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Ahasan

@ef63.bsky.social
56 followers 71 following 57 posts

Engineering Student Transportation Researcher @movementyvr.bsky.social 🚇/🚍/🚋/🚠 📍Vancouver Opinions are my own

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Ahasan @ef63.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
I'm reading some 2010s Vancouver documents on underground infill station construction, and it's unfortunate that so much research doesn't look beyond the Anglosphere
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Movement: Metro Vancouver Transit Riders @movementyvr.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
This summer, volunteer organizers Angela Kim and Ahasan Bhuiyan have been out talking with riders across South Vancouver to shape our advocacy priorities. Their report (think Surrey Transit Future) is coming soon! 📸: Michael Hall
Ahasan shares a graph showing how bus speeds have slowed every year due to traffic.Workshop participants engaged in a mapping activity.
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Brian Doucet @briandoucet.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
The Glasgow Subway, opened in 1896, will be fully automated early next year. Some stations already have their platform doors in place (pictures 1 & 2) For the rest, the days of being able to take these photos (3 & 4) are numbered. Photos from July 2026.
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Ahasan @ef63.bsky.social · 25/07/2026
@jedwinmok.com @chittimarco.bsky.social Glad to see Victoria, BC, looking internationally for inspiration from the... Brisbane "Metro" and trackless trams... oh... 🙃 www.bctransit.com/wp-content/u...
A page from the Draft Victoria Regional Transit Plan that lists "rapid transit" options as rapidbus, trackless trams, and rail transit.

Source: https://www.bctransit.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/9.1-Draft-Victoria-Regional-Transit-Plan.pdf
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Jens von Bergmann @jensvb.bsky.social · 09/06/2026
Give a nerd a chart or a map and they will waste a day. Teach a nerd how to make charts and maps and they will waste the rest of their life.
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John Munro @johnmunro.bsky.social · 31/05/2026
Having just visited Vienna for the first time, I found it impossible not to notice how much public space it reserves for car owners. Really confirms that if you don't reduce car lanes and parking spots at scale, your public space will continue to suffer, no matter how good your public transit.
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Jedwin Mok @jedwinmok.com · 27/05/2026
Toronto’s transit cost disease has hit… metal fences. Just a reminder that $2M CAD is about the cost of half height PSGs for one platform in Hong Kong. Then we use NYC to justify our wild cost estimates for actual screen doors. The incuriosity and Anglo echo-chamber here is astounding.
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Denis Agar (he/him) @denisagar.bsky.social · 15/05/2026
Of all the North American cities studied, Vancouver's buses have the second highest variation in travel time throughout the day. This should set off alarm bells that we have a lot of work to do when it comes to making buses reliable.
Here is the verbatim text from the image, followed by a detailed description of the bar chart.

Verbatim Text
"However, the speed variation throughout the day is not as pronounced across all jurisdictions. The following chart illustrates the Median Absolute Deviation (MAD) of the half-hourly rolling average for each city between 7 am and 8 pm. The MAD is a measure of statistical dispersion that indicates how much the half-hourly rolling average deviates from the median for each city. The value is expressed as a percentage of a city's median speed to control for differences in baseline speeds across cities. This measure is a synthetic indicator of the daily variability of transit running times during the core of a weekday, excluding the early morning and late evening service hours which tend to have much faster service.

Munich, Vienna, Zurich, Bologna, and Eindhoven exhibit the lowest relative MAD, indicating that their scheduled speeds are more consistent throughout the day, suggesting that surface transit in these cities is less affected by recurrent sources of delay, such as longer boarding times and congestion during peak hours. In contrast, cities like Birmingham, Boston, Auckland, and Vancouver exhibit higher MAD values, indicating greater variability in average speed throughout the day and suggesting that their surface transit is more sensitive to factors that cause delays and increase running times (and thus reduce speed) during peak hours."

Bar Chart Description
The image features a horizontal bar chart titled "North America" that ranks 13 cities based on their relative Median Absolute Deviation (MAD). The bars represent the level of transit speed variability; a longer bar indicates higher variability (less consistent service), while a shorter bar indicates lower variability (more consistent service).

The cities are ranked from highest variability to lowest variability as follows:
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Christopher Cheung @bychrischeung.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
Love Richmond's Asian malls? You can catch the new doc "The Golden Village" on YouTube, with lovely scenes of mall life and how migrants made them home. Directed by Karen Cho of "Big Fight in Little Chinatown", feat. me chiming in over pork chop rice! www.youtube.com/watch?v=tba1...
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Jonathan English @englishrail.bsky.social · 08/05/2026
Infrastructure projects routinely spend billions of dollars to avoid difficult conversations. I wrote a new piece on Infrastory on how we need to be better at recognizing the problems that can be solved with a phone call rather than big infrastructure. open.substack.com/pub/infrasto...
open.substack.com
Engineering Problems and Phone Call Problems
Perhaps sometimes we really should just phone it in
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Denis Agar (he/him) @denisagar.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
“The best-used euro is not to reduce the price but to increase the offer,” says Kehrer. “Because what’s the use of a cheap ticket if I still can’t travel when I want to?”
theguardian.com
Vienna’s public transport is the envy of the world – so why can’t it ditch cars?
Austrian capital mulls expanding tram network and park-and-ride car parks in effort to reduce private vehicle use
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Better Columbia @bettercolumbia.ca · 05/05/2026
Building bike lanes at the same time as roadwork was supposed to save money, expand the network and reduce opposition. The reality is more complicated, argues Ruofan 🚎
bettercolumbia.ca
Should sewers dictate where bike lanes go? - Better Columbia
Bike lanes tied to road resurfacing opportunities aren’t delivering on their promise.
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Ahasan @ef63.bsky.social · 20/04/2026
While Vancouver drags its feet on improving four measly bus routes, a true world-class city, Vienna, is looking to speed up 29 tram lines and 135 bus routes, basically its entire surface transit network. The city will invest 2 million Euros annually until 2030 on transit acceleration measures.
Announcement for Vienna's „Mehr Tempo für Bus und Bim“ (More Speed ​​for Buses and Trams) campaign © Stadt Wien/David Bohmann
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Denis Agar (he/him) @denisagar.bsky.social · 14/04/2026
This is a great opportunity for a lesson about the importance of picking a terminal when designing a transit route. This proposed ferry to Gibsons and Bowen Island will terminate in Coal Harbour near the foot of Bute Street. Here's how that performs: 1/3
dailyhive.com
New Coal Harbour dock eyed for passenger ferries to Bowen Island, Sunshine Coast | Daily Hive | Urbanized
CIRQL Ferries could build a new Harbour Green Dock for its new ferry service linking downtown Vancouver with Bowen Island and Sunshine Coast.
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Ahasan @ef63.bsky.social · 03/04/2026
Route 8 used to have twice as many trips during the busiest hours of the day. Longer wait times not only reduce the convenience of public transportation but also have very real impacts on people's lives (e.g., having to choose between arriving extra early or extra late to work/school).
A comparison of southbound trips on route 8 leaving Main Street-Science World Station from 2020 January and 2026 January.
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Garry Keenor @25kv.bsky.social · 29/03/2026
From now on this is the only way i will travel
A Swiss electric-steam locomotive with a pantograph. Shortage of coal during World War 2 drove Swiss Federal Railways to fit two such engines, hydro-electric power being plentiful in the region. The locos used traction current from the 15kV 16.6Hz OLE to boil water using an electric heating element, creating steam pressure to move the locomotive. Pressure was sufficient to run off the wires for around 20 minutes before returning to recharge.
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🦆 Enterich mit C wie cocodrilo (🐊). @enterich.bsky.social · 07/03/2026
Dresden's tram museum took its MAN tram from 1913 for a spin today while the police demonstrated how the transitway helps them get faster to where they need to be. The #tram was converted and modernised into a single-ended tram in 1966. It was last used in regular service in 1975. 🚋🚍 🤝 🚓🚑🚒
A vintage cream-colored tram stands on tracks in front of a modern yellow tram. A door is open and a person in a yellow vest is about to get off.
Buildings and a church spire are visible in the background under a clear blue sky.
A police car with flashing lights passes a vintage cream colored tram on a dedicated transitway. Dresden's Kulturpalast, other buildings and a bright blue sky are in the background.A vintage tram with the number 734 is shown on a sunny day in front of a modern building (Dresden's Kulturpalast). The tram is cream colored with dark red trim and a green base.
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Jonathan English @englishrail.bsky.social · 06/02/2026
Very happy to have collaborated with CSA Group on this report examining successes and challenges in transit project construction in Canada and the lessons we can learn for future projects. www.csagroup.org/article/publ...
csagroup.org
Making the Grade: Recommendations for Addressing the High Cost of Canada’s Transit Infrastructure
Making the Grade examines why Canada’s rail and transit infrastructure costs are significantly higher than global benchmarks and offers recommendations to improve planning, decision-making, political ...
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Brendan Dawe @dawe.bsky.social · 04/02/2026
So it’s broadly recognized that Vancouver needs more hotel rooms, that high room rates driven by high occupancy are a drag on the local economy, that the city needs to facilitate the construction of more hotels. All of this is true I want speak to the human importance of hotels
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Michael Hall @michaelhall.bsky.social · 22/01/2026
It's been almost 1,000 days since @sarahkirby.bsky.social brought forward an excellent motion the bring in some bus lanes where they're needed most. TransLink even agreed to fund it all. So where are they? 🧐🤷 @movementyvr.bsky.social dailyhive.com/vancouver/va...
dailyhive.com
Opinion: What's red and takes 1,000 days to create? Vancouver bus lanes, apparently | Urbanized
Why is the City of Vancouver taking so long to implement long-promised bus lanes that only requiring paint and signage?
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Better Columbia @bettercolumbia.ca · 14/11/2025
Without fanfare, the BC Ministry of Transportation released a report that makes a strong case for a Westshore to Victoria rail line, writes Sam Holland
bettercolumbia.ca
New Study Makes Strong Case for Getting Westshore Rail on Track - Better Columbia
The province quietly updated the 2011 Westshore Rapid Transit Study. They determined that we need transit investment, now more than ever.
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Ben ✨ @inparts.bsky.social · 12/11/2025
The City of Vancouver is proposing transit priority improvements for the Kingsway corridor, but there's so much more they can do. My thoughts: bettercolumbia.ca/2025/11/11/t...
bettercolumbia.ca
The Kingsway transit priority proposals are good, but we can do better - Better Columbia
TransLink and the City of Vancouver are proposing transit priority measures and bus stop balancing along Kingsway, focusing on Route 19. And it’s a great place to start! The 19 is the 9th most used bu...
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sick public transit, gloria @seung.bsky.social · 25/10/2025
I strongly believe in platform screen doors in Metros, but nearly all literature around it is WHY it should be installed. but it is the HOW that realizes the dream, and I stuffed this post with as much history and details as I can to help visualize how such a thing can be realized
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Ahasan @ef63.bsky.social · 25/10/2025
Platform screen doors (PSDs) in Seoul were fundamentally a political issue. Once political support was secured, financial and engineering barriers quickly gave way. Loved this piece by @seung.bsky.social explaining how 200+ stations received PSDs in <10 years. www.substack-bahn.net/p/how-seoul-...
substack-bahn.net
How Seoul Metro Installed Platform Screen Doors Everywhere
The political history of a safety equipment
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angela @angelahjkim.bsky.social · 19/10/2025
Guys have we mentioned there is total cash prize of $2000 👀🤪🤭 $1000 - Judge’s Choice $500 - People’s Choice $500 - Most equitable
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Ben ✨ @inparts.bsky.social · 28/09/2025
Meanwhile for Douglas St in Downtown Victoria, with over 60 buses per direction per hour during peaks, it's taken a decade for planning work to actually start, a year for a lackluster 10%-conceptual design to show up, and likely will take years longer for anything to happen. We can do better.
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Movement: Metro Vancouver Transit Riders @movementyvr.bsky.social · 17/09/2025
It's no surprise that housing in Metro Vancouver is expensive. But it might surprise you that for some parts of our region, transportation costs even more than housing. 1/3
A brightly coloured graphic with a snippet from the Vancouver Sun Article about the Housing and Transportation Cost Burden Study Update. A link to the article in the caption or in our bio.

Vancouver Sun

Graph of Average Annual Cost of Housing and Transportation in Metro Vancouver by Municipality

Metro Vancouver can't solve cost-of-living crisis without addressing the cost of getting around

While the multi-billion-dollar SkyTrain projects draw the most public attention — and money — there’s another, often overlooked mode of transportation that Metro’s leaders view as a big part of the near-term solution: the humble bus.

Movement
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Ahasan @ef63.bsky.social · 29/08/2025
In 2023, Scottsdale bus exchange 🚌 outperformed 30 SkyTrain stations 🚇 in weekday boardings. By relocating it to the heart of the community and building transit-oriented housing, Surrey can unlock even greater potential for both transit and the people it serves. dailyhive.com/vancouver/tr...
dailyhive.com
Opinion: Why this TransLink bus exchange in Surrey needs to be relocated | Urbanized
TransLink's Scottsdale bus exchange at Strawberry Hill Shopping Centre in Surrey needs to be relocated to a more accessible, central site.
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Ruofan 🚎 王若凡 @ruofan.ca · 25/08/2025
Biked through North Delta again today and I'm still baffled at the number of maze gates they put everywhere on bike routes. Does someone's cousin own a company that makes maze gates or something? Even the railways don't use so many.
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Denis Agar (he/him) @denisagar.bsky.social · 22/08/2025
"If a third crossing were to connect to the North Shore, where would the 19,000 vehicles per lane each day go? Will Marine Drive be widened for them? East Keith Road? Grand Blvd? What should be demolished to widen those corridors?" Thanks @michaelhall.bsky.social! www.nsnews.com/opinion/opin...
nsnews.com
Opinion: Here are six North Shore traffic fixes we can implement now
While the idea of creating a third crossing is getting a lot of buzz, here are some other options that could be implemented quickly to improve transit and help with congestion
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Brendan Dawe @dawe.bsky.social · 27/07/2025
22) “the Canada Line is Under-built” The Canada Line is not even half full to design capacity. Given recent outcomes the spirit of economy guiding Canada Line engineering is quite underrated
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mulboyne.bsky.social @mulboyne.bsky.social · 14/07/2025
The other day, I was telling friends and family how a housewife originated these Tokyo Metro transfer and exit guides, and they thought I was kidding. It used to be a well-known story. If you don't know it, here's a quick summary.
Photo of a Nanboku Line 乗り換え 出口案内 (transfer and exit guide) on a station platform.
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Ahasan @ef63.bsky.social · 25/05/2025
In 2012, @translink.ca released some analysis showing what characteristics are common to the most successful bus routes in Metro Vancouver. I applied that methodology for 2024, and many of the attributes still hold true.
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Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 16/04/2025
Most North American cities: we should allow cars to overtake buses at stops at any cost. Traffic MUST FLOW! Great transit cities: we should systematically prevent cars from overtaking stopped buses with median curbs because it's a hazard for alighting passengers and it delays buses.
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Derrick Simpson @derricksimpson.bsky.social · 20/01/2025
Great video by @casualcommuter.bsky.social on how OC Transpo got so unreliable. Most important point to me is that good public transit can save people money in the long run. youtu.be/0QKjoO5HWCE
youtu.be
Why Ottawa's Buses are Always Late
YouTube video by Casual Commuter
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Ahasan @ef63.bsky.social · 19/12/2024
I made a map of population density (CSDs) in BC overlaid with the highway network, the potential of intercity public transit is much stronger than you might expect! teito7000.github.io/projects/202...
A map of BC census subdivisions coloured by population density with provincial highways overlaid. Density rarely strays too far from the highway network (especially outside Metro Vancouver).
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Ahasan @ef63.bsky.social · 16/12/2024
Great article on the origins of SFU Burnaby!
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Michael Hall @michaelhall.bsky.social · 30/11/2024
Metropolis did a good thing! They conceded the crosswalk between the bus loop and the SkyTrain Station to people, and blocked it to cars turning right out of the mall parkade. Kudos to them.
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Ahasan @ef63.bsky.social · 18/11/2024
I recently visited Ottawa with some friends for a transit conference. Here are some thoughts about the O-Train LRT from my brief experiences... Shaky photos by me, others courtesy of @abbyfour.bsky.social 🧵 1/10
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