Author | Lightnews

Tom Forth

Tom Forth

@tomforth.co.uk

7.2K followers 150 following 390 posts

Same as @thomasforth on X. Gone back to Twitter for now. Quality filter, locations in bios, and polls pls. Leeds, Yorkshire, UK.

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Reposted by Tom Forth

Rob Johnson @rjson.bsky.social · 11h

What to see how I turned thousands of live buses into charts like this? And what it all means for mayors wanting to integrate their public transport systems?

Come to see me talk about all this and more to our event at 1pm: www.centreforcities.org/event/report...

Tom Forth @tomforth.co.uk · 22h

The valuation problem feels a bigger problem to me than problems with complexity of income tax or VAT, and certainly a bigger problem than property tax which it's typically promoted as a replacement to. Property tax is always simpler than land value tax.

Tom Forth @tomforth.co.uk · 22h

If that were the proposal I would consider it seriously. In every UK discussion I've seen LVT is about replacing property tax. I listed quite a few such studies/papers/proposals in my piece.

Tom Forth @tomforth.co.uk · 1d

Not "surely yes" to me. I'm convinced a LVT is worse than a Property Tax because in the regression you describe it removes the decision further from the people and thus weakens its accessibility to democracy. I value accessible local democracy very highly in my consideration.

Tom Forth @tomforth.co.uk · 4d

Oh no. Disqus is not doing great recently. I had to start paying them to stop the porn ads, because I use it on some work sites. But generally has been getting worse. I'm not writing my own comment engine. Obviously. Too old for that.

Tom Forth @tomforth.co.uk · 5d

"Evil or Irrelevant: pick one." > I wrote up why I'd usually prefer to have an 'evil' company succeeding in Leeds than a good one succeeding in London. (But really it's about Stoke-on-Trent). tomforth.co.uk/evilorirrele...

Evil or irrelevant: pick one.

Why I’d probably rather have an evil tech company in Leeds than a good one in London.

Tom Forth @tomforth.co.uk · 11d

I am a loyal supporter of the Map Men, but not a collaborator so this is pure coincidence. It is a good province.

Reposted by Tom Forth

Tom Forth @tomforth.co.uk · 11d

Also includes a graph, for I am known for such things, on how Almere, the Netherlands' most successful new city has overtaken Lelystad, the Netherlands' most mocked new city in population since they were built on land reclaimed from the sea.

Reposted by Tom Forth

Tom Forth @tomforth.co.uk · 11d

Includes a map I drew (actually traced) by hand (well in Inkscape) and styled myself (actually got Luke to help me). But it's a good map. I tried to get ChatGPT to draw it for me, but it was rubbish. So I did it with humans.

Reposted by Tom Forth

Tom Forth @tomforth.co.uk · 11d

I've written about the worst city in the Netherlands. It's just 3000 words. A quick read. What Lelystad teaches us about new cities, why you probably shouldn't build them, what to do if you must,... and why you might need to. ps. Lelystad is actually good. tomforth.co.uk/newcities/

The worst city in the Netherlands.

Lessons on New Cities from Almere and Lelystad.

Tom Forth @tomforth.co.uk · 11d

Also includes a graph, for I am known for such things, on how Almere, the Netherlands' most successful new city has overtaken Lelystad, the Netherlands' most mocked new city in population since they were built on land reclaimed from the sea.

Tom Forth @tomforth.co.uk · 11d

Includes a map I drew (actually traced) by hand (well in Inkscape) and styled myself (actually got Luke to help me). But it's a good map. I tried to get ChatGPT to draw it for me, but it was rubbish. So I did it with humans.

Tom Forth @tomforth.co.uk · 11d

I've written about the worst city in the Netherlands. It's just 3000 words. A quick read. What Lelystad teaches us about new cities, why you probably shouldn't build them, what to do if you must,... and why you might need to. ps. Lelystad is actually good. tomforth.co.uk/newcities/

The worst city in the Netherlands.

Lessons on New Cities from Almere and Lelystad.

Reposted by Tom Forth

Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · Sep 13

You will learn more about the ongoing furore over asylum seekers in hotels from this incredible piece by @jenwilliamsft.bsky.social than from a hundred front page headlines.

The crumbling seaside palaces at the centre of Britain’s asylum crisis

How one hotelier built an empire from beloved community assets — and a government struggling to cope with a surge in migration

Tom Forth @tomforth.co.uk · Sep 8

Thanks for sharing Richard. 🙏

Reposted by Tom Forth

Thijs Niks @thijs.niks.nu · Sep 2

bsky.app/profile/jrur...

JRUrbaneNetwork @jrurbanenetwork.bsky.social · Sep 2

Continuing to have fun with this. This time it is Vietnam's proposed North–South Express Railway or Đường sắt cao tốc Bắc-Nam. Estimated to have 175-225 trains per day. Assumed 8 car CR400 trains running up to 350kph and Chinese fare rates.

Reposted by Tom Forth

Thijs Niks @thijs.niks.nu · Sep 2

bsky.app/profile/dawe...

Brendan Dawe @dawe.bsky.social · Aug 13

I put together an Egypt HSR system and I got 1.75 billion riders

(obviously the Egyptian public cannot afford first world HSR fares but hot damn)

Reposted by Tom Forth

Thijs Niks @thijs.niks.nu · Sep 2

By default, the tool includes a dozen example networks to give an idea of how it works.

Take a look at for example:

France railmapper.net/project/fran...
US northeast railmapper.net/project/nort...
Indonesia railmapper.net/project/indo...
India railmapper.net/project/indi...

Reposted by Tom Forth

Thijs Niks @thijs.niks.nu · Sep 2

I built a web tool so anyone can design and evaluate ridership and costs of high speed rail networks anywhere in the world:

railmapper.net

Design and analyze high speed rail networks

Tom Forth @tomforth.co.uk · Sep 2

But this morning, on the two carriage train from Burley Park to Leeds, at 08:55, it was fucking rammed.

Tom Forth @tomforth.co.uk · Sep 2

I'm in Holland. 👍

Tom Forth @tomforth.co.uk · Sep 2

One of the reasons I'm cautiously positive about Reform's rise is that messages like this will reach different people and be believed by more people when Reform say it. And they have been saying it a lot, all over the UK, on many issues, since they gained power. www.bbc.com/news/article...

Kent County Council warns of deepening social care crisis

Kent County Council says it is being forced to scale back preventative services due to lacking funding.

Tom Forth @tomforth.co.uk · Aug 29

Full fabric flag in good nick (new off Amazon) on a makeshift flag pole made of wood flying upright gaffa taped to one of the sponsorship banners.

Tom Forth @tomforth.co.uk · Aug 29

Saw one very tastefully placed in the middle of a roundabout in Castleford yesterday. Looked good tbh.

Reposted by Tom Forth

Barney Stringer @barneystringer.bsky.social · Aug 20

So THIS is what central government was using all these years whenever Leeds called asking for a metro system

“Anti Tram” earplugs