Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

𝚃𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚜 𝙶𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚌𝚘𝚎 🚇

@taras-grescoe.com

12K followers 1.1K following 2.7K posts

Author of Straphanger, Shanghai Grand, The Devil’s Picnic | Words NY Times Nat Geo Smithsonian WSJ | Latest book Lost Supper | Talks: http://taras-grescoe.com/contact https://www.highspeed.blog (Transit, trains, bikes) https://linktr.ee/tarasgrescoe

taras-grescoe.com

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Pinned

𝚃𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚜 𝙶𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚌𝚘𝚎 🚇 @taras-grescoe.com · Mar 21

Need some positive news?

Around the world, a passenger rail renaissance is well under way.

I document the train-love in my weekly newsletter HIGH SPEED.

🚅🧵

5 29 170

Reposted by 𝚃𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚜 𝙶𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚌𝚘𝚎 🚇

jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 6h

would you like to live multi-modally?

72 58 2K

Reposted by 𝚃𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚜 𝙶𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚌𝚘𝚎 🚇

jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 5h

folded up and ready for the trip

22 5 800

Reposted by 𝚃𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚜 𝙶𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚌𝚘𝚎 🚇

jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 6h

work trips this week from c’ville to DC to Baltimore to Providence back to DC and then home. the bike is how i am getting from station to hotel to wherever i need to be

43 15 1.3K

𝚃𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚜 𝙶𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚌𝚘𝚎 🚇 @taras-grescoe.com · 4h

Drawbacks: very heavy, space taken up by flywheel subtracted passenger space; at the time, the Gyrobus expensive and unreliable.

𝚃𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚜 𝙶𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚌𝚘𝚎 🚇 @taras-grescoe.com · 4h

Interesting: the first application of the Gyrobus was serving the Zurich airport, in the 1950s.

www.amusingplanet.com/2019/02/gyro...

Gyrobus: The Flywheel-Powered Public Transportation

www.amusingplanet.com

1 1

𝚃𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚜 𝙶𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚌𝚘𝚎 🚇 @taras-grescoe.com · 4h

The idea was to do away with overhead trolley lines, which, in profusion, can be a bit of a blight on urban streetscapes.

Thanks to @carfreeroutes.bsky.social for reminding me of this transit gem!

Here's a primer on flywheel power and the Gyrobus:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=eygN...

Gyrobus: The Incredible 1950s Flywheel Powered Bus

YouTube video by Megaprojects

www.youtube.com

1 3

𝚃𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚜 𝙶𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚌𝚘𝚎 🚇 @taras-grescoe.com · 4h

...of the Gyrobus, which was developed by Swiss engineers. (Turns out the Swiss invented, and still invent, a lot of things.)

3 pantographs drew power to send a 3-ton flywheel spinning; this in turn ran the bus for up to 6 km.

Used in #Belgium and the #Congo.

1 4

𝚃𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚜 𝙶𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚌𝚘𝚎 🚇 @taras-grescoe.com · 4h

Spotted in the wild, at #Zürich airport: the electric buses of VBG, a public transport network that serves regions north of the city.

The pantograph of charging mast lowers onto a rail on the bus's roof. Takes a few minutes to charge the battery, using renewable hydro electricity.

Reminds me...

🧵

2 18

𝚃𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚜 𝙶𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚌𝚘𝚎 🚇 @taras-grescoe.com · 22h

Really want to aggravate a British Columbian?

Call it "Victoria Island."

(That still gets my effin goat, eh?)

1 6

Reposted by 𝚃𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚜 𝙶𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚌𝚘𝚎 🚇

jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 1d

for this i have to give a shoutout to my neighborhood bike shop. i had popped by to ask if they had the particular bike — the tern vektron — in stock and the owner said he would reach out to tern about availability. the next day, he called to let me know that another person was trying to sell hers!

mattdsummy.bsky.social @mattdsummy.bsky.social · 1d

Curious where’d you pick one up from? Haven’t check Craigslist in years and deleted my Facebook decade ago so no marketplace.

18 12 890

Reposted by 𝚃𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚜 𝙶𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚌𝚘𝚎 🚇

jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 1d

note: i have been using a cargo ebike for half a decade. and i have been riding my bikes my whole life. (don’t need reminders to wear a helmet, i got it)

28 8 1.1K

Reposted by 𝚃𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚜 𝙶𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚌𝚘𝚎 🚇

jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 1d

i recently got a great deal on a barely used folding ebike and i have to say it has revolutionized my train travel. i can get from my front door to the amtrak station in a little less than 5 minutes!!!

110 210 5.9K

Reposted by 𝚃𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚜 𝙶𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚌𝚘𝚎 🚇

Elizabeth Kolbert @elizkolbert.bsky.social · 1d

"This order is so atrocious, it’s nearly unbelievable."

Trump Signs Order to Approve Mining Road Through Alaskan Wilderness

www.nytimes.com

4 46 85

Reposted by 𝚃𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚜 𝙶𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚌𝚘𝚎 🚇

El MoJo (Car Free Routes) @carfreeroutes.bsky.social · 1d

www.amusingplanet.com/2019/02/gyro...

3 8

𝚃𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚜 𝙶𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚌𝚘𝚎 🚇 @taras-grescoe.com · 1d

High-speed rail has replaced polluting short-haul flights between many cities.

In #China, electric-powered bullet trains now completely dominate the medium-haul market between #Beijing and #Shanghai.

evidencenetwork.ca/this-wave-ca...

2 26

𝚃𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚜 𝙶𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚌𝚘𝚎 🚇 @taras-grescoe.com · 2d

More on how #Switzerland became the world's greatest train and transit nation in this HIGH SPEED newsletter:

www.highspeed.blog/anatomy-of-a...

Reposted by 𝚃𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚜 𝙶𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚌𝚘𝚎 🚇

𝚃𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚜 𝙶𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚌𝚘𝚎 🚇 @taras-grescoe.com · Dec 12

Railway Sublime, Episode 1.

The Brusio Circular Viaduct, on the Bernina Line #Switzerland. It takes passengers through a complete 143-metre circle before continuing on to Tirano.

12 49 300

𝚃𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚜 𝙶𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚌𝚘𝚎 🚇 @taras-grescoe.com · 2d

Exactly. The Streetcar Suburb is the secret framework of urban walkability. Even works in LA…

Reposted by 𝚃𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚜 𝙶𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚌𝚘𝚎 🚇

ScarletCoral @scarletcoral.ca · 2d

It's even more dangerous if you take into account serious injuries of people walking or cycling

Montreal's map of collision from 2014 to 2024

Gray dots : serious injuries
Red dots : deaths

experience.arcgis.com/experience/8...

Maps of serious injuries and deaths on Montreal's steets from 2014 to 2024

1 1

Reposted by 𝚃𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚜 𝙶𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚌𝚘𝚎 🚇

Green Hombre @greenhombre.bsky.social · 2d

Moving to a neighborhood where we can live carfree was our best financial decision. We will retire a few years before our friends in the suburbs.

1 1 6

𝚃𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚜 𝙶𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚌𝚘𝚎 🚇 @taras-grescoe.com · 2d

NEW STATS:

✖️Households spend $15,440* /yr on vehicles
✖️ 36 % over age of 10 do not or cannot rely on a personal vehicle
✖️87.6 hours/yr spent chauffeuring others
✖️75% of transport spending goes to roads/cars

Americans spend most on transport, get worst results.

www.nrdc.org/resources/wh...

2 7 33

𝚃𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚜 𝙶𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚌𝚘𝚎 🚇 @taras-grescoe.com · 2d

I agree with her. (To be clear: I'm not going to vote for Soraya and Ensemble Montréal—they'll just make things worse.)

𝚃𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚜 𝙶𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚌𝚘𝚎 🚇 @taras-grescoe.com · 2d

...and the incumbent @projetmontreal.org party has just promised to calm traffic on Parc.

As my wife says: they've had 8 years to do something about it—8 years where we've had to worry about our kids negotiating horrible traffic—and it's only now they're making promises?

#polmtl #velomtl

2 1 5

𝚃𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚜 𝙶𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚌𝚘𝚎 🚇 @taras-grescoe.com · 2d

…I saw a young man being put on a stretcher on an ambulance on Parc, one block north, this weekend.

Ave. du Parc is like a highway running through our ‘hood. More accurately: a stroad, a mix of road and street, but deadlier than either.

There’s a municipal election in November…

1 1

𝚃𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚜 𝙶𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚌𝚘𝚎 🚇 @taras-grescoe.com · 2d

Here’s the scene in the heart of my #Montreal neighbourhood this morning at 8:15 am.

Avenue du Parc divides walkable Mile-End and Outremont, which has the highest number of kids in the city.

Eight cyclists and pedestrians have been killed on this stretch in just over a decade…

🧵

3 3 10