iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Yindee @yindee8191.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

Maybe should’ve specified that - it was a train layover, TGV into Gare de Lyon and Thalys/Eurostar out of Gare du Nord. So just a ten-minute trip on RER D.

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Yindee @yindee8191.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

Everything urbanist I could find around Paris Gare du Nord in a 50-minute layover! Some really nice stuff, including brand new busways and a gorgeous pedestrian/cycle street with thriving businesses making full use of the extra space.

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Yindee @yindee8191.bsky.social · 18/04/2026

CONCLUSION: Overall, there are some good things happening in Brabazon. The new station will be successful, and the bus integration is streets ahead of most new developments. However, there are some serious missed opportunities that undermine the overall pretty good design. 10/10

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Yindee @yindee8191.bsky.social · 18/04/2026

… public transport has only been accessible via a 15-minute walk along a dual carriageway, despite a good-quality bus passing right by the site. Current residents will have built habits around driving and are now harder to tempt out of their cars. 9/?

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Yindee @yindee8191.bsky.social · 18/04/2026

THE UGLY: The houses that are already occupied are currently all 100% car-dependent. While I’m glad the Metrobus has made it in now, it still stops too far from the occupied houses. And because no temporary stop was provided on the main road over the last 3 years that the m4 has existed… 8/?

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Yindee @yindee8191.bsky.social · 18/04/2026

The parking design hasn’t been thought through well enough either. Most of the houses have garages but there’s then not enough space off-street to park without blocking the pavement, so that’s exactly what has happened. 7/?

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Yindee @yindee8191.bsky.social · 18/04/2026

Similarly, the floating bus stops at the new western Metrobus stop are pretty bad. The islands are way too narrow, even when there’s clearly space to push to cycle lanes further back. There are no shelters there even though the other stop (which is further from the occupied houses) has them. 6/?

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Yindee @yindee8191.bsky.social · 18/04/2026

THE BAD: Unfortunately, the cycle provision is poor. There are cycle lanes on the main street but they’re pretty much decorative. They give up completely at major junctions and the new cycleway along the A38 to link Brabazon into Bristol’s cycle network is very poor. 5/?

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Yindee @yindee8191.bsky.social · 18/04/2026

There are also benches. Everywhere! And they say ‘Brabazon’ on them, they’re pretty neat. There’s even a street where half of the width is taken up by benches and green space. 4/?

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Yindee @yindee8191.bsky.social · 18/04/2026

Secondly, the architecture is genuinely a cut above what you normally see in a new development. No boring boxes - the houses have interesting shapes and the brickwork is very solid. There’s also loads of greenery around them and good use of continuous pavements and traffic calming. 3/?

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Yindee @yindee8191.bsky.social · 18/04/2026

THE GOOD: Firstly, the bus provision is pretty solid. The main road is wide with bus lanes most of the way along, and there’s a neat bus gate with signal priority to let buses jump the queue at the eastern end by the A38. No parking on the major roads so nothing to block buses either. 2/?

Wide road with bus lanes in each direction

Road with double yellow lines on either side

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Yindee @yindee8191.bsky.social · 18/04/2026

The main road through the brand new Brabazon development finally opened this week with metrobus services now routed through part of the site. I went to have a look around today to see if it’s good or not. The answer… a bit of both. 1/?

Grey and blue double decker bus on route m4 in the Brabazon development.

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Yindee @yindee8191.bsky.social · 02/07/2025

Went on a wander today to see the progress on Bristol’s new cycle lane/pavement widening scheme between Temple Meads and the City Centre. Lots of work done, some sections are looking pretty finished! Plus, some Dutch kerbs - a first for Bristol? Never seen any here before myself.

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Reposted by Yindee

Simon Hawthorn @simon.insanity.tube · 20/05/2025

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Yindee @yindee8191.bsky.social · 13/05/2025

Incredible track maintenance/monitoring vehicle from 1944(!) in Plzeň this morning. Shame that 20th Century engineering works announced at short notice forced us onto a bus at this point! Still, a well-managed operation, so I can’t complain.

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Yindee @yindee8191.bsky.social · 13/05/2025

Exploring the gorgeous city of Regensburg today. This bridge is 12th Century, somehow! Interesting to note that the top set of stones on the parapet (plus the surface paving) have been newly replaced. Definitely wouldn’t fly in the U.K.!

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Yindee @yindee8191.bsky.social · 11/05/2025

I guess Central makes more sense, nothing east of Germany is Western Europe though imo. Either way, the point is the same.

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Yindee @yindee8191.bsky.social · 11/05/2025

I’m not surprised, I guess… I knew in theory that it existed here. It’s just a little weird to see something I associate strongly with Britain turning up several hundred miles away, especially when most of Eastern Europe doesn’t have many British brands.

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Yindee @yindee8191.bsky.social · 11/05/2025

A delightfully odd bit of Czech railway infrastructure - for some reason, the track has been plain-lined to take it further away from the platform. Also, the disconnected track has newish concrete sleepers while the extant track has older wooden ones!

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Yindee @yindee8191.bsky.social · 11/05/2025

Fascinating to see older Czech apartment blocks closer into the cities, and the clear lineage through to the later Soviet housing you see further out.

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Yindee @yindee8191.bsky.social · 11/05/2025

Olomouc is, it turns out, a gorgeous little city. With some crazy tram infrastructure, including a full grand union and multiple in-use tram/train flat crossings!

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Yindee @yindee8191.bsky.social · 11/05/2025

Presumably in a bid to out-woke the rest of Europe’s trams, Olomouc has tram tracks surrounded not by grass but by wildflowers. Also: bonus Actually Good cycle infrastructure.

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Yindee @yindee8191.bsky.social · 10/05/2025

Sadly they do not, from what I’ve heard.

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Yindee @yindee8191.bsky.social · 10/05/2025

Czech Tesco is such an uncanny valley… why does this exist??

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Yindee @yindee8191.bsky.social · 10/05/2025

Broke: putting grass around your tram tracks. Woke: surrounding your tram line in a green tunnel of shady trees.

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Yindee @yindee8191.bsky.social · 10/05/2025

Ahhh, this must be where the Czechs practice the ancient sport of Tram Jumping.

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Yindee @yindee8191.bsky.social · 09/05/2025

I love concrete… here we have the Charleroi metro, over a main road, over a railway.

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Yindee @yindee8191.bsky.social · 09/05/2025

No prizes for guessing - it’s the weird tram system! The abandoned line actually seems to be getting revamped now!

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Yindee @yindee8191.bsky.social · 09/05/2025

I’m sure nobody on this website of all places will know why I’m here

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Yindee @yindee8191.bsky.social · 09/05/2025

It turns out Calatrava has done two Belgian stations (I get why this one isn’t as famous, it’s not quite as fancy)

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Yindee @yindee8191.bsky.social · 09/05/2025

They have bendy natural gas buses in France?? (And boulangeries, of course, but the bendy gas buses are cooler)

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Yindee @yindee8191.bsky.social · 05/03/2025

Got a tour of Parliament today - both chambers, select committee meetings and plenty of history. Definitely a perk of studying politics!

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Yindee @yindee8191.bsky.social · 15/01/2025

Exploring some relics of the Great Central Railway in Leicester today. A reminder of how short-sighted British transport policy often is… some extra capacity through here would be pretty useful these days.

A railway bridge over a different section of river.

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Yindee @yindee8191.bsky.social · 09/12/2024

Well we’ve had a good run (debatable) but I think the time of productivity is over for today

Library sign saying ‘Oversize Transport History Books’

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Yindee @yindee8191.bsky.social · 26/10/2024

Finally, the verdict on Bluesky? It seems okay, if a little clunky. The fact that I couldn’t get the hashtag to work is quite annoying, but oh well. I will try and use it more in future, but it’s currently not my preference.

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Yindee @yindee8191.bsky.social · 26/10/2024

Also, the level of car dependency and general car-brained design in smaller towns around here is shocking. Practically all of the nice squares and shopping streets I saw were used largely as through roads, often with few or no pedestrian crossings. We should do better!

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Yindee @yindee8191.bsky.social · 26/10/2024

Only one of the routes I used today runs more than every hour, and two were significantly less than that. Many were slower than they should be, and connections between routes were often subpar. But the network in Leicestershire is fairly well-used (while free anyway) and reliable.

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Yindee @yindee8191.bsky.social · 26/10/2024

As the early finish time implies, this went very well! No cancellations, no delays that affected my journey, and I made both of the >5 minute connections that I’d refused to bank on. I suppose I have to conclude that British rural bus services are… not that bad? Well, not quite…

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Yindee @yindee8191.bsky.social · 26/10/2024

And with that, the 8 deposits me only a few minutes late back into Melton Mowbray. Just enough time to sprint to the station and catch a train 3(!) hours earlier than my estimate. Finished, in 10 hours and 8 minutes.

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Yindee @yindee8191.bsky.social · 26/10/2024

Very helpfully, this Centrebus 8 was pretty late arriving (for once, their unreliability is useful!) so I was able to catch it instead of waiting an hour. This means I’m making my final bus journey to complete the loop two hours earlier than expected!

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Yindee @yindee8191.bsky.social · 26/10/2024

From Coalville, the 16 carries me and just one other passenger towards Loughborough.

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Yindee @yindee8191.bsky.social · 26/10/2024

I have been dropped off somewhat insalubriously by the head office of Poundstretcher, and a busy road. Not all connections on this trip are nice ones!

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Yindee @yindee8191.bsky.social · 26/10/2024

By sneakily going to Leicester Forest East and not actually into Leicester, I’ve switched back onto a 153 for a short hop out to… the middle of nowhere. More on that soon.

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Yindee @yindee8191.bsky.social · 26/10/2024

In future I will try this every time I take a bus 😂

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Yindee @yindee8191.bsky.social · 26/10/2024

Hinckley suits me for a small resupply at the well-placed Sainsbury’s by the bus station. Now for a packed 158 heading for Leicester (although I’ll be avoiding the city itself).

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Yindee @yindee8191.bsky.social · 26/10/2024

The 58 ran dangerously late and I thought my old dislike of Centrebus might be proven right again. But luckily it caught up just enough by the end for me to make my three minute connection onto the 8 to Hinckley - the first Arriva bus of the day.

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Yindee @yindee8191.bsky.social · 26/10/2024

This 58 is my second free bus of the day (number 4 total). This time, the driver has been briefed on Free Bus Day!

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Yindee @yindee8191.bsky.social · 26/10/2024

Free Bus Day going well so far - the driver of this 18 didn’t know it was free today but was happy to believe me, so we’re off on the cheap (well, free!) part of the journey.

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Yindee @yindee8191.bsky.social · 26/10/2024

The 19 drops me off in Desborough, home to one of the nicest Costas I’ve seen and apparently 81 miles from London. Luckily, I don’t need to get that far today - my next journey is just to Market Harborough.

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