completed. Tracklying and OLE installation have started in multiple points. Works started in 2020 and the line is expected to open in December 2026. youtu.be/gl_EcjA1iAc?...

The secret sauce of Zurich's transit priority at intersections: two-stage crossings, variable length cycles made of stages that can change their length and order adaptively, and narrow lanes and intersections resulting in very short clearing times

Talking about setting up priority rules for a VISSIM traffic simulation "It is assumed that most of the time that will be the case, since in reality Swiss drivers seem to be friendly and often yield even when they are not required to do so." archiv.ivt.ethz.ch/docs/student...

Toronto is not the only city failing to provide strong signal priority for its transit projects! @ontariotrafficman.bsky.social is working his way through documents on transit signal priority on Montreal’s Pie-IX BRT, recently obtained by @tovarischmark.bsky.social in a request for information.

So, apparently the TSP of the SRB Pie-IX is a real joke. Canada loves to spend millions to build transit in dedicated RoW...and then waste all the advantage in non-existent signal priority.

Two examples from Zurich of how indirect maneuvers help simplify intersection management and deliver effective Transit Priority even in very complex junctions, as part of a broader circulation plan. The Bellevue/Stadelhofen and Kreuplatz nodes

Your daily reminder that the most effective transit priority strategy at intersection is... not having an intersection at all.

L'integration urbaine c'est effectivement l'un des grands points faibles du REM. D'ailleurs Bois-Franc c'est aussi une énorme occasion ratée pour realiser un passage piéton/vélo sous les voies hors de la station. On va regretter ça. www.lapresse.ca/actualites/g...

I couldn't resist

I'm repeating myself ad nauseam, but this totally stupid nonsense of all identical traffic lights with written signs to indicate what they are meant for is so absolutely insane that has come to symbolize the hyper-provincialism of Ontario and why it fails so miserably at transit construction.

I must have missed the snap elections when Reform won a majority. It's quite clear that they've already won.

You know what's funny? It's that Canada does multi-stage pedestrian crossing in its oldest LRT, in Edmonton! Because it treats it as a railway crossing, with railway barriers... But conceptually it's a multi-stage pedestrian crossing, allowing the LRT to have full priority... at 70 km/h!

"aspettando il tram" waiting for the tram via Indipendenza in Bologna finally pedestrianized for good as the tramway works draw to an end Pics: Comune di Bologna.

Technology is cool and all but did you ever happen to think that what is possibly the most impressive and comprehensive transit signal priority system in the world, Zurich's, is essentially based on updated versions of 1970s and 80s tech, i.e. induction loops, antennas and basic programming?