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Jonathan English @englishrail.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Not that long ago, we lived in a world where very few things were standardized. You couldn’t plug things into any random wall outlet, trains couldn’t run on tracks of other railways, even screws wouldn't fit anywhere. This week's Infrastory article. infrastory.substack.com/p/the-standa...

infrastory.substack.com

The Standardization Revolution

Making the plugs plug, and the elevators lift.

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Reposted by Jonathan English

Infrastory @infrastory.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

The latest Infrastory: transit maps and the lies they tell. Read now: infrastory.substack.com/p/the-real-t...

infrastory.substack.com

The Real Transit Map

Just because a route is on the map doesn’t mean that it’s useful.

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Jonathan English @englishrail.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Every city has its transit map. But too often they’re more than a little misleading, with routes that run only a few times a day or shut down on weekends. A city's real transit maps, with the useful routes, can be shockingly limited. infrastory.substack.com/p/the-real-t...

infrastory.substack.com

The Real Transit Map

Just because a route is on the map doesn’t mean that it’s useful.

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Jonathan English @englishrail.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

I love this so much. Ridership in Burlington up 49% since 2019, after they improved service on a bunch of bus routes. That's at a time when many cities were experiencing post-pandemic stagnation. This is a notably affluent, low density suburb. burlingtonpublishing.escribemeetings.com/filestream.a...

burlingtonpublishing.escribemeetings.com

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Jonathan English @englishrail.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Liverpool's Merseyrail was one of the earliest modern regional rail systems, but it never ended up becoming a national model. It's an unfortunate wrong turn because UK cities tend to have very extensive local rail networks to convert. infrastory.substack.com/p/englands-m...

infrastory.substack.com

England’s Model Should Have Been Merseyrail

A wrong turn in the 80s can still be corrected

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Jonathan English @englishrail.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

The Crosstown Expressway was unsurprisingly the first of Toronto's expressway projects to be abandoned.

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Reposted by Jonathan English

Infrastory @infrastory.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Endless arguments ensue about how many stops high speed trains should have but this is the wrong question; the right question is what the different service patterns look like. You can always have an Express. Read the latest Infrastory: infrastory.substack.com/p/the-myth-o...

infrastory.substack.com

The Myth of Non-Stop High-Speed Rail

High speed doesn’t have to mean non-stop.

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Jonathan English @englishrail.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

We often hear this idea that there's somehow a tradeoff between more stops and competitive end-to-end travel time on high-speed rail. It's a myth. There are many examples of express/local high speed. More on how HSR can be competitive and serve local trips infrastory.substack.com/p/the-myth-o...

infrastory.substack.com

The Myth of Non-Stop High-Speed Rail

High speed doesn’t have to mean non-stop.

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Reposted by Jonathan English

Blair Lorenzo / The Fox and the City @thefoxandthecity.com · 25/08/2026

Very good piece, and very interesting fact!

Myth 4: Toronto’s transit has always been stronger than American cities’

As people were buying cars and suburban houses after the end of the Second World War, Toronto transit ridership declined much like in American cities. That is, until they suddenly turned it around. From 1952 to 1962, Toronto’s transit ridership fell 37.6%, which was quite comparable to Chicago (38.8%), Washington (40.3%), and Philadelphia (41.0%). The opening of the subway in 1954 did little to arrest the decline and the TTC hit its post-Depression nadir in 1961, when its financial survival was an open question. But after the major bus expansion to the suburbs in 1963, the TTC dramatically turned around its fortunes and boomed right up until the late 80s, while American systems typically continued their steady decline for at least another decade.

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Jonathan English @englishrail.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

A busy commercial neighbourhood like Danforth that attracts people from all over the city can generate a LOT of transit ridership. It's why stops like Queen-Spadina and King-Bathurst on Ontario Line will be very busy even though surroundings are pretty low-rise.

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Reposted by Jonathan English

Dylan Reid @dylanreid.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

It wasn't just the subway, it was the buses that made the TTC so successful. "after the major bus expansion to the suburbs in 1963, the TTC dramatically turned around its fortunes and boomed right up until the late 80s"

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Jonathan English @englishrail.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

My latest Infrastory post is a bit of mythbusting around Toronto transit. There are a lot of things that we've often heard repeated that aren't quite accurate when you dig into the documents. infrastory.substack.com/p/a-lot-of-c...

infrastory.substack.com

A Lot of Conventional Wisdom about Toronto Transit is Wrong

A quick fact check on many of the ideas that have floated around for years.

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Jonathan English @englishrail.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

Some places love trying for infrastructure solutions that promise 75% of the benefit for 50% of the cost, but that often end up providing 30% of the benefit for 80+% of the cost. One example is here (and a counter-example is linked in the post below) infrastory.substack.com/p/the-northe...

infrastory.substack.com

The Northeast Corridor's Three-Headed Monster

How to Spend Two Billion Dollars Without a Plan

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Jonathan English @englishrail.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

N America is as dominant in freight rail as Europe is in passenger. Canada moves more tonne-kms of freight by rail than whole EU. Freight and passenger have fundamentally different needs so we need better way for both to succeed infrastory.substack.com/p/freight-an...

infrastory.substack.com

Freight and Passenger Rail Have Different Needs

We need a better way.

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Jonathan English @englishrail.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

If you think infrastructure has a troubled procurement record, check out the military… infrastory.substack.com/p/the-greate...

infrastory.substack.com

The Greatest Procurement Fiascos of All

If you think infrastructure has troubles, take a look at the military.

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Jonathan English @englishrail.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

There’s a whole generation of airports built for a supersonic age that never came. A few became mega-airports we transfer at today, many never got off the drawing board, and the most interesting exist as weird fragments. open.substack.com/pub/infrasto...