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Sandy Johnston

@sandypsj.bsky.social
3.8K followers 792 following 2.9K posts

Transit geek. Planner. Cat dad. Cubs fan. Deputy Director of Regional Transit Planning at MBTA. Blogging much less than I'd like at www.itineranturbanist.wordpress.com. Opinions my own.

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Sandy Johnston @sandypsj.bsky.social · 12h
20%! Sneaking capacity projects in under repair/modernization headings is something DOTs are already adept at.
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Tony Dutzik @frontiertony.bsky.social · 12h
One implication of "permitting reform" that transportation folks should be aware of: The bill eliminates environmental review entirely for repair or replacement projects in the "immediate vicinity" of existing infrastructure that do not increase capacity by >20%. www.epw.senate.gov/public/_cach...
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Chris Goodman @cbgoodman.co · 12h
The placement of lots of local govt capital assets (schools, fire stations, etc) assumes that the local development landscape is more or less fixed in time—demand for those services will always exist nearby. However, we know this isn't true. We don't think enough about decline in local govt.
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David Zipper @davidzipper.bsky.social · 13h
​New study pushes back against the narrative that rising car costs are making transportation unaffordable: "Real transportation spending rose after 2020 but remains within historical ranges [and below] 1980s levels" 10.1016/j.tranpol.2026.104465
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Block Club Chicago @blockclubchi.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
The CTA has unveiled a 1950s neon-style sign at a revamped Blue Line stop. buff.ly/5Ifslf9
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Sandy Johnston @sandypsj.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
It's wonderful. Northern New England is reporting the best color in 10 years and I'd believe it based on our start.
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Sandy Johnston @sandypsj.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Yup!
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Sandy Johnston @sandypsj.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Best tree of today's ride. Clifford the Big Red Trike in the foreground.
Image: a fiery orange and red tree in a park setting next to a busy intersection. In the foreground of the picture is a large red recumbent e-trike.
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Sandy Johnston @sandypsj.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
*New England intensifies* Looking over Worcester from Holy Cross
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alex block ⚽️ @alexblock.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
This remains the fundamental (and correct) diagnosis of Abundance, fwiw. These various requirements and procedures all add time, and require specific attention.
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Sandy Johnston @sandypsj.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Colors just starting to change in the Arboretum
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Sandy Johnston @sandypsj.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Very Oregon!
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Sandy Johnston @sandypsj.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
*used to on the old site
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Sandy Johnston @sandypsj.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
I used to post pictures of a very similar arrangement in the rural US under the tagline #smalltownbigbypass. In many cases, the bypass sucked all the commercial activity out of the old downtown. See Vinton, IA
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Sandy Johnston @sandypsj.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
wut
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Sandy Johnston @sandypsj.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Everything Yale is always overwrought, but it's funny to me to see such hand-wringing over a course that I mainly remember from growing up as a place to sled in the winter. I had no idea it's considered such a masterpiece. www.nytimes.com/athletic/764...
nytimes.com
A $30 million disaster: How did Yale let its newly restored golf course fall apart?
Alums are upset about patchy grass, dried-out greens and want answers. "If someone gave you a Rembrandt, you’d take care of it."
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Stephen Jacob Smith @stephenjacobsmith.com · 30/09/2026
Wow, El Diario has a big visual feature basically showing exactly this – the rental aspect of Spain’s housing crisis is largely a transfer of wealth from immigrants to individual older, wealthy-but-often-not-filthy-rich Spanish apartment owners, not corporations bsky.app/profile/eldi...
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Sandy Johnston @sandypsj.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Also v. uncomfy w/analysis of "this is real, but the main causal factor is censorship by political and Jewish institutions." We can't deny that that is *a* factor. But ppl have agency and choose their path, whether out of latent anti-Semitism; intellectual laziness; or desire for a villain.
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Sandy Johnston @sandypsj.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Let's be real: the lesson here is that left movements need to learn to police themselves and excise certain voices and people. Which they are reluctant to do, for fairly obvious historical and ideological reasons. But it's not really a choice, for both moral and practical political reasons.
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Sandy Johnston @sandypsj.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
It's very easy to dismiss these voices as fringe and the discussion as feeding right-wing propaganda (which it does). But like the Greenfield bar story, anyone honest who has spent time in left spaces knows that these dynamics and people are very real and a problem that needs to be confronted.
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brent 🌹🗽 @therealbrent.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
I’ve never been in denial about it but I do think today was the first day I truly realized how much antisemitism is spreading and being normalized in online far-left circles. It’s scary and frightening and is only going to get worse if the left insists it’s not a problem.
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Joan Liu @joanliu.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Hey chicago bicyclists! I have a friend who is moving to albany park neighborhood of chicago, near the end of the brown line and wants to start biking for daily errands, haven't biked in a while. What advice would you give? They want to stay anonymous at this time.
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Sandy Johnston @sandypsj.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
There used to be winter shipments by an all-rail route when the lakes were frozen, but it's definitely not the preferred way of doing things!
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Adam @adamshap.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
NYC’s congestion pricing program cut ambulance travel times by over a minute
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Sandy Johnston @sandypsj.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
This is such a good thing and has been so long coming. Lord, people need to get a life.
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Sandy Johnston @sandypsj.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Update
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Sandy Johnston @sandypsj.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Rare moment of peace
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Sandy Johnston @sandypsj.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Many thanks!
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Sandy Johnston @sandypsj.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Does anyone have a map of the Menino-era proposed Boston bike network? www.bostonmagazine.com/health/2013/...
bostonmagazine.com
New Bike Plan Calls For 350 Miles of Cycling Infrastructure
Mayor Menino announced a new bike plan for the city of Boston on Friday which will add more than 300 miles of bike lanes over the next 30 years.
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Sandy Johnston @sandypsj.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Yes, can do! Feel free to nudge me if I forget, might take a few days :-)
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Sandy Johnston @sandypsj.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
This project is happening in large part because of perceptions that A Promise Was Made and not doing it would be Breaking Trust, with some of the poorest areas in Chicago. We need to be able to have hard conversations about when a promise is no longer the optimal solution. And that's really hard.
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Sandy Johnston @sandypsj.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
I see we're doing RLX discourse again. I agree w/many critiques, especially its pre-regional-integration vibe and that there's a huge risk of Center City Tunnel syndrome: the entire agency being distracted by a big project while the rest of the system degrades. BUT...
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Sandy Johnston @sandypsj.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Has anyone used the TBEST transportation modeling software? What were your experiences with it? tbest.org
tbest.org
TBEST – Transit Planning Software
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Sandy Johnston @sandypsj.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Interesting discussion on the nuances of this power and its durability in the thread, but...I did not know this. Quite something.
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Sandy Johnston @sandypsj.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Mazal tov to all the Jews in the Northeast US currently finishing up an extremely rapid degree in Wind Resistance Engineering for Temporary Structures
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Stephen Jacob Smith @stephenjacobsmith.com · 23/09/2026
“The municipal-bond funds are betting that shedding debt through a potential bankruptcy will give the railroad time to grow ridership and build sufficient revenue to pay off its remaining senior obligations.” www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
bloomberg.com
Brightline Preparing for Bankruptcy Filing as Soon as This Week
Brightline, the struggling Florida private passenger railroad, is laying the groundwork to restructure some of its debt through a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing as soon as this week, according to people...
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Sandy Johnston @sandypsj.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Looking for good training and orientation materials on destination access analysis--Accessibility Observatory, Conveyal, that type of data. Anyone got recs?
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Sandy Johnston @sandypsj.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Saw some decent battery under-cabinet lights at Costco on Sunday, and wow do they make a difference for layout lighting.
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Sandy Johnston @sandypsj.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Lol this is not something I have the fine motor skills for
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Sandy Johnston @sandypsj.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Only picture I can easily find of the prototype www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture....
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Sandy Johnston @sandypsj.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
I also recently picked up a Trainmaster with sound for a screaming deal and swapped this shell onto it...man those things sound nice.
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Sandy Johnston @sandypsj.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Cool new layout thing is an eBay find, an Atlas Trainmaster custom painted as C&NW 1698 with its one-off experimental paint scheme. C&NW had H-16-66 "Baby Trainmasters," not the big ones, but given that those don't exist in N, I'll take it.
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Michael Wiebe @michaelwiebe.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
New literature review on housing ladder spillovers: When rich tech workers move in, low-end rents go up. So does it follow that adding high-end homes would reduce them? Yes. Changes at the top of the ladder can propagate down and affect prices at the bottom. 1/
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Yonah Freemark @yonahfreemark.com · 18/09/2026
Jacksonville Florida, the nation’s 11th largest city, has approved 22% transit cuts. It’s a nightmare: —Most bus service will operate on Sat schedule —The city’s automated rail service will simply not run —A “Navi” automated bus service will become manual because they can’t afford the software
news4jax.com
JTA planning additional layoffs as it works to cut $39 million from FY 2027 budget, suspend Skyway service in November
The Jacksonville Transportation Authority will reduce its Fiscal Year 2027 budget by $39 million, suspend passenger service on the Skyway and pause Navi service as it works to balance revenue and expe...
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Sandy Johnston @sandypsj.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Is this the future eastern end of the Belmont Community Path?
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Jerome Alexander Horne @jahorne.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
"The agreement resolves a more than decade-long proceeding before the Surface Transportation Board (STB) concerning the terms and conditions for Amtrak services such as the City of New Orleans, Illini/Saluki, and Wolverine." media.amtrak.com/2026/09/cn-a...
media.amtrak.com
CN and Amtrak Reach Agreements to Strengthen Passenger Rail Service and Safety - Amtrak Media
WASHINGTON, D.C. and HOMEWOOD, Ill. – CN (TSX: CNR) (NYSE: CNI) U.S. rail subsidiaries (Illinois Central Railroad Company and Grand Trunk Western Railroad
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Sandy Johnston @sandypsj.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Not holding assumptions more or less constant across all modes, especially from a network perspective, is a really odd choice IMO.
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Sandy Johnston @sandypsj.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Wait they modeled two options but not the heavy rail one with an MFL extension? That's...odd.
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Lettuce Cat @piero.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
oh god its real
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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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