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Naththan

@nathanpittman.bsky.social

590 followers 110 following 510 posts

PhD candidate, writing about the art of government of transport planning: maps as manifestations of power, models as inseparable from plans, questions of what planning is as questions of what it should be, and good planners as bad planners.

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Naththan @nathanpittman.bsky.social · May 24

The Victorian government should make public transport free*

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*by free, I mean “free from being obstructed by car traffic” and not “fare free”

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Naththan @nathanpittman.bsky.social · 1d

Free PT on the weekends during Soft Launch Summer as a “thank you” for years of disruption.

That’s nice, provided you don’t need to be anywhere on time on a Sunday morning.

Screencap of the PTV app, showing the city bound departures from a nearby train station on the morning of Sunday, 12 October. At this time of the morning trains every 40 minutes.

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Naththan @nathanpittman.bsky.social · 1d

Also, this way, if/when the shit hits the fan, it's not like it's a peak hour service.

It's basically set at "die hard train fans can joyride but please don't use this as your main just yet" service levels.

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Naththan @nathanpittman.bsky.social · 2d

www.theage.com.au/national/vic...

Melbourne’s new Metro Tunnel will ‘soft open’ in early December before full services in February

Trains will only run every 20 minutes and in off-peak hours during the soft opening, with commuters having to wait until February next year before a full timetable is implemented.

www.theage.com.au

Naththan @nathanpittman.bsky.social · 2d

🚇 Metro Tunnel will be "soft" opening in December (from The Age)

🚇 On weekdays, trains every 20 mins between 10am and 3pm from Westall and West Footscray

🚇 On weekends, trains every 20 mins from 10am to 7pm, and extend to East Pakenham every 40 mins and Sunbury every 60 mins

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Naththan @nathanpittman.bsky.social · 3d

Looking forward to the common law version of robodebt.

ABC News Bot (unofficial) @abcnewsbot.bsky.social · 4d

Artificial intelligence is coming for the law. Are we ready for robots to become judge and jury?

Lawyers are already using AI. Will judges be next?

Artificial intelligence is coming for the law. Are we ready for robots to become judge and jury?

www.abc.net.au

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Naththan @nathanpittman.bsky.social · 5d

Tram driver over PA: “Attention passengers. A reminder that vaping is not allowed on trams. It’s easy to act like a human being”.

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Naththan @nathanpittman.bsky.social · 5d

Uppity Ndeavour.

Naththan @nathanpittman.bsky.social · 6d

I agree that the stops are very closely spaced on that section of Victoria Street but in my bargain basement attempts to measure it using the stopwatch on my phone, traffic lights are the biggest source of delay.

Naththan @nathanpittman.bsky.social · 6d

I would love to think that network connectivity was at the forefront of their thinking. Sadly they have a very strong track record of moving platform stops away from intersections so that turning lanes can be maintained for car traffic.

Naththan @nathanpittman.bsky.social · 6d

These downgrades to Victoria St are peak Melbourne.

We're moving the Peel St stop to Queen St, which reduces connectivity between the 57 and 58 tram, AND, the replacement stop at Queen St is only 140m away from the existing Victoria/Elizabeth stop.

map showing upcoming tram works on victoria street outside of the queen victoria market.

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Naththan @nathanpittman.bsky.social · 7d

Does this move the Peel St stop on the 57 half a block away from the Victoria St stop on the 58?

Naththan @nathanpittman.bsky.social · 7d

Yarra Trams once again proving itself incapable of providing a consistent and reliable service.

Why subsidise this private company when it can’t even deliver the product it’s meant to?

And why isn’t this more of a political issue?

Screencap of PTV app showing departure board for a tram stop. Three trams are predicted to arrive at the same time despite being scheduled at seven minutes apart.

Reposted by Naththan

Giulio Mattioli @giuliomattioli.bsky.social · 13d

New study finds that introducing a 120km/h speed limit on German motorways reduces road deaths by 35%.

Clemens Schürmann @schuermann.bsky.social · 14d

Ein DRITTEL weniger Verkehrstote durch Tempo120 auf Autobahnen 😮 Bahnbrechende neue Studie von Maike Metz-Peeters @ruhr-uni-bochum.de

➡️ Unfälle mit Schwerverletzten ↘️ 26%
➡️ Verkehrstote ↘️ 35%
➡️ Unfallkosten ↘️ 216 Mio. € jährlich
➡️ tatsächliche Effekte ggf. höher

www.tagesspiegel.de/wissen/studi...

Studie der Ruhr-Universität Bochum: Bei Tempo 120 gäbe es ein Drittel weniger Verkehrstote

Ein Tempolimit würde die Unfälle mit Schwerverletzten laut einer Studie um 26 Prozent senken, die Zahl der Verkehrstoten sogar um 35 Prozent. Die Einsparung von Krankheitskosten wäre enorm.

www.tagesspiegel.de

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Naththan @nathanpittman.bsky.social · 13d

🔥🔥🔥

Gil Durán @gilduran.com · 14d

2/ In 2001, Borsook said tech "libertarianism" reflected an adolescent mindset, with a craving for unchecked independence & resistance to constraint.

She warned that tech libertarians wanted an anti-human world that worked more like a computer. From "Cyberselfish," a book based on her 90s writing:

from cyberselfish by paulina borsook: It's an inability to reconcile the demands of being individual with
the demands of participating in society, which coincides beautifully
with a preference for, and glorification of, being the solo comman-
der of one's computer in lieu of any other economically viable be-
havior. Computers are so much more rule-based, controllable,
fixable, and comprehensible than any human will ever be. As many
political schools of thought do, these technolibertarians make a
philosophy out of a personality defect.

Naththan @nathanpittman.bsky.social · 14d

The dumb thing about the bus electrification climate fix is that the electric bus I’m on is stuck behind single occupant cars and so doesn’t make getting around any easier.

A diesel bus with priority ahead of cars would be a much better climate solution.

Naththan @nathanpittman.bsky.social · 16d

“Oh, we’re really sorry for inviting this Career Racist to speak on a show hosted by a different Career Racist, how could we have ever known he would say Deeply Racist Things?!”

Ketan Joshi @ketanjoshi.co · 16d

sky news australia having a normal one

www.theguardian.com/media/2025/s...

Naththan @nathanpittman.bsky.social · 16d

Of course this article has to quote that One Guy who thinks that despite there being far fewer injury and fatality crashes reducing the speed limit Has Been A Disaster For Safety, Actually.

Nearly 900 fewer people injured since 20mph introduction in Wales

Figures show a 25% reduction in the number of injuries on Wales' roads in the past 18 months.

www.bbc.com

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Naththan @nathanpittman.bsky.social · 19d

"doesn't mention much" is an overstatement by my read...

Public transport is mentioned in the glossary on pp 113-114 and nowhere else!

Naththan @nathanpittman.bsky.social · 19d

City of Melbourne replied, and I'm paraphrasing here, "this ain't our property, so it ain't our problem, kthxbye".

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Naththan @nathanpittman.bsky.social · 19d

"I contribute less than a dollar a day to be permitted to store my private property in valuable public space and I'm infuriated that there's never any space available!!"

screencap of a city of melbourne website about their parking review in carlton. it reads:

Residential permits
We received 44 responses about residential permits. Respondents reported challenges related to the residential permit system.

Example of feedback we heard about residential permits:
'We pay over $200 a year for permits and still spend 15+ minutes circling.'

Naththan @nathanpittman.bsky.social · 19d

A durrr i’m a Lexus driver and I therefore have the right to park my stupid Lexus on the footpath

Photograph of a Lexus parked on a footpath because they’re driving luxury so screw the poor

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Naththan @nathanpittman.bsky.social · 20d

A major transport conference is asking for AU$950 for registration and they can't even be bothered to pay a designer or photographer to make a basic image for their website.

A machine-generated image of an urban stroad, featuring a vehicle that is possible a tram but possible a bus (maybe trackless tram), some cable cars that are not consistently suspended from the right cable, and a whole bunch of other AI nonsense.

Naththan @nathanpittman.bsky.social · 21d

If you ever needed evidence that the so-called abundance agenda is full of overly confident bros shitting on about things they know nothing about, then here it is.

Ketan Joshi @ketanjoshi.co · 21d

enjoy this one

Eli Dourado
@elidourado
One thing I got a bit of crap for in the hallways of the Abundance conference is my not infrequent mockery of trains on Twitter.

I’m sorry, trains are not an abundance technology.

I think many people in the abundance scene like trains because:

1. America’s inability to build HSR is the leading example of low state capacity, and we all more or less agree that state capacity is a tenet of the abundance agenda.
2. Trains have high transport efficiency, and people coming to abundance out of the climate movement can’t shake their old habits of caring about energy efficiency ahead of other considerations.

Obviously if we spend billions of dollars on high-speed rail, there should at least be some high-speed rail service. But a deeper element of state capacity is not picking dumb things for the state to build in the first place. And trains are a dumb thing to build in the 21st century.

A true transportation abundance agenda has to revolve around airplanes and autonomous vehicles. The goal should be able to go from any point in the country to any other point in the country in, like, two hours, door to door.

We should have supersonic airplanes made out of cheap titanium and powered by electro-LCH4. An autonomous vehicle should be available to pick you up within 30 seconds and whisk you to a nearby airfield. Security should be painless and instant (another state capacity task). If your trip doesn’t require an airplane, the autonomous vehicle should get you straight there at 100+ mph since it’s good at avoiding accidents. In cities, autonomous buses with dynamic route planning based on riders’ actual needs beat subways’ 1-dimensional tracks.

We should not be trying to build marginally better versions of 20th century (or 19th century!) technology. We should be more ambitious than that. Trains are unbefitting of a country as wealthy as I aspire for us to be.

Please join the anti-train faction of the abundance movement.

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Naththan @nathanpittman.bsky.social · 21d

Good! Like we need something inconsequential like training teachers getting in the way of universities being parasitic property developers!

UTS’s teacher education program set to close as university reveals plan to slash more than 1,000 subjects

Of 1,101 subjects to be axed, 463 had no enrolments and weren’t taught in 2024, according to University of Technology Sydney proposal

www.theguardian.com

Naththan @nathanpittman.bsky.social · 21d

I don’t understand how and when she entered my YouTube algo but I’m glad she did.