@alon@mastodon.social (they/them) @alon_levy Twitter profile

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@LowkeyGokey

@[email protected] (they/them)

@alon_levy

5 years

STOP talking shit about different modes of transport: Trains are EFFICIENT Trams are HISTORIC Buses are FLEXIBLE Scooters are SLEEK Cars Bikes are HEALTHY

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@alon_levy

2 years

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@alon_levy

2 years

Proportion of rail route-km electrified by country: US: 0.8% UK: 34% France: 55% Germany: 60% Japan: 70% India: 80%

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@[email protected] (they/them)

@alon_levy

5 years

Dedicated to the North American rail network.

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@alon_levy

5 years

I love how the infrastructure in New York is so screwed up that when the power plant explodes nobody thinks it's terrorism.

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@alon_levy

5 years

Imagine a New York that actually had a building boom, like Tokyo. Imagine 100,000 new apartments in the city, every year.

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@alon_levy

5 years

By popular demand, an updated Eastern US high-speed rail proposal. Red = HSR, purple = marginal lines, blue = low-speed connections.

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@alon_levy

3 years

New York is an awesome city and every new tall building like this is another thousand people who get to live there.

Phil NYC

@PhilWalkable

3 years

One condo like this one saves over two square mile of wilderness from suburbs sprawl. 🌲 500 homes for well over 1000 residents in one building, vs suburbs with 500 people per square mile.

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@alon_levy

2 years

To everyone sharing this: New York's subway operating budget is actually $5.2b, not $17b.

Read Let This Radicalize You

@JoshuaPHilll

2 years

I might’ve cried just a little bit

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@alon_levy

2 years

This woman smiles at you and says it's very unlikely she'll join NATO. How do you respond?

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@alon_levy

3 years

In the interest of fair disclosure: Dallas-OKC-Tulsa returns 1.9% if you believe my model, it's just too risky for the map.

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@alon_levy

4 years

We interviewed commuter rail riders in suburban New York and they want more parking, not off-peak service or bus integration.

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@alon_levy

2 years

Circa 1900, Tokyo had 1.5 million people and Seoul had 200,000. Today, Tokyo has 38 million and Seoul 26 million.

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@alon_levy

3 years

Naturalized citizens don't think the immigration red tape is impossible to navigate.

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@alon_levy

3 years

I don't think it's shovel-ready, but I'm glad this is getting more airplay. Start design and engineering now, build soon.

New Liberals 🌐🇺🇦

@CNLiberalism

3 years

A user on the neoliberal subreddit has been reading/watching @alon_levy 's content, mapped Alon's informed opinions about where there is enough ridership for High Speed Rail to make sense, and made a better version of The Map. credit to /u/bobidou23

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@alon_levy

3 years

@jbarro Do you not care even in the slightest that anyone who knows anything about public transportation thinks The Boring Company is dumb?

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@alon_levy

1 year

Lula's win proves that now more than ever, the left needs to imitate success and speak Portuguese.

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@alon_levy

2 years

@maxberger @IDoTheThinking Please stop sharing this. This excludes Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, which are mandatory and not discretionary spending.

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@alon_levy

3 years

Ruin a city with one letter change. Plague.

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@alon_levy

3 years

The solution to the trolley problem is stronger brakes. Promote people who build brakes, not ones who choose who should die.

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@alon_levy

5 years

I'm sad David Koch didn't live to see his attempt to kill Phoenix light rail expansion go down by 24 points.

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@alon_levy

3 years

No idea about Korea, but Singapore has 2,200 mm of rain a year, and I've seen 4 days of nonstop rain, and it never gets like this.

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@alon_levy

2 years

I said yesterday that Boston has no consumption amenities. I regret saying that. It has one: you can take a train to New York.

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@alon_levy

5 years

Rename minigolf to just golf, ban the bigger golf game, redevelop golf courses.

Cat Graffam

@catgraffam

5 years

Petition to rename mini golf to just “golf” and golf to “large golf”

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@alon_levy

3 years

Dear Americans with opinions on the vaccine mandate: France did that in July and you can study the impact there. It was positive.

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@alon_levy

5 years

What makes New York great is its size. A bigger city is a better city; the sooner it legalizes more construction, the better off it'll be.

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@alon_levy

2 years

In an actual total war, you don't invest in either new oil or new renewables, you tell people to carpool and turn down the heating.

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@alon_levy

2 years

Just say "I personally find transit advocates annoying and will use my elite middlebrow pundit status to punish you." Don't sotto voce it.

Noah Smith 🐇🇺🇸🇺🇦

@Noahpinion

2 years

And this is why all the "ban cars" people on Twitter are so full of crap. Americans love their cars, if you even hint that you're going to restrict cars Americans just vote Republican. ONLY electric cars break this cycle.

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@alon_levy

2 years

I know I'm behind on blogging, but this goes near the top of my list of articles to take down.

Don’t Add to Amtrak’s Boondoggles

The railroad has wasted money and deferred maintenance for decades. A vast new expansion plan would only make matters worse.

www.bloomberg.com

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@alon_levy

5 years

The Jews say the Nazis lie about the Holocaust and the Nazis say the Jews lie about the Holocaust. No difference at all!

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@alon_levy

4 years

I hate the "in spite of" and "not destiny" language here. Vancouver isn't bucking a trend. There's no density-virus correlation whatsoever.

𝚃𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚜 𝙶𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚌𝚘𝚎 🚇

@grescoe

4 years

Density is not Destiny: #Covid19 in Cascadia— #Vancouver , in spite of its high residential densities, has remarkably low numbers of reported cases. cc: @BrentToderian @Richard_Florida @DougSaunders

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@alon_levy

2 years

Dominant capitals with metro populations as a %of country population: Seoul 50.6% Tokyo 29.6% London 22% Paris 18.5% CDMX 17.3% Moscow 12%

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@alon_levy

3 years

$30 billion should be enough to convert the NEC into 300+ km/h high-speed rail with billions left over for other lines. Alas, Amtrak.

Jeff Davis

@JDwithTW

3 years

On rail, the clear winner is the Northeast Corridor, getting at least $30 billion of the $66 billion in guaranteed above-baseline funding in the BIF ($6 b straight to Amtrak for the NEC and $24 b for fed-state partnership grants for NEC projects).

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@alon_levy

3 years

This is a country with around 50 cars per 1,000 people. It needs 4-level interchanges like I need to catch corona.

Africa Facts Zone

@AfricaFactsZone

3 years

Ghana has completed Africa's second four-tier interchange, Pokuase Interchange.

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@alon_levy

2 years

My spreadsheet says that given US-wide high-speed rail, the demand for trains from Atlanta to points north is a train every 10 minutes.

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@alon_levy

2 years

Friend: NY subways are so confusing, it's easier in Boston. Me: yeah, Boston has four lines of which only two run at a given time.

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@alon_levy

5 years

The US has very low social mobility, so politicians have to pretend they're in touch with the working class through BS social markers.

DW Rowlands

@82_Streetcar

5 years

A thing I really don't get: why the bleep are we supposed to care what a candidate's eating habits are? I don't see why I should care if she gets all her nutrition from soylent or something. (And, personally, I find the fried chicken I've had to be nearly inedible.)

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@alon_levy

3 years

It's a close election. If you live in New York and are registered as a Democrat, go vote for the garbagewoman and against the garbage man.

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@alon_levy

4 years

@thehill Why is Holocaust education in America so bad?

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@alon_levy

2 years

American environmentalists and transit activists keep making up criticisms of the BIF, but it took the road:transit formula from 4:1 to 2:1.

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@alon_levy

3 years

Amendment to the map: an all-HSR route from Chicago to Grand Rapids via South Bend and Kalamazoo could be added too.

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@alon_levy

2 years

@GoldsteinBrooke @nytimes The Haredi community is not the representative of all Jews, and does in fact fail to educate its children, in multiple countries.

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@alon_levy

3 years

I hate to say this, but HSR in the US is already dead, in the sense that not a single domestic institution can produce it.

Sam Mintz

@samjmintz

3 years

Exclusive in Morning Transportation: High-ranking California official warns Congress to learn from the struggles of the state's high-speed rail project, saying that a repeat of failed Obama HSR stimulus could lead to the "death of high-speed rail in America."

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@alon_levy

3 years

For the total cost of all French + German HSR to date, the UK is building HS2 and the US wants to build the medium-speed rail HS2 replaces.

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@alon_levy

2 years

#StandWithUkraine (this and all photographs taken with permission)

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@alon_levy

5 years

Someone PLEASE write a long dive into how American police departments work as municipal deep states, like the Pakistani military or w/e.

'Weird Alex' Pareene

@pareene

5 years

Most of our urban police departments operate basically autonomously, unreachable by any sort of democratic "oversight." They don't need "reform," they need to be literally dismantled and re-formed from scratch, with radically different missions and purview.

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@alon_levy

3 years

How to Build High-Speed Rail with Money the United States Has [funding request]

How to Build High-Speed Rail with Money the United States Has

The bipartisan infrastructure framework (BIF) just passed the Senate by a large margin, with money for both roads and public transportation. Unlike the 2009 Obama stimulus, the BIF has plenty of mo…

pedestrianobservations.com

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@alon_levy

2 years

American SUVs, 2030.

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@alon_levy

4 years

This is what I mean when I say Sweden reports all corona deaths and other countries don't.

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@alon_levy

5 years

@PatrickRuffini I don't know, the Nazis were afraid of Alan Turing.

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@alon_levy

3 years

Corona taught us we can eliminate seasonal flu. But I expect seasonal flu to return next winter as the West decides masks are for nerds.

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@alon_levy

6 years

@mknz @patio11 Did you just refer to Tokyo, whose urban extent goes right to the mountains, as "a city that can spread out"?

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@alon_levy

3 years

Caregivers who are not vaccinated by 15/9 will lose their jobs and pay. Macron does not mess around with anti-vaxx.

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@alon_levy

7 years

@LindseyGrahamSC Are you going to join Democrats in voting against confirming Trump appointees who love Putin more than they love democracy?

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@alon_levy

5 years

Lol. You're comparing American city buses with cars that include carpooling and intercity highway driving. Srsly, delete your account.

Megan McArdle

@asymmetricinfo

5 years

Huh. I was skeptical, but it seems that at average passenger loads, transit buses really are *less* fuel efficient than personal automobiles.

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@alon_levy

3 years

I don't mind Buttigieg as US Secretary of Transportation and I don't get why people #onhere are criticizing this option so much.

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@alon_levy

3 years

The car : transit ratio is something like 51:49. Wow.

Ed O'Keefe

@edokeefe

3 years

WHAT’S IN THR BIPARTISAN INFRASTRUCTURE DEAL? Here’s an early look at the top-line details as obtained by @jackturmanIII :

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@alon_levy

5 years

Imagine thinking paying $1,700/month for a medium-size 3-bedroom is an unbelievable luxury, not an unbelievable bargain.

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@alon_levy

4 years

Is it just me, or are the @ne0liberal and sock Twitter communities somehow making center-left politics cool?

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@alon_levy

3 years

The climate change problem is at this point about transport. Electricity is now a solved problem.

Nat Bullard

@NatBullard

3 years

New from @BloombergNEF : the cost of electricity from new solar in China, India, or Germany is cheaper than power from existing coal- or gas-fired plants

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@alon_levy

3 years

Why would you live in the expensive Bay Area struggling in academia where you could live like this for cheap?

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@alon_levy

2 years

@chrsdcook In Paris, the annual operating cost of a sanisette is 43,000€, up from 15,000€ in past years. SF: ~$800k.

@[email protected] (they/them)

@alon_levy

3 years

With all options exercised, JCDecaux's contract is 43,000€/sanisette-year.

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@alon_levy

2 years

Approximately none. Tesla produced around 1 million cars in 2021. The extra 3 million would be 1.1% of the US fleet. Ride the fucking train.

Paul Graham

@paulg

2 years

How much oil could we avoid buying from Russia if Tesla quadrupled production in the next 12 months? How much revenue would Russia be deprived of as a result?

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@alon_levy

5 years

This graphic suggests a lot of industrial emissions are really just the emissions of driving and home heating counted elsewhere.

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@alon_levy

2 years

Why is it so weird? A corrupt military is unlikely to win wars, a corrupt transit system to build well, and a corrupt police to stop crime.

Sal Albanese

@SalAlbaneseNYC

2 years

It’s amazing people are being mugged & shot & some hate the police over parking placards. Let’s get our priorities straight folks.

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@alon_levy

2 years

Here's a hot take on US transit: if all of the US started doing good transit, New York would have the highest gain in ridership per capita.

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@alon_levy

5 years

Oslo opened a 1.6 km subway extension for $140 million in 2016. Must be because of Norway's cheap labor.

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@alon_levy

5 years

Now with more color saturation. Everyone's a critic. @punished_marcus

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@alon_levy

3 years

My take on AOC's outfit is, I like that she's concerned with climate, but she's uninterested in public transportation and NIMBY on housing.

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@alon_levy

2 years

Next time I'm in the US, should I tweet as if I'm on a safari like the Americans talking about their European vacations now?

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@alon_levy

2 years

Automation of subway operations is likely to lead to more subway workers by making rapid transit profitable for the government.

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@alon_levy

5 years

@jonathanweisman Where is Atlanta if not in the Deep South?

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@alon_levy

5 years

Imagine new office towers going up in the Meatpacking District for tech firms fleeing San Francisco's extreme rents and impact fees.

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@alon_levy

4 years

Hi: I'm bi and genderqueer, AMA; stupid questions will be ignored rather than quote-mocked.

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@alon_levy

6 years

In bizarro world, cities complain that they have too many jobs and too much ridership on public transit.

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@alon_levy

3 years

Am I a bad person for thinking schools should teach more history and less literature as the core of teaching how to write?

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@alon_levy

2 years

I told innocent German @Huly16609302 that San Francisco market rent is $5-5.5k for 70 m^2. He asked, "per year?".

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@alon_levy

5 years

Imagine 10- and 20-story buildings blanketing what's now called Brownstone Brooklyn, finally filling half-empty subways like the F and R.

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@alon_levy

5 years

Ped Observations: Why American Costs Are So High (Work-in-Progress)

Why American Costs Are So High (Work-in-Progress)

I am embarking on a long-term project to investigate why US construction costs are high using case studies, so everything I’m going to say so far is tentative. In particular, one of my favori…

pedestrianobservations.com

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@alon_levy

3 years

@ChrisMurphyCT I wish it were twice! Your state's passenger rail track renewal program spends in a year what we in Germany spend once in a generation.

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@alon_levy

3 years

Dear American left: the BIF is taking the highway:transit funding formula from 4:1 to 2:1. Take the win and stop calling it a highway bill.

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@alon_levy

2 years

Oh, shit, does it mean I need to stop poasting for a few days and blog more about parallel imports, procurement, and utilities?

Mike Murphy

@murphymike

2 years

I’m told Sec Buttigieg is obsessively gevitalout on why France + other EU countries can built infrastructure at a much lower cost than we can here in the flawless US of A. A very good sign; solving that dilemma is vital; he’s found exactly the right thing to zero in on. #Smart

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@alon_levy

3 years

This is not a good plan. $39 billion gets you 350 km/h high-speed rail from Boston to Washington with half the money to spare.

Sam Mintz

@samjmintz

3 years

Here's how $80 billion in rail money in Biden's proposal would be divided, via @TSnyderDC scoop: Grants to Amtrak National Network: $16b Northeast Corridor Modernization: $39b Intercity passenger rail $20b Freight rail and safety grants $5b

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@alon_levy

5 years

Imagine the infrastructure working, so that as more and more neighborhoods densify, the subway is expanded where needed.

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@alon_levy

2 years

Model of Hauptbahnhof.

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@alon_levy

3 years

@LeftCaucus @saveourmesa Delete your account.

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@alon_levy

6 years

I really hate it when people complain that Elon Musk is a technocrat. He's not; he's a rich guy with no achievements in public transit.

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@alon_levy

4 years

I believe in the 15-minute city: buildings should be of such height that an elevator takes 15 minutes to reach the top.

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@alon_levy

2 years

Nationalization doesn't end the oil industry... Aramco, Gazprom, etc. are all state-owned.

Peter Kalmus

@ClimateHuman

2 years

2. We are unlikely to get real climate action (a fast taper and end to the entire fossil fuel industry) while that industry remains controlled by ultra-rich barons making immense profits. We're in an emergency. The industry causing it can't be for-profit. Nationalize and ration.

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@alon_levy

3 years

Both at the same time, it's not even a swing.

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@alon_levy

3 years

The problem with this is that it gives money to Amtrak, which cannot build or run trains.

Sam Mintz

@samjmintz

3 years

Congressional Dems led by @SenBlumenthal just reintroduced their bill to create an intercity rail trust fund, giving Amtrak a dedicated source of funding outside of unpredictable yearly appropriations. Big difference this time around: support from the Transportation Secretary

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@alon_levy

5 years

2019: Uber begins to unionize 2020: Uber files for bankruptcy 2021: President Biden redirects transit subsidies to Uber, calls it a GND

Johana Bhuiyan

@JMBooyah

5 years

New: Uber and Lyft drivers are preparing to strike next week after the most recent round of pay cuts. This isn’t the 1st strike but this time LA drivers are pulling from the playbook of traditional movements & also using tech to better organize drivers

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@alon_levy

6 years

"European culture" to the fascists never means Marx and Engels, the Geneva Conventions, the Nuremberg Trials, or the EU.

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@alon_levy

5 years

🧠: rapid transit 🧠🧠: light rail 🧠🧠🧠: BRT 🧠🧠🧠🧠: local bus with special paint

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@alon_levy

4 years

Why do 2010s US populists attack self-made billionaires (Bezos, etc.) more than heirs (like the Waltons)?

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@alon_levy

5 years

I just want to know what these tunnels' construction costs are and, if possible, can the US hire the coyotes to dig subways.

Jennifer Epstein

@jeneps

5 years

CBP official in McAllen just showed Trump one of two tunnels they’ve recently discovered. “They’re using other tactics. They’re actually digging tunnels,” agent said.

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@alon_levy

2 years

Politicians already overvalue PR and undervalue action. Congestion pricing's popularity goes up after implementation; just do it.

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@[email protected] (they/them)

@alon_levy

3 years

Cars have a worse last-mile problem than surface transit within a dense city, right?

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@[email protected] (they/them)

@alon_levy

3 years

Surabaya is over 10 million at this point; this has to be the worst-known global megacity, right?

Surabaya metropolitan area - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

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@[email protected] (they/them)

@alon_levy

2 years

This is the surplus extraction I complain about. $200 million for one extra daily train is not an acceptable cost.

Stephen Caruso

@StephenJ_Caruso

2 years

Inbox: Pennsylvania will invest $200 million into improving Norfolk Southern's Western Pennsylvania mainline to accommodate a second daily Amtrak train between Pittsburgh and Harrisburg.

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