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Reposted by Nathan

Bikemore @bikemore.net · 22/09/2026

This year's state capital transportation budget (the CTP) is out. Bikemore and Central Maryland Transportation Alliance read it and compared it to previous years. Click through to read our findings. www.mdotctp.com

mdotctp.com

What the draft budget does to Baltimore transit — Bikemore & CMTA

Bikemore and CMTA read MDOT’s draft FY2027-2032 transportation budget against the plan enacted before it: the Red Line goes unbuilt, Baltimore transit repair is cut, and highway widening and…

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Nathan @kalinsky.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

A few thoughts so far: FLASH is marketed as bus rapid transit, but lacks most BRT features apart from all door boarding and level boarding at stops. Currently, the service also only operates during rush hours on weekdays, with 15-20 minute headways in each direction.

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Nathan @kalinsky.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

We are inexplicably going northbound on US-29 leaving Columbia, we just looped around a cloverleaf at MD-108 to turn back around.

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Nathan @kalinsky.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Riding the MCDOT FLASH to Silver Spring from Columbia, which just began service earlier this week.

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Nathan @kalinsky.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

The service span in the press release is also more generous than what is actually scheduled, the last southbound PM departure towards Silver Spring from Columbia is at 5:53 PM. This service can and should be significantly better than this.

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Nathan @kalinsky.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

The MCDOT FLASH extension to Columbia *finally* begins service on 9/8 next week, but weekday rush hour only service really leaves a lot to be desired. This route could be transformative for the US-29 corridor if it ran every 15-20 minutes all day rather than just at peak.

MCDOT FLASH map showing the extension to Columbia

On Tuesday, Sept. 8, the Montgomery County Department of Transportation (MCDOT) will expand its US 29 Flash Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) Blue Route to serve four new stops in Howard County. The Flash Blue Route will provide weekday, rush-hour service every 15-20 minutes from 5-9 a.m. and 3-8 p.m. between Downtown Silver Spring and Downtown Columbia.

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Nathan @kalinsky.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

It is extremely frustrating that the only part of Anne Arundel County with high capacity transit is covered in low density sprawl that is not conducive to transit ridership, and the only places left to build greenfield higher density housing are marginal wetlands next to coal power stations.

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Reposted by Nathan

august 🍂 @auguststreet.ca · 02/08/2026

a lot of US/canadian "better bus" redesigns involve more significant cuts in bus network coverage where ridership isn't offset by frequency boosts elsewhere service hours per capita for most bus systems are just too low to begin with, it's hard to see huge gains without properly funding the bus

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Metro tried to make bus service better. Somehow, ridership and speeds are both down

A year after Better Bus, reviews are mixed.

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Nathan @kalinsky.bsky.social · 11/07/2026

Reisterstown Plaza -> Lake Montebello -> Towson

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Nathan @kalinsky.bsky.social · 10/07/2026

40 -> Purple to Catonsville

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Nathan @kalinsky.bsky.social · 10/07/2026

Playing MDOT MTA's Ride & Seek transit scavenger hunt

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Reposted by Nathan

Taniel @taniel.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

6⃣ Also in Maryland: Amar Mukunda over Nancy King

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Nathan @kalinsky.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

Looks like the Transportation and Climate Alignment Act is back on the menu, Mukunda's successful primary of King is a huge win for progressives in the MD State Senate

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Nathan @kalinsky.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

Visited the Laureate at Shady Grove, the first social housing constructed by Montgomery County's Housing Production Fund.

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Nathan @kalinsky.bsky.social · 09/06/2026

First ride on MDOT MTA's new Gillig Low Floor hybrid, pretty nice bus.

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Nathan @kalinsky.bsky.social · 04/06/2026

Baltimore Red Line BRT (sigh) and a 5th bus division with 240 new buses for fleet expansion for the BMORE BUS service plan.

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Reposted by Nathan

Doug @doug.city · 01/06/2026

Hard to overstate what a big problem this is, and it rears its head in basically *any* kind of transportation research you might try to do, at least in the US. Data on non-commute trips is, more often than not, just nonexistent. Unless you have the resources to collect your own data, good luck.

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Nathan @kalinsky.bsky.social · 25/05/2026

Working on some maps for a report that I hopefully will be sharing soon.

Map of two existing MDOT MTA bus routes plus one proposed route

Isochrone of areas accessible to Tradepoint Atlantic in Baltimore County via transit between 7 AM and 8 AM, with 15, 30, 45, and 60 minute cutoffs

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Nathan @kalinsky.bsky.social · 21/05/2026

While curtailing ALPR abuse is an objectively good thing, this is not the way to do it.

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Nathan @kalinsky.bsky.social · 21/05/2026

As written, this bill would effectively ban automated traffic enforcement, including red light and speed cameras. Not great!

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Nathan @kalinsky.bsky.social · 20/05/2026

There is a conversation to be had about reducing the cost of bus procurement, but I can guarantee this is just the Republicans seeking to reduce federal outlays to transit in the infrastructure bill.

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Nathan @kalinsky.bsky.social · 20/05/2026

This is not going to hurt the large agencies buying customized buses. It *is* on the other hand going to hurt small to midsized agencies without reliable funding streams, like Memphis's MATA for instance. The only real result of this policy will likely be aging buses staying in service longer.

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Nathan @kalinsky.bsky.social · 18/05/2026

For cash-strapped small to midsized agencies, this change may mean keeping an aging, unreliable bus in service longer than planned. Transit deserves more funding, not less.

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Nathan @kalinsky.bsky.social · 18/05/2026

A transit agency will only receive a maximum set amount per bus based on an average vs. what they actually paid, meaning the federal share may be below 70% if the cost exceeds the FTA average. This will increase the local cost burden incurred when replacing bus fleets by at least 10%, likely more.

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Nathan @kalinsky.bsky.social · 18/05/2026

Also of note, the bill will reduce the federal cost share of transit bus replacements from 80% oft the total cost of a bus to a maximum of 70% of the *average cost* of a new bus, based on a 5 year average of transit bus purchases to be calculated by the FTA, phasing in between FY2029 and 31.

(iii) FISCAL YEAR 2031.—For fiscal year 2031 and in each fiscal year thereafter, the maximum Federal payment amount shall equal the average of all of the products of 70 percent multiplied by the price of each procurement for a bus rolling stock combination of similar propulsion type and vehicle length procured within the most recent 5 years.

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Reposted by Nathan

Micah @rincewind.run · 14/05/2026

incredibly depressing that the reimposition of jim crow districts across the entire south is getting nothing more than generic horse race coverage

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Nathan @kalinsky.bsky.social · 02/05/2026

80% of households in NYC Census Tract 157 on W. 72nd do not own a vehicle.

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Reposted by Nathan

Nathan @kalinsky.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

Once again the Maryland State Senate has adjourned sine die without a third reader vote for the Transportation and Climate Alignment Act, which has passed in the House of Delegates three years in a row. Disappointing that Senate leadership has repeatedly failed to bring this bill to a floor vote.

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Nathan @kalinsky.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

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Nathan @kalinsky.bsky.social · 01/04/2026

The last ride of the DC Streetcar

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Nathan @kalinsky.bsky.social · 17/03/2026

Seattle and LA have been able to build out substantial new transit projects because LA Metro and Sound Transit are properly funded, we must do the same to deliver the transit Baltimore needs and deserves.

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Nathan @kalinsky.bsky.social · 17/03/2026

During next year's General Assembly session a new revenue package must be aggressively pursued to actually deliver the Red Line as rail. Without the requisite revenues we will never build anything.

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Nathan @kalinsky.bsky.social · 17/03/2026

The MTA's own modeling shows bus rapid transit both attracts significantly fewer riders and requires 3-4 minute headways to meet capacity needs. "Red Line" BRT is not the Red Line at all. This corridor both justifies and deserves the rail it has long been promised.

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Nathan @kalinsky.bsky.social · 25/02/2026

Yeah they make a ton of sense for MARC, the 100mi range means they'd be able to replace both the HHP-8 and MP36 fleets with a single high performance electric fleet for all three lines, and it enables electrified Penn Line service to extend to Virginia and Camden Station.

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Nathan @kalinsky.bsky.social · 25/02/2026

The RFP specifies options for up to 23 additional battery-catenary hybrids, for a total of 28 assuming all options are exercised, enabling electric service on all three lines.

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Nathan @kalinsky.bsky.social · 25/02/2026

An update on this: it seems that this was likely a placeholder in the draft of the CTP, MTA is now procuring 5 battery-catenary hybrid locomotives in a joint procurement agreement with the MBTA.

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Nathan @kalinsky.bsky.social · 25/02/2026

It is, the MBTA is getting new Tier IV diesels while the MTA/MBTA joint procurement is of battery-catenary locomotives.

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Nathan @kalinsky.bsky.social · 25/02/2026

It is, the MBTA is getting new Tier IV diesels while the MTA/MBTA joint procurement is of battery-catenary locomotives.

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Nathan @kalinsky.bsky.social · 12/02/2026

New transit oddity in my possession: a bus fare reader retired from an Austin CapMetro bus.

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Nathan @kalinsky.bsky.social · 08/02/2026

The fact that I'm able to board a Metrorail train at 1:45 in the morning rules so much

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Reposted by Nathan

Mike English @mocomikee.bsky.social · 29/01/2026

Once again, opposing housing near you is a fundamentally conservative proposition, and a lot of people on the broader left who share the thoughts in this video need to take some inventory of themselves.

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Reposted by Nathan

Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani @mayor.nyc.gov · 24/01/2026

As tens of thousands across America protest the violence that ICE sows with impunity, federal agents shot and killed another person in Minneapolis today.  ICE terrorizes our cities. ICE puts us all in danger. Abolish ICE.

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Nathan @kalinsky.bsky.social · 23/01/2026

LA Metro having the single most ambitious transit expansion plans in the United States while simultaneously opposing transit-oriented development at their stations truly is peak Californian governance

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