iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Gateway Development Commission @gatewayprogram.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Tunnel boring has started! After years of preparation, our first tunnel boring machine is getting to work, carving through the Palisades to build the first mile of the new rail tunnel’s northern tube. A second machine will start building the southern tunnel tube soon.

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Zoomer Antimillenarian @surcomplicated.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Going solar back in the late 1970s was technologically impossible. Going nuclear was technologically possible, but environmentalists were dead-set against it.

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工an Monroe 🚰 @eean.dev · 06/10/2026

ok but can new england move on from using whale fat or whatever to heat their homes

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ryan cooper @ryanlcooper.com · 07/10/2026

a “banana republic” is precisely when the political system is dominated by overweening corporate interests

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Alon (they/them) @alonlevy.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

I want to celebrate the approval of the Hamburg-Hanover NBS, but I also learned this morning that Deutsche Bahn chooses contractors exclusively by price (or 90% by price), without technical scoring. Legally the weight for price must be at least 30%; it doesn't need to be 90%.

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Stephen Jacob Smith @stephenjacobsmith.com · 07/10/2026

Both the Hochul and Mamdani administrations are taking a very serious look at Scaffold Law reform. (The Scaffold Law is about construction liability, and is a huge driver of NYC's high costs. It's not about scaffolding or sidewalk sheds.) www.crainsnewyork.com/politics-pol...

crainsnewyork.com

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Dana Houle @danahoule.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Ah, this may be it: 1989 Teamsters were put under federal oversight bc they’d been mobbed up forever. Ever since they’ve looked to Repubs to help them end the consent decree. Nothing was more important to them I looked, & sure enough, DOJ just ended federal oversight teamster.org/2026/09/u-s-...

teamster.org

U.S. District Court Grants End to 37-Year Federal Monitorship of Teamsters Union

(WASHINGTON) – After nearly four decades, the U.S. government has officially ended federal monitorship of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, followin

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Uday Schultz @a320lga.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

One of the questions that has long flourished in my head is how, tactically and materially, transit networks abroad actually manage their service to produce better reliability outcomes than we're used to seeing on this side of the Atlantic.

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Robert Hale @rdhale92.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

The Malpensa T1 station is good in terms of its layout. The service to Milan is slow and infrequent though.

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Matt da Silva @mdasilva.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

The reality is that you can’t fund a cradle to grave welfare state just by taxing billionaires. Higher taxes on car dealers, landlords, mid-size business owners, doctors and dentists, lawyers and consultants, and other “Main Street millionaires” are needed - but Dems are afraid to speak up.

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Robert Hale @rdhale92.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

I'm happy that viaduct was replaced, but expectations were set on the floor. I'm not satisfied with that. NY still has to do a lot better.

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Robert Hale @rdhale92.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Park Avenue doesn't even have overhead wire, as most commuter rail trunks do.

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Robert Hale @rdhale92.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

It spent about $400 million/mile, a sum that affords many cities a new subway, replacing a rail viaduct over a wide road.

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Robert Hale @rdhale92.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

The MTA spaced 28 weekends of work (that didn't necessitate any service reductions or diversions) over almost 120 weeks. That means it used less than 1/4 of the available weekends. www.mta.info/press-releas...

mta.info

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Robert Hale @rdhale92.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

On budget and on time loses its meaning when both are way beyond what would be acceptable anywhere else. The B1M makes good content and has called out construction costs. That does require access. I have to push back here though. www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBXk...

youtube.com

America Actually Built Something On Time and On Budget

YouTube video by The B1M

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Nilo @nilo.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Don’t want to call anyone out, but this sentiment is, if not ubiquitous, common in mass transit advocacy, but I think is just inaccurate. Everyone crooned over Josh Shapiro after he “fixed” I-95, but USA highway departments have shown a total inability to deal with complex structure issues.

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Robert Hale @rdhale92.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

No, we’re good—the new tunnel is tying into the existing Penn Station and will make through-running on the middle platforms easier by giving the south platforms their own approach from NJ. Plus, the south station tracks were always designed to be broken out eastward.

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nanzhounoodles.bsky.social @nanzhounoodles.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

YOU hate Nader for throwing the 2000 election. I hate Nader for ushering in the era of Consumer as a primary political identity, touting the tort system as an alternative to normal democratic deliberation, and making things generally work worse in the USA.

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Robert Hale @rdhale92.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Sure, but let's establish that gas isn't that expensive in real terms compared to other periods in my lifetime. www.macrotrends.net/4453/us-gaso...

macrotrends.net

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Robert Hale @rdhale92.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

The Toyosu Fish Market is municipally owned, so the city could run Hunts Point well. But my faith that the ZM admin and the council are interested in the hard work that requires is waning. They're touting NGO port-a-potties that each cost the price everyone else pays for multiple actual bathrooms.

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Stephen Jacob Smith @stephenjacobsmith.com · 29/09/2026

The city needs get out of the business of being a landlord to the city’s grocery wholesalers, since it’s clearly very bad at it. Other industrial districts (northern Brooklyn, Maspeth, South Bronx, Sunset Park, West Shore of SI) should be upzoned for modern warehouses, Hunts Point should be sold off

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The LIRR Today @thelirrtoday.com · 28/09/2026

But our expectations are so low. MTA puts out press releases for every little incremental "post-pandemic ridership record" and people print and retweet them. Nevermind the billions more we have put into the system in the meantime. Why is annual LIRR ridership not north of 100 million by now?

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Clem Tillier @ctillier.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

I always thought under-slung BART wouldn’t fit through the Golden Gate Bridge towers, but it turns out BART is small and the bridge is huge. Here is a mockup in 1/100 scale, BART fits easily.

A photo of a 1/100 scale model of a tower of the Golden Gate Bridge, showing a paper cutout of a cross section of a BART line under the road deck. It fits easily.

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The LIRR Today @thelirrtoday.com · 27/09/2026

NYC MTA: randomly play announcements on the Subway about how "there are more than 150 accessible stations" and that you should check the website for elevator status (while in a tunnel with no signal) Hamburg: alert bus passengers real-time about elevator outage issues at connecting transit stations

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The LIRR Today @thelirrtoday.com · 27/09/2026

One of the things that again struck me at Innotrans was how very few exhibitors showcased solutions and examples from the Americas. And the few that were on display just look like s—t compared to their international peers. Look at these bus displays, same hardware, very different info quality!

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Joe Cohen @cohenhouse.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Another dumb American code requirement! basin.la/articles/nin...

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Stephen Jacob Smith @stephenjacobsmith.com · 22/09/2026

An area of refuge is an enclosed space protected from smoke by walls and doors. Mostly commonly it’s an enlarged landing in an enclosed stairway. I’ve never seen a publicly accessible enclosed space anywhere in the entire NYC Subway, so what *is* this area of refuge??

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Jason Rabinowitz @airlineflyer.net · 22/09/2026

@stephenjacobsmith.com Elevator installation tidbits you’d probably fine noteworthy in today’s This Week in MTA Construction newsletter.

Then came the curveballs. State fire code required us to add an area of refuge—an additional safe space for riders with mobility needs to wait for help during a fire. It's an important addition to the project, but it required design revisions. That took time, too.

And we won’t sugarcoat this...our contractor's performance was a factor too, especially when it came to waterproofing the elevator shafts. Water damaged equipment. We had to replace that equipment. And then we had to re-waterproof. More time gone.

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Robert Hale @rdhale92.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Wow. Movements at TEB screw up EWR's primary approach path and, at least as far as federal aviation taxes (IDK about PANYNJ fees) basically freeride. And I'm glad the piece calls out grain-derived fuel. It's a huge net negative for the planet whether a car, truck or plane burns it.

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Ben Vaught @benvaught.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

This is a miss, I’m sorry Suspending a bunch of weight in the air means more structure which means more embodied carbon which means more cost. It’s a tax on bus shelters. Put the rain garden where the street parking is.

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Kell Compost 😷 @compostwitch.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

hot take: nah, put plants on the ground. green roofs are difficult environments for 99% of plants, and require a lot of maintenance compared to the habitat or cooling benefit. and the smaller the individual roof, the worse it gets so basically how i feel about mamdani's free bus idea

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Stephen Jacob Smith @stephenjacobsmith.com · 17/09/2026

Check out the QTs – just falling over themselves to applaud him for this idiocy (which isn’t his administration’s initiative or even the city’s, it’s some ineffective altruism nonprofit’s). He’s got a mandate to do whatever he wants. So what does he want to do?

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Robert Hale @rdhale92.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Between weird, expensive NGO port-a-johns and rain gardens on bus shelters, ZM and his admin are 2 for 2 on prioritizing shit that dances around problems rather than solving them. gothamist.com/news/nyc-off...

gothamist.com

NYC officials want to put rain gardens on top of bus stops

The city is testing out a green roof on a bus shelter in Brownsville, with the hope that the design can be expanded across the five boroughs.

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Robert Hale @rdhale92.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

It sure sounds like cutting red tape would trim the total cost of a permanently connected Portland loo from $1 million to at least something closer to the $400k everyone else incurs, and not paying a NGO to empty waste and refill water likely saves $ in the long term. www.amny.com/news/modular...

amny.com

Million dollar potties: Five new modular restrooms open in NYC parks topped $1 million each to install | amNewYork

Five new modular public restrooms, known as “Portland Loos,” are now fully operational in parks across the five boroughs.

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Robert Hale @rdhale92.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

I'll take 17 more restrooms, but when each one is $250k, needs cleaning every 15 uses to avoid a utility hookup, and makes you jump through hoops to use it, that's just janky. I was hoping for more action from the city & state on cheaper hookups in place of bandaids like this.

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Mac the squirrel :) @macsquirelera.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Damn that’s crazy, picture unrelated

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Alon (they/them) @alonlevy.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

It's a $6 billion, 4-km double-track tunnel without any station excavation. "Ahead of schedule" is still less than bare minimum. "Doable for 1/5 the expected price" would make it mildly more expensive per unit delivered than Stuttgart 21.

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Nilo @nilo.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

One bad order (HHP locomotive, Metroliner EMU) is enough to hold against electric rolling stock for multiple generations in the USA but diesel failures (Metrolink EMD F125; Amtrak’s constant charger problems) aren’t held against diesel even though their intrinsic to the mode.

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Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

This incapacity to perceive vehicular travel demand as elastic, especially within the North American traffic planning practice, is reflected in the technical tools used to measure project impact: intesection-based LOS where the input level of traffic is a given rather than variable.

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Rich @hoxtonrich.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Suggested ground rules for the ‘debate’ on 'bad' cycling 🧵: 1) Cyclists or cycling advocates are not collectively responsible for the bad behaviour of individuals. What’s your actual point? You want less cycling or rules that have that effect? Be clear.

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Alfred Twu @alfredtwu.com · 14/09/2026

Do you ever think about how San Francisco basically went through an economic miracle, with multiple years of double-digit growth, and about the only thing they have to show for it is a world-famous housing crisis? Data from fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GDPAL...

Chart labeled Economy of San Francisco, showing rapid growth from 2011 to 2024. On the right is a chart showing the GDP per year in billions, and percentage change.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GDPALL06075

Year Billion % Change
2001 $70
2002 $68 -3.5%
2003 $68 0.8%
2004 $70 2.0%
2005 $76 8.7%
2006 $81 7.5%
2007 $87 6.3%
2008 $88 1.1%
2009 $88 0.3%
2010 $92 4.6%
2011 $100 8.6%
2012 $112 11.8%
2013 $119 6.7%
2014 $131 10.3%
2015 $144 9.7%
2016 $157 9.2%
2017 $173 10.0%
2018 $189 9.4%
2019 $207 9.6%
2020 $215 3.7%
2021 $250 16.4%
2022 $246 -1.8%
2023 $259 5.3%
2024 $268 3.7%

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NY Times Pitchbot @nytpitchbot.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Elon Musk is an unstable right-wing grifter with more power than any one else in the world. But my liberal neighbor has convinced my city council to put in bike lanes on the road I use to commute to work. I have never felt more politically homeless.

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Ben S @bensh3.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

This is around $10 million per elevator BTW

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