iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

The idea that planning should mandate, through regulations, an urban form that mimics market forces (higher demand induced by better accessibility along high-capacity rail, which translates into higher densities) is one of the silliest yet most persistent tropes our profession has produced.

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august 🍂 @auguststreet.ca · 30/09/2026

the scarborough busway should inspire the city to look into longer, more permanent busways on available right-of-ways that can produce rapid transit speeds at cheaper cost and timelines. the one with greatest potential, i think, is finch east. this would transform east-west travel in scarborough.

Finch busway concept along the hydro corridor from finch west station to around Malvern. Various branches that leave the busway depicted, to Milliken, Scarborough Centre, and deeper into Malvern

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JRUrbaneNetwork @jrurbanenetwork.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Excellent article on the emerging field of high speed metros, which are blossoming across China with operational systems in Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Chongqing, Chengdu, Ningbo, Nanjing and Beijing while Shanghai, Shenyang, Changsha and Wuhan are planning theirs.

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Reece Martin @rmtransit.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Asian cities are experimenting with an entirely new high speed transport technology. Today's collaboration with @infrastory.bsky.social is on high speed metros. Read now: www.thetransitbrief.net/p/the-future...

open.substack.com

The future of urban public transit.

High speed regional rail will forever transform cities.

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Rodney 🚧🚇 @chanface.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Bike lanes on Adelaide yesterday morning. Over a dozen cyclists taking up the same space as one or two cars.

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Oh The Urbanity! @ohtheurbanity.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Same thing on housing. Zoning reform is “just a band aid” — real affordability comes by overhauling how housing is built/owned. Ok, but when can we expect this to happen? 5 years, 10 years, 50 years? If we’re holding off on zoning reform for this revolution, can you guarantee me that it’ll happen?

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august 🍂 @auguststreet.ca · 25/09/2026

my bad, I'll start the world socialist revolution this monday instead of petitioning against transit service cuts🥀

instagram reply: reversing budget cuts to go transit can't be done by appealing the same government carrying them out.

defending public transit is bound up with the defense of all social programs, public education, healthcare, disability benefits, etc against the capitalist policy of austerity, trade war, real war, privatization and for socialism i.e. power through world socialist revolution

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ren they/them 🏳️‍⚧️ @renzaro.com · 24/09/2026

Joel Young is at a rail transit conference in Europe tonight (AC Transit has 0 railroads) and I am in Oakland waiting for a bus that has been 0 minutes away for 10 minutes

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Jedwin Mok @jedwinmok.com · 24/09/2026

Id actually say that YNSE makes even more sense given an upgraded Richmond Hill RER + Stouffville RER. You’d be able to significantly reduce crowding on the Yonge line by intercepting TTC bus riders from the East, and open up capacity for additional feeder services between RH and North York Centre.

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Jedwin Mok @jedwinmok.com · 24/09/2026

The Milton/Midtown line is the obvious choice to serve MCC - though from a network perspective an extension of L4 isn’t the worst idea in the world, as long as it ties into the GO network at intermediate points. The worst idea is the Hurontario LRT, too slow to serve the longer distances in Peel.

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Jedwin Mok @jedwinmok.com · 24/09/2026

this looked excellent!

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Jedwin Mok @jedwinmok.com · 24/09/2026

The institutional muscle built in South Korea, China, Turkey, etc. over the past 40 years came from deliberate joint ventures, exchanges, and international conferences for staff. Then, the subsequent codification of that knowledge into standards, industry, and education. More to come soon ;)

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Jedwin Mok @jedwinmok.com · 24/09/2026

When discussing transit project delivery we focus on “who to learn from.” But equally important is: “who is entrusted to learn?” “how are you learning?” “What are you learning?” @alonlevy.bsky.social has a great piece on this. pedestrianobservations.com/2021/12/31/i...

pedestrianobservations.com

Institutional Issues: Who is Entrusted to Learn?

I know I’ve been on hiatus in the last few weeks; here is the continuation of my series on institutional factors in public transportation. I have harped for more than 10 years about the need …

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FastTrackTO @fast-track.to · 22/09/2026

Yesterday, Sep. 21, we sent out pledges to a total of 175 city council candidates running in the 2026 Toronto municipal election. Candidates were asked whether they will work implement the policies from our 10-point plan if they win on Oct. 26 🙋

Summary of the pledges we sent out to candidates.

As follows:

Prioritize Public Transit
Make Transit Signal Priority more powerful, remove left turns where possible to speed up bus and streetcar routes, and split up pedestrian crossings to enable more adaptive and dynamic transit signal priority.

Improve Travel Times
Review and act on overly restrictive slow zones and operating practices, and rebalancing stop spacing to speed up vehicles while maintaining access.

Fix Switches
Modernize the outdated switch control system for streetcars, end the practice of stopping at every single streetcar switch, and begin installing double-bladed switches in the streetcar network.

Streetcars of the Future
Invest in a modular track diversion system so that streetcars can safely navigate construction zones without lengthy detours or bus substitution, and plan for double-ended streetcars in future procurement.

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Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

As a comparison, Lombardy, which has "only" 10 million inhabitants, way less than the population served by Metrolik, run between 2,200 and 2,500 trains per day.

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Denis Agar (he/him) @denisagar.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

It always blows my mind how much faster electric trains are than diesel

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More Transit Southern Ontario @moretransitso.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

How much faster would GO trains be if they used electrical multiple unit (EMU) trains? Today, a 33.7km trip from Pickering to Union station makes 6 stops and takes 45 minutes Our proposed local EMU service would make 13 stops, and take only 36 minutes.

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Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Finally some good news for the dysfunctional circumvesuviana. With the new Stadler trains progressively entering service, EAV will introduce a 30 minutes clockface timetable starting October 17th (it's now 36') on all it's limes. www.ferrovie.it/portale/arti...

ferrovie.it

Ferrovie.it - Linee Vesuviane, dal 17 ottobre nuovo orario con frequenze ogni 30 minuti

Nuovi treni e un nuovo modello di esercizio per le Linee Vesuviane. Regione Campania ed EAV hanno...

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Oh The Urbanity! @ohtheurbanity.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

I want Canada to have more mobility with Europe. Not because I think vast numbers of people will use it initially. But having it as an option opens your mind for the future. “Maybe I should pay attention in that language class?” “Maybe there are more places in the world than just the US?”

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Jedwin Mok @jedwinmok.com · 14/09/2026

They can have 1.5 of Berlin hbf

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Reece Martin @rmtransit.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Another episode of the RMTransit podcast is here! You can subscribe to The Transit Brief (for free!) to get these episodes a week early! youtu.be/eNIzHndQQsU?...

youtu.be

Hot Transit Debates | RMTransit Off-Script

YouTube video by RMTransit

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Jedwin Mok @jedwinmok.com · 13/09/2026

American habits die hard

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Jedwin Mok @jedwinmok.com · 13/09/2026

I was told that another huge pressure was trying to compete for labor with the much larger (and near capacity) Australian engineering and construction market

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JackTatt 🇨🇦 @jacktatttran.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Auckland has officially opened Aotearoa New Zealand’s longest and first true underground railway: the City Rail Link! The former terminal station Waitemata (formerly Britomart) is now a through station with additional underground CBD stations at Te Waihorotiu and Karanga-a-Hape serving all lines.

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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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Jedwin Mok @jedwinmok.com · 11/09/2026

Congrats Nolan! Into the belly of the beast

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TTCriders @ttcriders.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Just as the school year begins, GO Train service is being cut. One fully-loaded GO Train can take up to 2,000 cars off the road. Doug Ford is allowing train service cuts while throwing money at new highways & bike lane removals, worsening traffic congestion. Details + how to take action!⬇️

graphic with a GO train and Doug Ford's faint face in the sky in the background.

text reads:

Metrolinx is cutting GO Train service under Doug Ford's watch. See the cuts and learn how to take action to stop them

a map showing the highlighted lines where GO cuts are happening, and details:

Barrie Line:
73% cut to weekend trains, reduced evening/night trains
Stouffville Line:
73% cut to weekend trains, reduced evening/night trains
Lakeshore West Line:
Weekend wait times doubled, most train service to Niagara eliminated
Lakeshore East Line:
Weekend wait times doubled

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Oh The Urbanity! @ohtheurbanity.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

People want the “empty apartments” thing to be real so badly. Article about “thousands” of empty luxury apartments in Montreal. Comments everywhere online: I knew supply and demand wasn’t real! I knew no one lived in those! You read the article: vacancy rate of 12%. So, 88% occupied.

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JRUrbaneNetwork @jrurbanenetwork.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

A new collaborative post with Reece on their excellent public transportation newsletter The Transit Brief. In this joint effort, we propose a more focused perspective on normalizing transit costs by using ultimate capacity of a Metro project’s design.

open.substack.com

Subways are costing even more than we think.

A new angle on the growing Anglosphere cost crisis.

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Californians for Electric Rail @calelectricrail.org · 09/09/2026

Too often the North American response to escalating transit costs is to aim lower - hydrogen instead of electric trains, low- instead of high-speed rail. We need to fix the root cause of high costs - onerous permitting, weak state capacity, unreliable funding - not settle for less.

Hong Kong may have horrible cost control, but the city is building some of the most complex and highest capacity projects on Earth. In my Toronto Tragedy article, one thing to note is that while metro construction costs in Toronto are high down-scoping a metro project to a light metro or light rail project is only a solution to reduce “sticker shock”. However, they treat both these alternatives as providing equal value in speed, comfort and capacity. This is incorrect, sacrifices have been made in the design that erode the value of the project.

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Damien Moule @damienmoule.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

We live in a world where every part of the political spectrum is committed to building the worst transit idea in the city.

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Stephen Jacob Smith @stephenjacobsmith.com · 08/09/2026

I’ll believe it when I see Canada accept the European elevator standard, *like every other country on earth except the US and Japan already does*

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Reece Martin @rmtransit.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

The latest post on The Transit Brief comes from Chinese transit aficionado @jrurbanenetwork.bsky.social and myself and discusses how transit might be costing even more than we expect. www.thetransitbrief.net/p/subways-ar...

thetransitbrief.net

Subways are costing even more than we think.

A new angle on the growing Anglosphere cost crisis.

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Max Dubler 🏳️‍🌈 @maxdubler.com · 04/09/2026

The California Environmental Quality Act is bad for the environment because it gives litigious busybodies the power to delay and block environmentally friendly projects like bike lanes on the grounds that the government has not sufficiently analyzed the bike lanes’ “environmental impacts.”

sfchronicle.com

A Berkeley bike lane would eliminate 145 parking spaces. Residents are suing to stop it.

Plaintiffs argue that Berkeley City Council approved the Hopkins Street bike lane project without conducing necessary environmental reviews.

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Dr Grace S Peng @gspeng.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

They are blocking a bike lane to a middle school on grounds that it would remove parking for Monterrey Market. As if the market didn't already have a giant parking lot, a bus stop in front, and shoppers couldn't ride ebikes in the new bike lane.

Satellite map view of the Hopkins/California St area showing a parking lot 4x the size of the grocery store, a bus stop on the corner, and parking along every street in the area

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brianbswizzle.bsky.social @brianbswizzle.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Streetcar ops taking over bus ops is basically an apocalypse level event in Toronto. TTC actually went, “what if we took North America's best bus network and made it more like the world's slowest streetcar network?”

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Damien Moule @damienmoule.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

This is the escalating application of building code brain to Toronto's transit ops. "Well logically having the bus slow down around stations and lights is safer so we'll just do that. No, we didn't estimate benefits, costs, or consider adverse consequences, why do you ask?"

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FastTrackTO @fast-track.to · 04/09/2026

FastTrackTO has learned that the posted speed limits for buses on the brand new Scarborough Busway will be 30 km/h near stations and signals. 🐌 This is disappointing, and reduces travel time savings that the busway is meant to provide. Especially re: any express buses.

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august 🍂 @auguststreet.ca · 02/09/2026

neither the ontario liberal party or the ndp have made a peep about bike lanes. you'd think they'd attack ford over GO train cuts though, given how unpopular train cuts are in the 905 ridings that he depends on for blue votes (newmarket, barrie, etc). ontario's political outlook is so cooked

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Reece Martin @rmtransit.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

My attempt to answer the million dollar question: why public transit now costs so much in the English world (there are at least 52 reasons). www.thetransitbrief.net/p/why-transi...

thetransitbrief.net

Why transit suddenly costs so much.

The English-speaking world’s cost crisis.

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Brendan Dawe @dawe.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

Tabloid-ass article from the G&M Ottawa bureau chief

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JRUrbaneNetwork @jrurbanenetwork.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

Different countries' crowding measurement standards create confusion when comparing international data. In this post, I dive into differences which shape policy and public views of a railway system. You can read below:

jrurbanenetwork.substack.com

How Crowded is my Train?

Different countries' crowding measurement standards create confusion when comparing international data.

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Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

The bad news is that the first pedestrianization is always very hard. The good news is that, after you reach a critical mass, even the most conservative places, like the posh neighbourhood of Outremont pictured here, will find it "normal" to pedestrianize their main street every summer.

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Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

Montréal's blue line is an example of how space-intensive our current station designs have become in North America. Despite using a cavern + transept shaft concept since the 1960s to minimize surface disruption, the transept shaft has grown so big that it still imposes road closures

an aerial image showing the construction of the shaft, indicating a length of approximately 505 m

an aerial image showing the construction of the shaft, indicating a width of approximately 55 m

An idealized scheme showing the transept (violet +yellow) concept with single-bore tunnel and lateral platforms mostly on a low-vault cavern (grey) in use in Montréal.

an aerial image showing the construction of the shaft, indicating a total surface of 2,500 sqm

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JRUrbaneNetwork @jrurbanenetwork.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

Changchun opened Line 7 yesterday at 8:08 AM. Line 7 is a 23.2km long fully underground 19 station southern suburban tangential line. Estimated to cost 210 million USD/km to build. The Changchun Metro is now over 140 kilometers long. Pictures by 樱桃小丸子🍒.

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Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

Something reminded me that a few months ago I prepared a few graphics about the problem of "feeder" suburban bus service for a medium-sized city tram network (e.g., Zurich, Strasbourg, or Bologna), so I'm going to share and discuss them here (everything to procrastinate on annoying academic tasks).

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sick public transit, gloria @seung.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

1) amazing dataset 2) you're telling me it's 3x expensive to build HS2 than putting a 31 mile undersea tunnel 3) surprised by how "expensive" Taiwan (Taipei-Kaohsiung) and South Korea (Seoul-Busan) HSR was (I have some ideas why for SK)

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JRUrbaneNetwork @jrurbanenetwork.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Below is an excellent summary debunking the pervasive myths about the history of Toronto's transit system and a step in the right direction on correcting the record driving Toronto’s ridiculous transit discourse. A must read.

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