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Prof B (Matthew Burke)

@weekendatburkys.bsky.social
1.4K followers 1.4K following 60 posts

CEO of Bicycle Queensland 🚲 🚲 🚲 Transport and urban planning Prof from Brisbane, Australia. Cycling, walking, micro-mobility, public transport, urbanism, electrification, and more.

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Reposted by Prof B (Matthew Burke)
Katja Diehl @katjadiehl.bsky.social · 09/05/2026
But the scooooters! Parked cars pose a far greater safety hazard to cyclists than previously known. While only five percent of all accidents are officially attributed to this cause, a new, in-depth study finds that one in five accidents is related to parked cars. www.udv.de/udv/presse/p...
udv.de
Parkende Autos gefährden Sicherheit von Fußgängern und Radfahrern
Parkende Autos sind für Radfahrer ein weit größeres Sicherheitsproblem, als bisher bekannt und in der amtlichen Statistik sichtbar. Während offiziell nur fünf Prozent aller Unfälle mit verletzten Fußg...
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Space for Cycling Brisbane @space4cyclingbne.bsky.social · 28/03/2026
Act now to help defend the sensible use of safe legal pedal-assist bicycles in Queensland: Join others from across Brisbane this Wednesday 1st April at 5pm in Raymond Park, Kangaroo Point for the SNAP ACTION: Defend Legal e-Bikes - Critical Mass Ride www.facebook.com/events/26438...
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Megan Ramey @bikabout.com · 10/03/2026
“I see it as potentially life-changing for teenagers who may choose an e-bike for transportation rather than getting a driver’s license. And that’s really positive for this generation.” Thanks to @wweek.com for my take on a bill we have worked for 3 years on. Article🔗 www.wweek.com/bikes/2026/0...
wweek.com
Oregon Lawmakers Lower Age for Riding an E-Bike From 16 to 14
The transportation bill HB 4007 passed the Oregon Senate March 5.
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Reposted by Prof B (Matthew Burke)
James @gravitysra1nbow.bsky.social · 06/03/2026
how it feels taking public transit rn
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Prof B (Matthew Burke) @weekendatburkys.bsky.social · 06/02/2026
Most bicycle infrastructure projects have a cost-benefit ratio above four. Most motorways are lucky to get near two. Here's more evidence nothing's changing. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...
theguardian.com
Most of England’s smart motorways are poor value for money, official reports find
AA says long-awaited evaluations show schemes are a ‘catastrophic waste of time, money and effort’
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Prof B (Matthew Burke) @weekendatburkys.bsky.social · 02/11/2025
That's a LOT of bikes in a year... japantoday.com/category/cri...
japantoday.com
Arrested man claims to have stolen some 2,000 bikes in Tokyo, vicinity
A man has been arrested for allegedly stealing a road bike from a parking lot in western Tokyo, police said, with the suspect admitting to having stolen about 1,000 to 2,000 bicycles since late last year. Police found records indicating Kenji Uehara, 38, had sold at least some 950 bikes…
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Prof B (Matthew Burke) @weekendatburkys.bsky.social · 31/10/2025
Hi #bikesky folks. I'm the new CEO of Bicycle Queensland and more can I just say this new book is a cracker. Thanks Carter and the folks at #islandpress. #transport #advocacy #bikes #transportplanning
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Prof B (Matthew Burke) @weekendatburkys.bsky.social · 23/09/2025
Greetings everyone. A quick FYI that as of this week I am the new CEO of Bicycle Queensland, our state's largest cycling organisation. We represent our 12,000 members. Dream job for me! I get to be a full-time sustainable transport activist. 😆
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Prof B (Matthew Burke) @weekendatburkys.bsky.social · 04/09/2025
Wuhu Old Town, Anhui Province, China. These photos are from the middle of the day in 95 degree heat. But by night you can't move for all the people. More proof all people want places to walk, wander and promenade away from cars. #wuhu #anhui #pedestrians #walking #urbanplanning #urbanism
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Prof B (Matthew Burke) @weekendatburkys.bsky.social · 23/08/2025
A plea from me to add equity to any road user charge in Australia, and to ensure the legislation allows for congestion charging in future! www.theguardian.com/environment/...
theguardian.com
An EV road user charge is looming. Could it slam the brakes on Australia’s clean car transition?
The revenue from fuel excise is falling but it’s not only because of EVs, which make up less than 2% of cars on the roads
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Prof B (Matthew Burke) @weekendatburkys.bsky.social · 09/08/2025
Thirty years of struggle coming closer to an end ...
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Prof B (Matthew Burke) @weekendatburkys.bsky.social · 30/07/2025
Australians make similar mistakes en masse. Desire, created by car/SUV/pick-up advertisers, embedded in culture, then sold. Excessive #transport costs can be self inflicted. - "More Americans are car poor as they misjudge trade-in math and pile on debt" www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...
washingtonpost.com
Column | More Americans are car poor as they misjudge trade-in math and pile on debt
More than 1 in 4 consumers owe more on their car loans than the vehicle is worth, while car payments of $1,000 have reached a record high.
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Prof B (Matthew Burke) @weekendatburkys.bsky.social · 29/07/2025
Ah, the politics of automobility in Australia's car owning democracy. The NSW Government won't shut the Sydney Harbour Bridge for a one-off massive march. Every car is sacred. www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...
theguardian.com
Pro-Palestine protest group says ‘we will see them in court’ after police block Sydney Harbour Bridge march
Sydney-based group say weekend demonstration ‘must go ahead’ despite police knocking back application
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Prof B (Matthew Burke) @weekendatburkys.bsky.social · 24/07/2025
Brilliant book that #urbanists will love! Now a major prize winner. Well deserved. #booksky #urbanism www.theguardian.com/books/2025/j...
theguardian.com
Siang Lu wins Miles Franklin award for Ghost Cities, ‘a genuine landmark in Australian literature’
Author, who takes home $60,000, says finding out he won Australia’s most esteemed literary prize left him ‘in such shock that I lost all feeling in my hands and legs’
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Prof B (Matthew Burke) @weekendatburkys.bsky.social · 22/07/2025
An unnecessary swim centre for the Brisbane 2032 Olympics is now costed at AUD$1.2 Billion (US$750m). It duplicates the 2018 Commonwealth Games Aquatic Centre already at Southport. No 2032 Olympic transport or urban legacy plan in sight, let alone works. GC airport light rail link still unfunded.
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Prof B (Matthew Burke) @weekendatburkys.bsky.social · 30/06/2025
Great new bus network for Brisbane began today. Some teething problems, including the Translink online journey planner being overwhelmed in morning peak hour. (The app was working well at 9am for me so all should be ok now). We'll hear from the angry but it's a huge improvement on what was before.
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Reposted by Prof B (Matthew Burke)
Giulio Mattioli @giuliomattioli.bsky.social · 03/06/2025
Interesting-looking new study on people with high-carbon lifestyles doi.org/10.1016/j.er...
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Prof B (Matthew Burke) @weekendatburkys.bsky.social · 22/05/2025
Sometimes the walk to a #PedBikeTrans walking and cycling seminar is even better than the event itself. Great night last night.
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Prof B (Matthew Burke) @weekendatburkys.bsky.social · 06/05/2025
So the 25-cent petrol excise cut promised by Australia's federal opposition failed to help them win outer-suburban seats. It may just have helped them lose more seats in the inner-city. The politics of automobility might just be shifting in Australia... #auspol #mobilty #transport #urbanism
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Prof B (Matthew Burke) @weekendatburkys.bsky.social · 12/04/2025
The LNP Oz election slogan is 'Back on Track'. But they have no detailed transport policy other than their tax cut for six months on petroleum fuels, pushing up road congestion. There's no rail policy. No cycle tracks. Not even hiking trails. I'm one disappointed transport professor. #auspol
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The War on Cars @thewaroncars.bsky.social · 30/03/2025
"...for every 30-second increase in traffic delay per mile traveled, there was a 1% increase in visits to fast food restaurants. While that may not seem like a lot, the researchers estimate that over a year, it amounts to about 1.2 million more fast food meals in Los Angeles."
fastcompany.com
The worse traffic gets, the more fast food people eat
The longer commutes get, the more people stop and get fast food on the way home. Which means ending gridlock could have far-reaching public health implications.
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Prof B (Matthew Burke) @weekendatburkys.bsky.social · 17/03/2025
And so it begins... japantoday.com/category/tec...
japantoday.com
World’s first 3D-printed train station building planned by JR West
Japan is home to a wide variety of train stations, from tiny countryside sheds to sprawling urban complexes, stations with their own wineries and ones with giant ancient relics whose eyes glow. It’s g...
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Reposted by Prof B (Matthew Burke)
Santiago Mayer @santiagomayer.com · 16/03/2025
Someone made a Wiley E. Coyote style painted wall to see if Tesla’s autopilot would detect it and well…
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Prof B (Matthew Burke) @weekendatburkys.bsky.social · 16/03/2025
New podcast alert. Why are things not improving for active and public transport on the fringes of Australian cities? I spent a week living in the City of Moreton Bay recently. Some of the key infrastructure is actually in place. But policy is lacking. Hear more via the link. tinyurl.com/4uzk2pxs
tinyurl.com
S2E8 P&P Matt Burke on the True Cost of Car-Centric Cities
Streets and People · Episode
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Prof B (Matthew Burke) @weekendatburkys.bsky.social · 12/03/2025
Oh dear... This can't be about budget savings given the tiny sums involved. It's not about congestion busting given space-efficiency of bikes. Just stupid. "U.S. DOT Orders Review of All Grants Related to Green Infrastructure, Bikes" - usa.streetsblog.org/2025/03/12/b...
usa.streetsblog.org
U.S. DOT Orders Review of All Grants Related to Green Infrastructure, Bikes — Streetsblog USA
Now U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is coming for our bike lanes!
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Prof B (Matthew Burke) @weekendatburkys.bsky.social · 10/03/2025
We're okay at my place. Brisbane may have averted a major flooding event. But as usual, our Bikeway infrastructure will be a mess after Tropical Cyclone Alfred.
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Reposted by Prof B (Matthew Burke)
Phil @philmarfisi.bsky.social · 08/03/2025
The alt right has spent years conspiracy theorizing about the evils of walkable cities, when the oligarchs they idealize are planning in plain site to build entire cities into technofascist playgrounds where every aspect of your life is commoditized. www.wired.com/story/startu...
wired.com
‘Startup Nation’ Groups Say They’re Meeting Trump Officials to Push for Deregulated ‘Freedom Cities’
The architects of projects like Próspera are drafting legislation to create US cities that would be free from federal regulations.
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Reuters @reuters.com · 06/03/2025
Billionaire Elon Musk, who is advising President Donald Trump on plans to radically shrink the US government, said that the US Postal Service and passenger railroad Amtrak should be privatized reut.rs/4iruAxY
reut.rs
Elon Musk says Post Office, Amtrak should be privatized
Billionaire Elon Musk, who is advising President Donald Trump on plans to radically shrink the U.S. government, said on Wednesday that the U.S. Postal Service and passenger railroad Amtrak should be privatized.
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Prof B (Matthew Burke) @weekendatburkys.bsky.social · 06/03/2025
Yes, the Cat 2 Cyclone Alfred is on path to smack Brisbane. Yes, there is still potential it will grow into a Category 3 storm. Please don't worry too much about Alice and I. We are all prepared and our house should hold up well. Best wishes to others making preparations.
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Reposted by Prof B (Matthew Burke)
Mr Hounsell @hounsell.bsky.social · 06/03/2025
Australia has a similar problem where economist, accountants, and journalists started over inflating engineering estimates with contingency and escalation. You can't say the "estimate" is $18bn if 1/2 of that is C&E - the "estimate" is $9bn with the rest is "risk management".
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Reposted by Prof B (Matthew Burke)
Michael Szell @mszll.datasci.social.ap.brid.gy · 05/03/2025
🎉 New paper in PNAS: Urban highways are barriers to social ties www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.24089… Highways are barriers that cut opportunities for social ties. We quantify this effect by overlaying the US highway network with millions of social ties from Twitter.
Map showing a highway section in red and social ties in space crossing the highway. Wherever a tie crosses the highway, there is a cross. There are 94 crosses.
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Reposted by Prof B (Matthew Burke)
NZ Transit Buzz @nztransitbuzz.bsky.social · 25/02/2025
#TicketingNews: Bus and train fares could increase by as much as 500% in some regions of Aotearoa if local councils have to meet new targets set by the government’s transport agency, official information documents revealed to Stuff have shown. MORE: www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/3605...
stuff.co.nz
‘Taken for a ride’: The regions where bus fares could be hiked by 500%
Public transport fares could be hiked by as much as 500% in some parts of the country, as local councils struggle to meet new targets set by the Government.
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Prof B (Matthew Burke) @weekendatburkys.bsky.social · 25/02/2025
The US Transportation Research Board was always reasonably apolitical. No more. www.linkedin.com/posts/matt-b...
linkedin.com
Matt Burke on LinkedIn: The Trump Administration Takes Aim at Transportation Research
Australian researchers will also be pondering whether to keep going to the Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting in the USA, the world's largest…
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Blair Lorenzo / The Fox and the City @thefoxandthecity.com · 25/02/2025
"TRB, a longtime bridge between academia and government, now faces existential questions about its future... "TRB appears to be in a particularly perilous position, reliant on funding from the Trump administration even as its longstanding reputation for academic independence is under threat."
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McSweeney's @mcsweeneys.net · 25/02/2025
"The 15-Hour City believes everything has its place. Houses go in one location, businesses in another, and in between is a dark sea of soul-crushing concrete and asphalt."
buff.ly
Introducing the 15-Hour City
“The 15-minute city principle suggests you should have your daily needs—work, food, healthcare, education, culture, and leisure—within a 15-minute ...
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Prof B (Matthew Burke) @weekendatburkys.bsky.social · 22/02/2025
Battery electric ferries... www.abc.net.au/news/2025-02...
abc.net.au
This is no ordinary ferry. What's inside could transform shipping
Over the centuries ferries have evolved from using paddles to steam engines, to burning diesel and gas. Can the humble ferry go all electric?
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Prof B (Matthew Burke) @weekendatburkys.bsky.social · 19/02/2025
An early draft of the regional transport plan for South East Qld (including Brisbane) has been released to the local paper. www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/que...
brisbanetimes.com.au
Draft SEQ transport plan flags need to be ‘creative’ to avoid gridlock
The document says governments will need to make better use of existing services due to a lack of funding, land, and goodwill for new infrastructure.
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Reposted by Prof B (Matthew Burke)
Space for Cycling Brisbane @space4cyclingbne.bsky.social · 18/02/2025
Brisbane City Council's Transport Chair, Cr Ryan Murphy is correct; #Brisbane was absolutely not "built for cars". Check out the 1896 Cyclist's Road Map of Brisbane. All the major routes, a decade before the first car and a generation before cars became common! nla.gov.au/nla.obj-2316...
Image of an old road map showing streets of central and South Brisbane and surrounds
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Prof B (Matthew Burke) @weekendatburkys.bsky.social · 17/02/2025
Some due recognition here Brisbane is way, way, way behind on transit oriented development (TOD) despite decades of taskforces, promises and rhetoric. Alas, the current planning system, state government disinterest and construction costs give me little hope. www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/que...
brisbanetimes.com.au
Plan to ‘transform’ Brisbane suburb with new homes and shops revealed
“For so long we’ve been distracted by the Emerald City – the big shiny new CBD lights and all the rest of it – and we haven’t really devoted a lot of attention to opportunities in the suburbs.”
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Brent Toderian @brenttoderian.bsky.social · 12/02/2025
This is important — closing Central #Madrid to cars over holidays resulted in a 9.5% boost in retail spending on its main shopping street: STUDY. There was also a 71% drop in air pollution. Via @carltonreid.com in @forbes.com. #citymakingmath #citiesforpeople www.forbes.com/sites/carlto...
forbes.com
Closing Central Madrid To Cars Resulted In 9.5% Boost To Retail Spending, Finds Bank Analysis
City of Madrid significantly boosted the takings of its shops and restaurants last Christmas by banning cars from the CBD, finds an analysis by Spain's second largest bank.
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London Living Streets @londonls.bsky.social · 13/02/2025
Great to see this campaign. Research shows just how much more dangerous larger vehicles are to people on foot. Time for government at a local and national level to reduce their impact.
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Jonathan O'Brien @jonobri.com · 13/02/2025
We can argue all day about windfall gains and open space contributions—but when it comes down to brass tacks, this is what sits at the absolute core of NIMBYism.
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Prof B (Matthew Burke) @weekendatburkys.bsky.social · 13/02/2025
The delightful folks at ABC Radio National had me on today to talk about what might be next for public transport fares after Queensland's successful 50c fare trial was made permanent. Starts around the 20min mark and you'll hear me at 23mins. www.abc.net.au/listen/progr...
abc.net.au
Switching careers for a job in tech and do you believe in ghosts? - ABC listen
Helping you figure out all the big stuff in life: relationships, health, money, work and the world.
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Prof B (Matthew Burke) @weekendatburkys.bsky.social · 08/02/2025
Proof that you can make a career focusing on one problematic component of contemporary transport and land use planning. A life well lived. nyc.streetsblog.org/2025/02/08/d...
nyc.streetsblog.org
Death of a Legend: Donald Shoup, Parking Reformer - Streetsblog New York City
The OG of understanding how "free parking" isn't free has died.
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Reposted by Prof B (Matthew Burke)
The Overhead Wire @theoverheadwire.com · 06/02/2025
New #TalkingHeadways podcast! Welsh MS Lee Waters @waterslee.bsky.social and Dr. Jennifer Kent join the show to discuss how Wales got to a 20 mile per hour speed limit across the country — and what it might take for other places to do the same. bit.ly/4jLU6Q2 @usa.streetsblog.org
bit.ly
Talking Headway Podcast: 20 is Plenty in Wales — Streetsblog USA
Welsh MP Lee Waters and the University of Sydney's Dr. Jennifer Kent on how Wales passed a national 20 mph speed limit.
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Reposted by Prof B (Matthew Burke)
Mike Sacha @mikesacha.bsky.social · 02/02/2025
We need to slap a tariff on American-style urban planning, develop trade relationships with planners in Europe and Asia.
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Prof B (Matthew Burke) @weekendatburkys.bsky.social · 04/02/2025
The horror, the horror...
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Prof B (Matthew Burke) @weekendatburkys.bsky.social · 01/02/2025
Brisbane joins most of the world in reducing minimum parking requirements in the inner-city. Good move! Cue sensationalist headlines from local media, of course: "Brisbane parking hell: Car spaces to be slashed for units in 11 suburbs" www.couriermail.com.au/news/brisban...
couriermail.com.au
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Prof B (Matthew Burke) @weekendatburkys.bsky.social · 30/01/2025
About right...
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Prof B (Matthew Burke) @weekendatburkys.bsky.social · 29/01/2025
More on yesterday's Queensland Govt turnarounds on heavy rail to Maroochydore on the SunshineCoast and on light rail to Gold Coast airport. www.abc.net.au/news/2025-01...
abc.net.au
Claims of 'alarming' cost blowouts leave Queensland rail projects at risk
The future of two of the state's biggest rail projects are in doubt after comments from Deputy Premier Jarrod Bleijie.
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