Notices by 𝚃𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚜 𝙶𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚌𝚘𝚎 🚇 (straphanger@urbanists.social)

"Our age abhors transit. In the middle of the 20th-cent, Europeans used trains, buses, subways & streetcars for 3/4s of their travel. Today the figure is a quarter...that's still high compared to US, where transit accounts for 5% of all transport."

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"Cars promise people freedom—highways aren't called 'freeways' for nothing—yet they act like traveling cages...the human workday continues to lengthen year after year & so does the time required to get to work...You live in your car, and it won't let you go."

(Cartoon by Andy Singer)

"I saw a cigarette ad with the health warning: 'Tobacco smoke contains carbon monoxide.' The same magazine had several car ads, not one of which warned that exhaust contains much more carbon monoxide. People can't smoke. Cars can."

Those are all quotes from the Uruguayan novelist and journalist Eduardo Galeano. In his book Upside Down, he made the case we were living in a world where, thanks to the glorification of greed, nothing made sense: decency was despised, selfishness lionized, up was down.

That's the world that, thanks to the Trump Regime, we will all be living in, maybe for years to come.

The way to survive is to remember: If you stick to core values—decency, compassion, refusal to be participate in harmful enterprises—you can be a right-side up person in a wrong-sided world.

"Why can't we have nice things here?"

Because of Republicans, of course.

The latest: Trump officials kill federal grant for high-speed rail between #Dallas + #Houston. A line that would have saved people of #Texas endless pain on freeways.

https://www.texastribune.org/2025/04/14/texas-high-speed-rail-planning-grant-cut/

"The only airport in the center of #Paris is a train station."

I love this ad for the high-speed service from Switzerland to France.

One of the hidden costs of air travel is the dreaded airport transfer...

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By 1920, the network of interurbans in the US was so dense that a determined commuter could theoretically
hop interlinked services from Waterville, Maine, to Sheboygan, Wisconsin—a journey of 1,000 miles—exclusively by electric trolley.

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(The video above shows a vintage 1932 trolley from Scranton, the "Electric City" of Pennsylvania.)

Some years back, I sought out still-running cable cars and trolleys across the US, from Kennebunkport to San Diego.

I loved the PCC, the streamlined Cadillac of electric streetcars...

They still run in #Philadelphia, San Francisco, and on the Mattapan, the old "High Speed" Line outside #Boston.

Want to stick it to Little Tariff Man this weekend?

Sign up for a tariff-free newsletter from Canada! 🇨🇦

In the interests of international friendship + cooperation, I'm giving out free month-long memberships to my tranport-themed newsletter HIGH SPEED if you sign up today.

https://www.highspeed.blog

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THIS JUST IN:

Yesterday, the people of #Paris voted "Oui" or "Non" to pedestrianizing and greening a further 500 streets in the city, and eliminating 10,000 parking spots.

The result: 66 percent, or two-thirds, voted "Oui"!

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Who voted "NON"?

The usual suspects: the wealthy, car-owning residents of the western arrondissements (in red and orange).

And they lost.

https://www.liberation.fr/societe/ville/comment-etre-contre-cette-idee-a-paris-les-rues-pietonnes-veulent-faire-ecole-20250322_6UGQPMXUYZBDPGTRWGSJB25ALA/

Pass it on: #deleteyourtesla

And she shared it with two friends, and they shared it with four friends, and so on, and so on…

This is an excellent meme! Give me a hand: let’s make it go exponential.

Got the Trump trade war blues?

I explore how #Montreal is charting a path to agricultural self-sufficiency w/ urban fish-farming, greenhouses on shopping malls, and rooftop grapevines for wine-making.

Bye-bye imported tomatoes!

On the Food and Wine Magazine website:

https://www.foodandwine.com/montreal-urban-agriculture-8783278

So Elon Musk's DOGE is hitting one DC agency, the NHTSA, especially hard.

Surprise, surprise: it's the small team responsible for regulating self-driving cars.

Very convenient. And utterly corrupt.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/02/21/musk-doge-tesla-autonomous-vehicles-nhtsa/

It's about time we stopped building pipelines, highways, and runways, and got back to the railways that really built this nation.

We're good at trains, and trains—especially the electric variety—are good for the world.

I can't think of a better way of pissing off Trump than for #Canada to go ahead with building the proposed Alto high-speed rail project.

A multi-billion high-tech megaproject, that would deliver faster trains than the US has, using Canadian steel + aluminum.

Might even kick off a modern version of the space race.

Yesterday, the Liberals in #Canada announced they're going ahead with true high-speed rail. (Not just "high-frequency.")

This means 300 km/h (186 mph) electric trains from #Toronto to #Quebec City.

This corridor is home to 700k students, and half Canada's population.

Great news, but...

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...there are a lot of "buts."

But: It's $3.9B, for a project that will take at least 10 yrs, and could cost $100B.

But: Political future of the Liberals is up in the air.

But—the biggest "but": This is really announcement of the choice of a consortium, made up of...

https://www.pm.gc.ca/en/news/news-releases/2025/02/19/canada-getting-high-speed