iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

For me, never owning a car—and getting most places by bicycle, transit, and train—has turned out to be a great choice. Being a life-long straphanger and cyclist? No regrets. More in this HIGH SPEED post: www.highspeed.blog/no-regrets/

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“Bicycling is a big part of the future. It has to be. There's something wrong with a society that drives a car to work out in a gym." —Bill Nye, Science Guy.

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"Why can't our cities look like that?" Good question! I dig into the answers in this HIGH SPEED dispatch: www.highspeed.blog/why-cant-our...

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We're definitely overdue for a revival! I chase down #Alberta's passenger rail ghosts in this week's HIGH SPEED dispatch: www.highspeed.blog/the-twilight...

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...including the Via Rail station at the foot of the Calgary Tower.

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Until 1985, the two cities were linked by Via Rail's Dayliner RDC, which could do the run in 3 hours. In 1990, Brian Mulroney killed off VIA Rail service to #Calgary. But the stations are still there...

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#Alberta used to be a great place to take a train! The country's fastest steam locomotive, CPR's Jubilee, topped out at 112.5 mph. That's 181 km/h—still faster than any train in #Canada in 2026. Jubilee locomotives were used on the Chinook route, to link #Edmonton and #Calgary. 🧵

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…in this week’s HIGH SPEED dispatch. #yyc #trains www.highspeed.blog/the-twilight...

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#Calgary is one of the Twilight Zones of passenger rail in Canada. The last Via Rail train called here in 1990. But last week I was shown a functioning rail platform (complete with locomotive) next to the city’s most iconic hotel. Read more… 🧵

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Riding the REM light metro this morning to the Central Station in downtown #Montreal to board a Via Rail train to #Toronto ? Easy-peasey. They leave from adjoining platforms. (And for your commuting pleasure, there are buses, EXO commuter trains, and a metro station nearby.)

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𝚃𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚜 𝙶𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚌𝚘𝚎 🚇 @taras-grescoe.com · 23/09/2026

…in this week’s HIGH SPEED dispatch: www.highspeed.blog/the-twilight...

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I rode Brightline in #Florida last year. Here's what I learned: www.highspeed.blog/a-ride-on-fl...

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𝚃𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚜 𝙶𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚌𝚘𝚎 🚇 @taras-grescoe.com · 23/09/2026

"When Guardian sent reporter on the bus on a June morning, it was stationary for 40 out of 108 minutes it took to reach Oxford Circus." Transit in #London should be getting more efficient. Instead, automobile traffic, + lack of priority, is slowing everyone down. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/ng-i...

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𝚃𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚜 𝙶𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚌𝚘𝚎 🚇 @taras-grescoe.com · 22/09/2026

Could passenger trains come back to #Alberta? Proposal for a train from the Calgary airport to Banff. I like the sound of a "Grand Central Station" on #Calgary's 9th Ave. S.E. www.theglobeandmail.com/business/art...

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𝚃𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚜 𝙶𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚌𝚘𝚎 🚇 @taras-grescoe.com · 16/09/2026

The view out my window right now. Happily sidelined in the heart of Canadian railway history in Field, British Columbia. That’s Mount Stephen in the background.

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Railway corridor, or bike path? I was torn about best use of the old Canadian Pacific line I rode in rural #Quebec. But don't get me wrong—I love cycling old railway lines! The question is, can rails + trails co-exist? More in this week's HIGH SPEED dispatch: www.highspeed.blog/do-we-have-t...

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But don't get me wrong—I love cycling these old railway lines! Can rails and trails co-exist? I take a look in this week's HIGH SPEED dispatch: www.highspeed.blog/do-we-have-t...

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Limiting speeds is a great move in a country that was already knocking it out of the park when it comes to taming car traffic in cities. How does #Japan do it? (The answer is hidden in plain sight.) I dig deeper in this HIGH SPEED dispatch: www.highspeed.blog/whats-missin...

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#Japan decided to do something about the 300 children and elderly people killed on streets where the speed limit was 60 km/h (37 mph). This year, speeds are cut to 30 km/h on 870,000 km of road—70 percent of the standard road network. #backtoschool www.theguardian.com/world/2026/s...

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𝚃𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚜 𝙶𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚌𝚘𝚎 🚇 @taras-grescoe.com · 08/09/2026

Want to learn more? I ride the rails—urban, inter-city and even remote—to share the latest in the global passenger rail revolution in my HIGH SPEED newsletter: Sign up here: www.highspeed.blog

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High-speed rail is not a boondoggle. *Highways* are a boondoggle. Biggest one ever foisted on the public. We pay far too much, for the world's most costly transport system. $12,000 a year for car ownership in North America. And we still don't get to work on time. 🧵

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𝚃𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚜 𝙶𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚌𝚘𝚎 🚇 @taras-grescoe.com · 08/09/2026

Can you follow the route of #Canada’s first railway without getting into a car? Hells ya! Did a little bicycle-seat railway archaeology into the history of the Champlain & St. Lawrence, which celebrated its 190th anniversary this summer.

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𝚃𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚜 𝙶𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚌𝚘𝚎 🚇 @taras-grescoe.com · 05/09/2026

#Montreal is not impressed with Steven Pinker. Some unofficial marquee arrangement has taken place at the Rialto in anticipation of his upcoming appearance. Works for me.

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𝚃𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚜 𝙶𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚌𝚘𝚎 🚇 @taras-grescoe.com · 05/09/2026

“We assume that car use is an incompressible liquid that must be routed somewhere. But it’s more more like a gas that fills whatever space it is given.” —Ian Lockwood, Harvard Loeb Fellow, transport planner.

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𝚃𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚜 𝙶𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚌𝚘𝚎 🚇 @taras-grescoe.com · 04/09/2026

"A cyclist can go 3 or 4x faster than a pedestrian, but uses 5x less energy. A bicycle is a perfect transducer to match metabolic energy to impedance of locomotion. Equipped with this tool, humans outstrip the efficiency of not only all machines, but all other animals as well." —Ivan Illich

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𝚃𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚜 𝙶𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚌𝚘𝚎 🚇 @taras-grescoe.com · 04/09/2026

Here's why I support Alto, which might have some impact on 500 farms in Quebec and Ontario, but will also change the lives of the 24 million people projected to ride it a year: www.highspeed.blog/the-best-arg...

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𝚃𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚜 𝙶𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚌𝚘𝚎 🚇 @taras-grescoe.com · 03/09/2026

The Liberals did damage too, especially Paul Martin, who, before becoming prime minister, had lobbied for highway bus services from Voyageur. You can read more here: www.highspeed.blog/train-time-t...

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𝚃𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚜 𝙶𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚌𝚘𝚎 🚇 @taras-grescoe.com · 02/09/2026

Railway corridor, or bike path? I’m torn about the best use of this old Canadian Pacific line in rural #Quebec. #trains #railroads #railways What do you think?

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𝚃𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚜 𝙶𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚌𝚘𝚎 🚇 @taras-grescoe.com · 02/09/2026

How wrong is this? I count the ways in this High Speed dispatch: www.highspeed.blog/the-war-on-b...

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𝚃𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚜 𝙶𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚌𝚘𝚎 🚇 @taras-grescoe.com · 02/09/2026

Bike lanes save lives, while reducing congestion, emissions, + pollution. So what is Doug Ford's government ( #Ontario) doing? Ripping them out. #waronbikes 🧵 www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

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𝚃𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚜 𝙶𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚌𝚘𝚎 🚇 @taras-grescoe.com · 01/09/2026

The same is happening in Canada: 4.4 million riders on VIA Rail last year. What's driving the passenger rail revival? I investigate in weekly dispatches on HIGH SPEED (sign up here): www.highspeed.blog/tag/trains/

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Cities aren't loud. *Cars* are loud. And noise pollution is just one of the ways they ruin the the places most people on earth now live. Things can be different. How? I dig deeper in this HIGH SPEED dispatch: www.highspeed.blog/why-cant-our...

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Here's the study, full of shocking stats (1.67M deaths—1 in 34—a year globally now caused by motor vehicles) from Journal of Transport Geography: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

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Since their invention, cars + automobility have killed 60–80 million people worldwide, + injured at least 2 billion. (All deaths in WW2: 78 million) There are now 1.6B motor vehicles in the world. Why that's way too many: www.highspeed.blog/there-are-to...

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"Cities are meant to stop traffic. That is their point. That is why they are there. That is why traders put outposts there, merchants put shops there, hoteliers erect inns there. Rationally one wants to have traffic *stop* there, not go *through*." —Kirkpatrick Sale, Human Scale

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