You can literally find all of these in the bakery section of any nice grocery store in the US what are you on about
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after a mapmaking hiatus, i am continuing the "passenger rail system of every state" series. today's entry: wyoming
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I'm starting a new project where I map the rail network in every US state. Today I'm starting with the smallest of any state that has trains, Idaho
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hilariously enough, if you zoom out from that third picture it looks like this
fun fact: dutch calvanist separatists heavily colonized a small area of michigan’s lake michigan shoreline leading to a bunch of extremely dutch place names, an authentic 250-year-old imported windmill, lots of tulips, and even a recreation of a dutch village
ALT a dutch windmill in a tulip field in holland michigan
ALT map of dutch place names in michigan
ALT the model dutch village
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good evening to all my new followers...
today's installment (issue #2) of Mapping Passenger Rail In Every US State brings us to Ohio
thank you so much for the great reception on my previous map!
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People who post this don't think very far into it
Politician's reactions to a high rate of fare evasion won't be "oh, no one is paying, let's make it free anyway"
It'll either be "let's hire 1 million cops to put on the train" or "let's cut the service".
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good afternoon, i'm mapping(eh more like diagramming) passenger rail in every US state and today we're on michigan! (#4)
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Can people please stop saying trains are useless if they aren’t high speed? It makes 0 sense. Everywhere “With Trains” has a big network of conventional lines. You need those. High speed rail can not go to everywhere
.@Amtrak doing a test run of high-speed rail (110 mph service) between Springfield IL and Chicago. Look forward to passenger operations starting very soon.
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Welcome back to Mapping Passenger Rail In Every US State Part #3
tonight, we come to the wonderful state of DELAWARE: the only state whose passenger rail is 100% electrified!
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A lot of the left wing twitter train people don’t know about the sheer volume of right wing railfans and it’s kind of funny to me knowing both sides fairly well. The right wing of railfanning is is largely against improving trains and they hate electrification
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My father-in-law is a builder. He is insanely gifted. We were in a metro station together years ago and I asked him what it would cost to build it today. I will never forget his answer…
“We can’t, we don’t know how to do it.”
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STOP LOOKING UP TO SOUTH AMERICAN BRT SYSTEMS 😭
I’m half colombian, i visit my family down there every year, and I can say that systems like Bogotá’s Transmilenio have all the maxed out BRT features yet are miserable. The value of rail is unparalleled. 🧵
my secret practical urbanism take is that far and away any US city's best transit investment would be to go look at a south American BRT system and copy it perfectly instead of spending thirty years debating where the next 30 minute headway train should go
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Metro-North got the ridership in 1 day that the Las Vegas Tesla loop gets in approx. 55 days. reviewjournal.com/local/traf…
Great news! We shattered our post-pandemic ridership record on May 9 with over 205,000 riders.
We’re grateful that so many of you are riding with us and we’re honored to keep New York and Connecticut moving.
ALT A Metro-North train moving along the Hudson Line.
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Baltimore's light rail system is being entirely suspended after trains' electrical systems repeatedly had "fire and smoke events". These issues are related to rebuilds of the cars conducted by Alstom, the same company responsible for Amtrak's sidelined new Avelia Liberty trains.
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More US cities need to go all in on metro systems
We focus way too much on light rail in the US
It is extremely costly and lower ROI than other options
We cite successes near rail lines that are really due to upzoning, not demand (people still drive)
At $200M per MILE of rail we would be much better off subsidizing ebikes
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Chicago to Chicago.
The existence of this flight is the pinnacle of the series of policy failures that have cemented car and airline dominance in the way we travel in America. Absolutely shameful and ridiculous. In France, this would be a quick and easy train ride.
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I think a really important thing about determining a given city's "cityness" is what it's fabric - its urban bulk - looks like, since if the majority of it lacks any kind of place and is just stroads and houses, it's not really much of a city. Below are Philadelphia and DC...
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on my recent visit to Cincinnati, I found a lively, dense city with plenty of potential. for fun, I doodled this little rapid transit system, thinking about which planning decisions could build a network that fits well in cincy: a modest thread
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Brightline is overhyped.
It’s not particularly revolutionary. It’s not high speed rail. It is, though, a great intercity train, and exemplary of the common-tier service we should be seeing around the country.
It’ll be a whole new ball game when true HSR comes to the USA
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It sucks being on the MFL with someone smoking in your car, but it's a symptom of greater problems with Phila. and SEPTA. Medellín was mentioned in this reply chain & I wanna discuss it:
The Medellín metro has 2 main tools for its practical elimination of antisocial behavior (1)
ALT A Metro de Medellín CAF train sits with doors closed just before departing Universidad station for Niquía.
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“is this light rail?” no. light rail does not exist.
anything called “light rail” usually fits into one of these categories:
1. a high capacity tram
2. a low capacity metro
3. an interurban
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american cities sure love converting their most useful potential passenger alignments into rail trails huh
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My friend just sent me this photo from where he’s staying in rural Belgium.
He says it’s safe, reliable, and quick. Even these little rural trains are a great way to get around.
In America this would be unthinkable.
What is the sickness that has infected our democracy?
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The most obscure commuter train in America has to be the Denton County A-train. People will talk about Northstar or Music City, but they’re well known for sucking. *No one* talks about this thing. There’s barely any nice pictures of it online, even though it runs Stadler GTWs
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hs2 was canceled because conservatives hate trains. and yes it actually is that simple
in maryland Larry Hogan canceled the red line because of this and how he hated Baltimore
with sunak we are literally talking about the politician who wants more pedestrians to die
It’s very unfortunate that some folks are suggesting that those who critique expensive (extremely expensive) transit projects are undermining transit as a whole.
I’d suggest reflecting on why so little transit has gotten built in the last two decades.
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Assorted SEPTA scenes from today
📸
Photographing this system is always tons of fun, and the foliage and interesting weather today made it even more so
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Notably all the trains that leave out of here and the Amtrak concourse area are quite busy, especially in the mornings and evenings. This area can get kinda populated during lunch on the weekdays, but that’s about it. People just seem to be roaming the “mall areas” less
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Has MARC or VRE's awful service made them not an option even though they go where you want to go? The unrealized potential of our regional rail is huge, and in my latest map, I imagined what it could look like if we treated our mainline rail as it deserves. 🧵
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is this the most underrated city for urbanism in america??
first time here and i was really pleasantly surprised
📸📸📸
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the baltimore metro’s underground stations are incredible in their scale. at lexington market station, a train anticipates departure. the station was supposed to be part of a system designed for hundreds of thousands of riders a day. the one line built sees a fraction of that now
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Los Angeles is the second most populated city in America. It should be completely full of buildings of this size. The entitlement of some people is absolutely ridiculous
Los angeles is currently going through an architectural nervous break down. A developer is proposing to demolish an entire block on Sunset Strip between Larrabee and San Vicente destroying the city’s neighborhood and pushing small businesses out to build a luxury mega-project. The Viper Room, Sunbee Market, Gil Terner’s, for example will be demolished. New project renderings show that despite four years of community feedback, voices continue to be ignored.
This project would create one of the most disruptive construction zones in WeHo history.
West Hollywood deserves better. Look at the SCALE of this. Please voice your outrage and concerns here 👇
sensibilityonsunset.com/take…
Soon there will be no sense of a neighborhood with personality except OVER SCALE BOX GRIDS
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>njb posts about how he hates "fake london" so much for bad urbanism
>damn it must suck
>zoom into random part of the city on google maps
>...
is this actually that bad to him?
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the northeast corridor still provides the best rail service in north america by a vast margin
Hourly 125mph train service between Miami & Orlando starts next week. Could just be a turning point in U.S. transportation. route-fifty.com/infrastructu…
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STOP POSTING THE TWU MAP STOP POSTING THE TWU MAP STOP POSTING THE TWU MAP STOP POSTING THE TWU MAP STOP POSTING THE TWU MAP STOP POSTING THE TWU MAP STOP POSTING THE TWU MAP STOP POSTING THE TWU MAP STOP POSTING THE TWU MAP STOP POSTING THE TWU MAP STOP POSTING THE TWU MAP STOP
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Just got done listening through the Boulevard Subway hearing:
Out of around 30, EVERY SINGLE COMMENTER was in favor of rapid transit on the Boulevard.
This is big
It was also disclosed that SEPTA has a study to be completed December/January
We are so back
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This might be practical for somewhere smaller like Germany but the US is just too big, how can you expect people to drive everywhere? It’s not worth it at all, no one will drive from NYC to LA. This literally doesn’t make any sense, it’s completely infeasible
Just Imagine... this is what our country could look like if we properly invested in automotive infrastructure
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I need to go on a rant
Feels like most people on here who want fare free transit don't have any interest in building political support to fund transit enough to make up for fare revenue
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Does everyone not realize that Amtrak expansion plans are all just bringing passenger service to lines that already exist? Some upgrades may be needed but nearly every US city has several rail connections. They likely formerly had passenger service…
Huge difference in building out interstate rail when interstate highway and air already exist. If starting from scratch, then maybe rail is a better answer. We're not starting from scratch. There's trillions in infrastructure already built out.
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everyone saying “land use land use land use” is missing the huge gap of the CTA vs TransLink’s skills at connections and headways.
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With a lot of exciting new projects on the table, I wanted to, with a bit of creative touch, imagine what Baltimore's rail network could look like by the end of the Moore administration if our governance started taking transit seriously. Feel free to ask abt any details/specifics
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NJB always annoyed me. I couldn’t place why. this makes sense, it’s just incredible to discredit the entirety of north america. i really don’t get it
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I literally do not understand what it is about a silverliner V or the SEPTA CRRCs that make them look "40 years old" to people
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WMATA has managed a good comeback from the pandemic by figuring out how to maximize the most important aspect of transit that is typically lacking in the US - frequency
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What typically makes these somewhat misleading is that the bus routes of today also fill the local level niche in the system that legacy streetcars did*. The light rail is higher order than that even. It would make more sense to include frequent buses and BRT as well on the 2022
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WMATA's executive committee slides for this Thursday feature what looks to be a mockup of an 8000 series car 🤔
metro has indicated that mockups will be available for the public to get an idea of what it'll be like to ride the 8Ks, i'm excited to see them on display
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we do not need to build a parallel 200mph+ hsr line to the NEC. upgrading a bunch of the infrastructure for as much 160 mph as possible, and higher capacity in general, is fine(+curve straightening in CT.) otherwise it would just be so costly, the $ is better spent elsewhere
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TIL that the CTA has an $800M defense budget. I guess Illinois really is going to invade Wisconsin
The "fiscal cliff" is perennial anti-worker tactic by politicians and their corporate masters. Simply reallocate a small part of the $800,000,000 annual budget for wars and the nearly $200,000,000 spent for prisons. Problem solved.
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I can't believe how many urbanists are so poorly informed on how trains and transit actually work
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Cincinatti Union Terminal is a shell of itself - all this stuff was demolished in 1974. The station used to host several dozen trains a day, down to 2 and then 1 by the time Amtrak was in charge, at that point they didn't need the concourse and let the Southern Railway destroy it
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it is incredible just how big the ratio is between NEC amtrak service and anywhere else in the country, like no wonder Texans don't understand trains, it's crazy how Not Normal they are there
rly enjoying the frequent all-day $19 tix from philly to nyc on a saturday a little less than a month out
i think thats cheaper than the trenton shuffle!
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Some of the NYT maps of emissions per neighborhood with major rail transit lines (roughly, first time trying this) overlaid in black.
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I'm not saying that they're exactly the same quality/value, but it's not like all we have is the crappy sliced bread
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Most of those south american BRT systems were born out of a failure to amass the will to build rail. There is a huge transit demand in south America and the extant systems just cannot satisfy the demand. Triarticulated buses on minute headways don’t cut it… but even despite
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it's the year 2053. the city of columbus, ohio has seen unprecedented growth and development over the past decades. to connect this bustling metropolis, a driverless metro network and electrified regional rail system have been implement it...
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the south end of the baltimore light rail is notably quiet. rolling trains interrupt the birds singing among open fields and power lines
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Every day I get stunned by reminders of how clueless a solid percentage of the urbanist community is about trains/transit and it’s honestly frustrating because it makes it so difficult to have productive conversations
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These people are already like “What the hell?? How do you railfan the NEC?? I would fall asleep” and they would die if they found out people make cross country trips to ride metro systems
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This VRE's 2050 service plan...
*2050*
It's beyond words how screwed US transit planning can get in most of the country
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tier 1 in this circle:
-chicago
(big gap)
tier 2:
-minneapolis, denver, possibly milwaukee
(even bigger gap)
-everything else
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evergreen “CAHSR is not vaporware” reminder post
🚨 Today, we completed the Merced Avenue overcrossing! This is the 7th structure to open in the Central Valley in 2023 & the 3rd structure in the past month!
🛠️ This structure spans 509 feet, 43 feet wide, & takes traffic over SR 43, as well as BNSF & future HSR lines. #BuildHSR
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charles center is an amazingly enormous yet empty space. i’m blown away every time - you can clearly tell it was meant for so much more
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Uh oh...
As far as I know this play is illegal. Generally these challenges require you to stay limited to fixed route transit.
What do we think here, seems like grounds for a DQ unfortunately
Stopped outside of Branch Avenue waiting for the inbound train to clear the platform
Once I get there, ride-sharing over to Huntington in Virginia across the Wilson Bridge. Maybe one day we can take a Beltway line across, perhaps stopping at National Harbor!
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TexRail might just be one of the nicest train rides i've been on in the usa!?
amazing trains, good service, nice stations! if only more places could replicate it... 📸
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Insanity: 20% of Low density San Francisco's valuable land is dedicated to *parks*. This could be covered in 10 stories of affordable housing, but it seems like SF's elite, car centric crowd is more interested in preserving their massive urban gashes like the Golden Gate Park.
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Newark Light Rail train almost ready to go at Penn Station - this operation is awesome 📸
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“100-year old freight tracks”
Tell me you know nothing about what you’re talking about without telling me. The NEC is fine. This Avelia fiasco is mostly Alstom’s fault and partly the FRA’s fault. Journalists need to stop, my god
Amtrak has a $2 billion fleet of new, very fast Acela trains from France that can't start running yet because it's unclear whether they can operate properly on the Northeast Corridor's 100-year-old freight tracks. gothamist.com/news/extra-ext…
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Last night I challenged myself to pick a random city and make a crayon as fast as I could, so here's Fort Wayne, Indiana
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How is it impossible for people to understand that this is a very basic pilot program
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