The Transportation Historian

Real patriots ride the train.

Bring it back.

Graphic showing all the many costs of suburban brawl, explaining how many costs are hidden and indirect costs, and sharing stats and data. Prepared by the Sustainable Prosperity Institute.

Suburban Sprawl may seem cheap, but even the costs we CAN count are far too high, and we ALL pay them.

HT Smart Prosperity Institute #UrbanTruth institute.smartprosperity.ca/library/publ...

Traffic is snarled down University Ave including buses, but as usual the trains are unaffected. Go trains.

My activation phrases...

Silver Age of rail: the 1950s, still going strong on VIA Rail’s Canadian. #trains #railway #Canada

This is what it looks like to follow along behind a bike lane snow plow.

You are being misled about renewable energy technology. YouTube video by Technology Connections

Let's do this.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtQ9...

When a relative looks you in the eye and says we can't have trains because "the country is too big":

We have such a stupid transportation system in this goofy country that affects every corner of our life.

Higher costs, worse air, more deaths and injuries, no places you can go and let your kid run around.

These are all things we've given up so people can drive a car at 40 mph in a city.

America Is Taking the Train Airport chaos is leading people to ride the Amtrak. Will they stick with it?

A great way to take pressure off our beleaguered air transportation system is to fix our passenger rail system

4-panel vertical comic. (1) 100 Years Ago [two people standing next to bicycle with small car nearby] PERSON 1: It’s too dangerous riding a bike with these cars around. I should get a car, too. (2) 50 Years Ago [two people between smaller car and bigger car] PERSON 2 with short hair: Small cars are less safe in collisions with larger vehicles, so I should get a bigger one. (3) Today [two people between big car and even bigger car] PERSON 1: Everyone has huge SUVs now. If I don’t get the biggest one, I’m putting my family at risk. (4) Soon [two people next to large armored car with spiked clubs attached] PERSON 2: If I don’t install more whirling spike clubs, I’ll be destroyed by all the other drivers who...

Car Size

xkcd.com/3167/

In the style of Zohran Mamdani's campaign poster: PASSENGER RAIL for Columbus Ohio

Someone: "You can't haul that on your bike"

Cargo bike people:

Two women dressed in majorette costumes pass flowers out to train passengers. Minneapolis Tribune via Hennepin County Library.

A woman dressed in majorette costume prepares to release a pigeon at Milwaukee Road station in Minneapolis, while a man standing beside her in the train holds a starting pistol aloft.

Back End of the Milwaukee Road Streamlined Train `Hiawatha' fall 1938.

Twin Cities Hiawatha F7 steam locomotive pulling the train out of St Paul Union Depot. Hagley Museum and Library, Herbert Hardwood collection

#OnThisDay Nov 7, 1938: Majorettes distribute flowers and release pigeons to celebrate new equipment on the Milwaukee Road's "Twin Cities Hiawatha." The streamlined passenger cars with unique "Beaver Tail" end design were pulled by the new F7 steam locomotives, among the fastest in the world.

The most successful cities will be the ones that give people safe, affordable, efficient, enjoyable freedom of choice in transportation.

Here's a public transit model a lot more cities need to know about.

It's the #Karlsruhe Stadtbahn. It runs tram-trains, in this metro region in #Germany of 310,000.

Outside town, they run as standard commuter trains. Inside town, they operate as trams (streetcars)—no need to change mode.

🧵

Children’s book called “Bicycle Bash” from Alison Farrell A picture of various adaptive bicycles in harmony

A bicycle built just for you and a place to safely ride them. It’s not that much to ask.

Cartoon worm, man accuses women of being “anti-Car “…

I don’t hate cars. Like most North American males I was raised to think cars are cool, and as a design nerd, few objects are more eye-catching.

I hate surrendering our streets, our cities and our lives to them.

Car dependence isn’t freedom.

Great cartoon by @robcowan.bsky.social #CarDependency

Hi @npr.org! We worked late tonight putting together this handy pocket guide!

It doesn't address road design issues, but if we're going to educate road users, we should include drivers.

It's the size of a folded business card. Print it, fold it, put it in your wallet!

A trip to Utrecht isn't complete without a ride to Houten... A few bicycle scenes from there... More in the blog... www.rollinginthecity.ca/blog/trying-... #transportation #cycling #street #cities #urbanism #netherlands #houten #streetphotography #documentaryphotography #fujifilm

Why your next car should be an electric cargo bike Rewiring cities for more human-centric transportation

Why your next car should be an electric cargo bike

I'm sure this was a handy car park a few decades ago but I prefer it like this

New road layout outside a primary school in Utrecht. Bike parking, greenery and cycle tracks to keep kids and parents safe. Compare this to the dangerous car orientated mess that is Downham Road in Hackney!

A key to graceful aging is to always keep moving and human-scale infrastructure is pivotal for enabling people to age in place.

Expressing my gratitude for the Salt Lake City E-Bike Voucher Program Last summer, I was fortunate enough to be selected to receive a voucher through SLC's pilot E-bike Incentive Program. They only had the budget to select around 10% of their applicants, so I definitely don't take my selection for granted. I applied for the low-income, cargo bike category, resulting in my receipt of a voucher for $1300 off of a cargo bike from a number of local bike retailers. After this discount, I paid around $700 for a solid cargo bike, with quality components, long range, and great cargo capacity. As someone who already owned a car, I probably wouldn't have considered getting a bike like this without the discount. However, this was an opportunity too good to pass up on, which has resulted in me replacing countless car trips with bike rides, reducing emissions, relieving traffic congestion, getting a comfortable amount of exercise, and often saving me time and money compared to using my car or public transit.

Primarily, the ebike has been perfect for commuting to U of U. Even though I only live around a 13 minute drive from campus, finding parking plus walking across the large campus to a class can easily add another 10 minutes to the commute, in addition to any traffic along the way. Public transit takes 45-50 minutes, which is doable on a more relaxed day, but clearly not ideal. The ebike shines here, letting me breeze up the steep hills to campus, getting me from my front door to the front door of any campus building in under 20 minutes, every time. Additionally, when leaving campus around rush hour, it feels amazing to be in the bike lane and pass by the huge lines of cars stuck in traffic. This also saves me the hundreds of dollars a year that a parking pass costs, while opening up a spot for someone who lives somewhere that truly requires them to drive. This time and cost savings has meant I've been happy to bike in some exceptionally freezing or rainy days, as it's really not too big of a deal with proper gear. I think everyone, even those with multiple cars/vehicles should consider owning an ebike, especially those living in SLC. So many individual trips can be replaced, while adding minimal travel time. Plus, biking to go get groceries is just more fun, and makes you feel more connected with your community, the environment, and your surroundings. I've been biking all my life, but without this program, I would never have internalized just how possible it is, and how good it feels to replace a huge portion of your daily travel with an ebike, and for that, I sincerely thank everyone behind this program.

The best ad for e-bikes (and e-bike vouchers) are stories from people who get one and are blown away by how convenient and fun they are. (Screenshots below from a Reddit post).

If we cannot all be on the same page that the sitting president threatening to invade a US city is fascist dictator shit then truly I do not know what to do.

People walking and biking get shamed for wearing headphones. Meanwhile, drivers sit inside sealed metal cabins with 12-speaker sound systems, fully isolated from the world and no one questions it, even as they operate 2-ton machines through crowded cities.

Old and new train stations for Omaha (note: I don't own any of the images)

When I tell you we HAD the greatest rail system in the world, I meant it.

(Omaha's Old & New Rail Station)