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Marco Chitti

@chittimarco.bsky.social

6K followers 290 following 6.2K posts

Researcher on urban planning and public transportation. https://marcochitti.substack.com/

marcochitti.substack.com

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Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · Jun 21

It took quite a while, but the paper about the history of high-speed rail planning in Italy that I co-authored with @beriapaolo.bsky.social is finally out!

It's open source, so you can read it at length (it is pretty long),

But here is a TL;DR: 🧵

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

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Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 1h

But if the bidet had been invented, they would have recognized its superiority.

Their degenerate offsprings, the French, invented it but never understood its potential, unlike the Italians and the Iberians.

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Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 2h

Blocked and reported

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Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 2h

I did. But I think the big misunderstanding is that Bidet is not supposed to replace toilet paper, unlike the japanese washlet or the middle-east faucet. and it's supposed to be used with soap (special soap for intimate parts).

Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 2h

Because you're all like grown kids who love gadgets.

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Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 3h

Ok folks, this thread is just the plain demonstrations that y'all are just a bunch of barbarians, as much as you were 2000 years ago.

The Roman Empire didn't last long enough to civilize you.

David Roberts @volts.wtf · 4h

All right, y'all, help me out. This is a bidet, right? (It's in my airbnb.) So, the idea is, you poop in the toilet and then...crab walk a few feet to your left, with your pants down? And stick your butt down in this thing? There's no seat, as such, so you're just...hovering your butt down into it?

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Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 3h

They can be both. The Dutch famously took the adaptive system invented by FIAT in the 1980s, Utopia, and adapted it to their love for actuated signals for buses, pedestrians, bikes and later streets alike.

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Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 3h

I'm not referring to the basic ones used for lateral streets with very low traffic. I mean, the highly adaptive ones they have in the NL or even in Italy (minus the actuation part).

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Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 3h

It is, but the BRT was from a different era. Now they are building subways like crazy.

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Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 3h

The same way you sit on a low stool or small chair?

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Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 3h

"Look, the World Bank told us that BRTs with a bus every 20 sec are the fiscally responsible equivalent of a metro for developing countries."

(I'm not joking, the WB was essentially saying this for most of the 2000s and 2010s)

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Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 3h

Oh my god, I never realized that people really don't know how to use a bidet.

You first use the toilet paper, then use the bidet with SOAP for extra cleanness, rinse yourself, and then dry with a dedicated towel (the small ones are for that).

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Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 3h

Right-on-red is also a consequence of the fact that in NA we overuse the most inflexible and dumb types of control for intersection, i.e. non-actuated traffic lights and all-way stops, because the road engineering profession is terrible at designing intersections and at circulation planning.

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Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 3h

If NA road engineers want an intersection where drivers are always allowed to turn right if there is nobody in the intersection because it's more efficient, I have a solution for them.

It's called a roundabout or a lateral-street-only yield.

Oh The Urbanity! @ohtheurbanity.bsky.social · 8h

Can you believe that most cities in the US and Canada, with only a few exceptions, allow cars to turn right despite having a red light?

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Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 6h

This is maybe true for CP and CN post privatization. But Sydney mostly electrified its suburban rail system in the interwar and postwar years. I think it's also a failure of public policy from provincial and federal governments.

Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 8h

Does the line have a lot of demand for freight? I don't see demand for much besides lumber in Gaspésie.

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Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 8h

1.2 is Italy's minimum, too, for shared stairways.

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Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 11h

I do prefer the train for long-distance trips. But not enough to think that it should be built at any cost.

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Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 19h

For example. This guy was made MP in Berlusconi's party...

video.corriere.it/scapagnini-p...

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Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 20h

Berlusconi had exactly the same ritual of having his doctors telling the press how younger than his age his body looked after each check up. Literally the same personality cult.

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Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 20h

L'État c'est moi (says CN)

Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 20h

Canada's transportat minister weighing in on the ViaRail rail crossing-induced delays saga here really gives powerful "find the guy who did this" meme vibes.

youtu.be/L8TVwi3-gSA?...

Suspect Guilty GIF

ALT: Suspect Guilty GIF

media.tenor.com

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Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 21h

The story really looks similar to Rome's line B, which was called the EUR 42 railway until line A opened

Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 21h

When did they start to call it a metro? Its story seems similar to Rome's line B, which is born more as a standalone suburban train than a metro. Line A was considered the real first metro in Rome.

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Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 21h

I think it was formerly just mainline rail before being converted to metro.

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Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 21h

Most of Canada doesn't even have trains at all to its regional centres...

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