iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

dr. meg smith @megsmith.bsky.social · 19h

There’s been discussion around eliminating the 50-50 sidewalk program and replacing it with a more equitable model. As @trailnetstl.bsky.social has noted, this is a revenue-neutral means of improving equity and safety. Movement is slow, so my action item: reach out to your alder to support changes!

trailnet.org

The FY2026 Budget Can Save Lives on Our Streets - Trailnet

Trailnet believes all St. Louis residents should have a voice in shaping the City budget. As part of that conversation, we’re sharing key transportation

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dr. meg smith @megsmith.bsky.social · 19h

In winter, the city fails to enforce code violations by businesses who let snow and ice pile up on walks. (If you want some shaming postcards for this winter, hit me up!) In sum, the city often seems more interested in dressing up downtown for tourists than in maintaining its fabric for residents.

A stack of postcards. On one side is the section of the city code that requires property owners to clear their sidewalks within 24 hours of snowfall. On the other is a little note reminding the property owner that sidewalk maintenance is both a legal requirement and an act of care.

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dr. meg smith @megsmith.bsky.social · 19h

We’ve got new greenways and bike lanes emerging across the St. Louis region, esp in the central corridor. But we’ve historically been terrible about sidewalks. Maintenance requests wither, and the current 50-50 program imposes heavy costs on homeowners who’d like to add sidewalks to their property.

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dr. meg smith @megsmith.bsky.social · 19h

Bikes and bike infrastructure are incredibly valuable as means of crossing those infrastructural boundaries. More bikes and bike lanes! AND (not but) bike infrastructure is not a replacement for pedestrian infrastructure. Sidewalk maintenance and construction isn’t as sexy, but it’s just as urgent.

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dr. meg smith @megsmith.bsky.social · 19h

It also goes for wealthy neighborhoods, who chose to remain unwalkable in order to prevent non-residents from using resources or even transiting through their neighborhoods. In both cases, the effect is that mobility — particularly for families — is mostly synonymous with car ownership.

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dr. meg smith @megsmith.bsky.social · 19h

From food deserts to gated neighborhoods, our current inequities of access and infrastructure reveal historic legacies of redlining and other legal violence. That goes for lower-income, majority-minority neighborhoods, where cities chose deliberate disinvestment as a strategy of segregation.

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dr. meg smith @megsmith.bsky.social · 19h

The ability to try on a more car-lite lifestyle is super important! This recent report describes 73% of drivers as feeling “trapped” by car dependence. And some neighborhoods exacerbate that feeling, boxing residents in through gates, dead ends, and lack of pedestrian infrastructure.

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dr. meg smith @megsmith.bsky.social · 19h

I live in a very walkable neighborhood. I easily walk to two grocery stores, my dog’s daycare, my vet, my hair stylist, my gym, my library, 3 bus lines, and more. That made it really easy to dabble with car-free transit — I could try a one activity at a time, identify the pain points, and adjust.

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dr. meg smith @megsmith.bsky.social · 19h

Today’s shop was a small one, so I loaded up a tote bag. More often, though, I take my cargo bike. With careful planning, I can fit a week’s worth of groceries for two adults, a dog, and a cat in my panniers (saddlebags). I can even get the dog food or cat litter on the rack (although not both).

A bike rack FULLY loaded up with groceries: two panniers packed to capacity, plus a 12-pack of sparkling water and a pack of toilet paper strapped to the top of the rack

Three cases of donuts strapped to my bike rack

The bike loaded up after a target run: two full panniers and an air purifier on the rack

Two full panniers and cat litter on the rack

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dr. meg smith @megsmith.bsky.social · 19h

My Day 4 #WeekWithoutDriving report: despite football Sunday, I managed to run a few errands! In the morning, we took Ada and my parents’ dogs to Zoomies. To avoid taking two cars, I hopped back on the bike and met them there. And during halftime, I made a quick grocery run by foot. #stl #StLouis

A selfie with a tote bag slung across my neck and a bag of cat food in my other arm

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dr. meg smith @megsmith.bsky.social · 22h

There’s gotta be a records retention policy, right? For sunshine law purposes?

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dr. meg smith @megsmith.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Right? I feel like these are problems that we have collectively solved already!

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dr. meg smith @megsmith.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

I only started noticing them this week! I’m about a mile from the tracks.

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dr. meg smith @megsmith.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

I’m just so baffled by the St. Louis train horn debacle, and it raises Qs about tech handovers. When someone leaves city hall, do they just immediately decommission the email? Do they not set up an auto-reply for a given period of time? Do they not set up email forwarding to the new incumbent? #stl

A Facebook post from Cara Spencer, mayor of St. Louis, on why all of a sudden train horns are blaring through the city all night and day:

There have been several surprises during my time as mayor, and having the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) blast train horns throughout the city is definitely one of them.
These train horns are occurring day and night, and are disrupting businesses, residents, and entire communities.
Under federal laws, trains can be silent while passing through a city if the railroad crossings meet federal safety standards. Like so many of the city's deferred maintenance issues, crossings have been deteriorating for over a decade and the FRA has been warning the city about this. Unfortunately, they had been sending emails to the previous administration's director of operations, and my office was not aware that the quiet status was in jeopardy until the day before the status was lifted.
Within 24 hours of that notice, we held an emergency meeting with mayoral staff and City department leaders. We got to work on a plan to upgrade all crossings so we can regain our quiet status as quickly as possible. Our Street
Department has already begun removing out-of-date railroad bars, inserting stop bars, and has ordered all necessary signs. We are focusing on residential areas first, and hope to have all installations done by mid-December.
I know this is incredibly frustrating. I would like to assure you, we are doing everything we can to fix this as quickly as possible. You can follow our progress with
facebook.com
on our website
(link in comments).

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dr. meg smith @megsmith.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

I wondered which side she was on! For no particularly good reason, she gave me vegan recipe vibes. I just hear it that line so often, and I want to tell them “you’ve almost got it!”

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dr. meg smith @megsmith.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

And of course both industries ARE implicated in climate change, horrific treatment of humans and animals, and economies of extraction without care. Usually this comparison is deployed to exculpate AI, but it’s more useful for demonstrating how the AI boom inherits longstanding colonial logics.

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dr. meg smith @megsmith.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Both are true! Comparing food production to a hyper-consumptive technology that offers marginal benefit, if any, to most users is pointless, misleading, and often willfully deceptive. But if a growing awareness of climate crisis encourages people to interrogate both systems, I think that’s a win.

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dr. meg smith @megsmith.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

I would also love an informed take from people who work in those spaces! It might be a good fit for @stlpublicradio.bsky.social’s transportation beat.

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dr. meg smith @megsmith.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

I tried Coven Academy, and it’s exactly as ridiculous as you’d think. But “Oh honey, I’m an archivist, not a snitch” is a banger of a line.

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dr. meg smith @megsmith.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

None of this is a reflection on MCT in its current iteration! They do a great job of stewarding the trails and transit, and I use both every week. But decisions made by voters 25 years ago have had lasting consequences for regional connectivity and transportation justice.

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dr. meg smith @megsmith.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

In Madison County, though, the trails have paved over the rail beds that could have drastically reduced the cost of Metrolink expansion. While the trails are a tremendous resource that benefits the entire region, I find it really disappointing that trails vs transit became a direct competition.

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dr. meg smith @megsmith.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

But they have happily funded parks and rec through sales taxes, including the MCT trails. The MCT trails are primarily rail-trail. That doesn’t have to come at the cost of transit expansion. A number of cities, like Minneapolis, have rail-with-trail, where trail runs next to an active rail line.

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dr. meg smith @megsmith.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

On the other hand, there are also risks with keeping under local gov. In Madison County, for instance, local voters have consistently shot down tax funding to extend Metrolink into the county, which would massively improve access to jobs, and housing, especially for the thousands of SIUE students.

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dr. meg smith @megsmith.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Each model has its pros and cons, and I don’t claim enough expertise to evaluate them comprehensively. But I do think that such outsourcing wrongly treats pedestrian/cyclist infrastructure as a luxury. Greenways provide safe commuting, improve public health outcomes, and mitigate climate injustice.

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dr. meg smith @megsmith.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

For instance, in STL, that work falls to non-profits like Great Rivers Greenways and Trailnet. In the Metro East, that work is carried out by various governmental and gov-adjacent entities, like Madison County Transit and St. Clair County Parks & Rec.

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dr. meg smith @megsmith.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

• Granite City roads: ouch • MCT trails: comparable to Dutch trails, esp around SIUE (high praise!) We’re fortunate in the STL region to have a rich network of greenways and orgs who maintain & advocate for them! But it is interesting to interrogate the underlying funding structures and priorities.

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dr. meg smith @megsmith.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

My dad noticed right away the differences in quality of infrastructure. • Riverfront Trail: beautiful, but choppy — seams, pot holes, washouts. We talked a lot of history though! • McKinley: despite a Trailnet cleanup last week, full of glass • Confluence: gravel (fine, but I forgot to warn him 😂)

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dr. meg smith @megsmith.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Much of the route overlapped with my work commute routes, so I was sort of hazard-blind — I instinctively knew where the rough spots, gravel, pot holes, and dangerous traffic would be. I had to constantly remind myself to call them out ahead of time, esp when we were riding side by side.

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dr. meg smith @megsmith.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Day 3 of #WeekWithoutDriving: ok, we drove. My parents came so my dad could do #RideTheRivers with me, and he was not down with a 5:30 am bus commute to Spanish Lake. Weird 🤷‍♀️ But we did spend the whole day on our bikes, and I got to see regional bike infrastructure through his eyes. #STL #StLouis

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dr. meg smith @megsmith.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Another century ride? Don’t mind if we do! Three weeks after the Door County Century, my dad came down to do @trailnetstl.bsky.social’s Ride the Rivers with me. We chose a chill metric century this time, which with a slight detour put us at 70 miles.

My dad and I on the McKinley Bridge, both sporting goofy grins, bike helmets, and bike jerseys. Behind us, you can see the St. Louis skyline.

A Strava screenshot showing our route from Spanish Lake Park, down along the riverfront and across the McKinley, and then a loop around Granite City, Edwardsville, and Chain of Rocks Bridge

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dr. meg smith @megsmith.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

A lot of our elected officials cycle, and it makes them stronger advocates for bike infrastructure. That’s great! I’m a cyclist too, and I benefit from that advocacy! But sidewalks and pedestrian signals are our most fundamental transit infrastructure, and they need more care.

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dr. meg smith @megsmith.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Most often, triggering the walk light doesn’t change the behavior of the car signals, and there’s no reason that it shouldn’t come on automatically. That change would be a huge improvement for pedestrians, with no impact on cars except to force them to pay more attention to pedestrians.

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dr. meg smith @megsmith.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

I tighten up her leash and make sure she can’t get ahead of me, where a car won’t see her as it inches forward (or blows through). When there are pedestrian signals, they’re beg buttons. You have to push the button, then wait for the next light cycle. At some signals, that can take a couple minutes.

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dr. meg smith @megsmith.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Although Ada loves her walk, it does come with a few hazards. It’s along Hampton, a major arterial road. There’s often debris like broken glass. (Sometimes we do a trash pick-up walk.) Most frustrating are the intersections. Hampton has very few marked pedestrian crossings.

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dr. meg smith @megsmith.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Day 2 of #WeekWithoutDriving: Who has four paws and loves car-free transit? It’s Ada! She lives for walks and loathes car rides. Occasionally, my partner has to drive her to daycare, but most of the time, she and I walk the mile up the road, and I catch my bus from there. #TransitDogs #stl #StLouis

Ada, a grey, medium-sized dog with flop ears, mid-weave across the sidewalk. Her nose is down, her ears are up, and she is laser-focused on something to our left

Ada living her best life at daycare, smiling at the camera and wearing a hot pink lei.

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dr. meg smith @megsmith.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Digital humanities Transit advocacy 🤝

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dr. meg smith @megsmith.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

If Metro is determined to practice subtractive change, we should demand that they match their cuts with growth and new investments. Not in things like fare gates, which tilt at windmills, but in services that meaningfully improve the experience and functionality of transit in this region.

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dr. meg smith @megsmith.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Every possible response to these issues costs money. And in the years that I’ve been riding transit in St. Louis, there has been a pervasive culture of austerity and retrenchment. On Monday, Metro will begin its third one-car train pilot in four years.

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dr. meg smith @megsmith.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Frequency isn’t the only way to respond to delays and cancellations. For instance, Madison County Transit sends cars along routes with cancelled busses to pick up riders and get them to their next transfer or their final destination. But that’s costly and cumbersome for a bigger system like Metro.

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dr. meg smith @megsmith.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Greater frequency mitigates the consequences of intermittent failures and outages, protecting individual riders and stopping the impacts from cascading across subsequent vehicles.

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dr. meg smith @megsmith.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

In all the recent accessibility talk, you might have encountered the principle of robustness: the things we build should be flexible and durable enough to withstand breakages and infrastructure changes. A key component of a robust transit system is increased frequency.

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dr. meg smith @megsmith.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

My best guess is that an AM rush hour ghost bus is a mechanical issue. (At other times of day, it’s often a staffing issue.) I see lots of ads that suggest Metro is trying to hire more mechanics. However, that’s only part of the solution.

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dr. meg smith @megsmith.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

I have a very flexible job, but that’s a catastrophic delay. A system where that happens regularly is not usable. I’ve done what I can as a rider — I know the 8:00 is often late, so I take the 7:30. I have several backup routes. But ultimately, this is a system issue with system solutions.

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dr. meg smith @megsmith.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

My transit commute takes two hours, across a bus, a train, and two more busses. A cancelled or late bus on my first leg pushes my arrival time at work back by at least 30 minutes. A cancellation followed by a late bus is potentially an hour delay. I got lucky yesterday — the train was late too 🙃

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dr. meg smith @megsmith.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

We kicked things off with a ghost bus 👻🚌 (spooky) — like a shitty date, it’s scheduled but it never shows. This is a major arterial route at rush hour, so it impacts a LOT of people. And it has cascading impacts: the next bus has to pick up almost twice as many passengers, often making it late too.

A screenshot of the Transit app, showing a bus scheduled in ten minutes that’s been cancelled. This is a stop a few miles north of my stop; I had to go up the line to get the cancellation notice. It wasn’t added to the app until after the bus was already scheduled to be at my stop.

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dr. meg smith @megsmith.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Alright, here’s my actual #WeekWithoutDriving Day 1 report. I’m glad I found a win, because yesterday was plagued by late busses. From a cancelled AM rush hour bus to my last bus of the day, everything was delayed. So let me see if I can draw out some productive reflections. #stl #StLouis

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dr. meg smith @megsmith.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Happy #WeekWithoutDriving! I had a post queued up complaining about late busses, but I have just discovered that they finally got their bus wifi up and running again! It's been down for literal years. That might almost make up for a cancelled AM rush hour bus on a major arterial 🫠 #stl #StLouis

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Reposted by dr. meg smith

Matthew Kirschenbaum @mkirschenbaum.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

CFP: Generative Digital Humanities, a volume on AI and DH in the long-running Minnesota Debates in DH book series. To be co-edited by @zentralwerkstatt.org, @laurenfklein.bsky.social, @lnakamura.bsky.social, and myself. Deadline Nov. 1. Please share widely! dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu/page/cfp-gen...

dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu

CFP: Generative Digital Humanities | Debates in the Digital Humanities

Transforming scholarly publications into living digital works

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dr. meg smith @megsmith.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

So thanks to @hyperhouse.bsky.social for organizing and for doing all the research to make this event safe and successful!

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