Jarrett Walker

I was on a panel last week where I was posed the question, "how are you going to get us out of our cars?" The audience was made up of several hundred developers and real estate brokers. I basically said, "I'm focused on the 80%, not you." 1/2

The Dangers of Elite Projection — Human Transit (Leer en español aquí.)   Elite projection is the belief, among relatively fortunate and influential people, that what those people find convenient or attractive is good for the society as a whole.  O...

For more on the problem of "elite projection" -- the tendency of elites to support transit plans that cater to their own tastes -- see here: humantransit.org/2017/07/the-...

From the last Gilded Age to the present one, elite disinterest remains one of the greatest barriers to great and inclusive public transit. This 1929 ad makes the same argument we must make today. 1/

Hustlers Will Hustle, Boosters Will Boost: High-Speed Rail and the Problem of Arithmetic You know when you want to say nice things about a project — when you wish it could be a good idea, and you know some of the people working on it, and not all of them are unencumbered by ethics — but y...

Professor David Levinson, unquestionably a public transport advocate, questions Australia's Sydney to Newcastle "high speed rail" project. It seems to be repeating California's mistakes, starting with a too-rigid travel time goal. www.transportist.net/p/hustlers-w...

Looking at it …

Strong Towns Victoria - Urbanist Book Club #2 - Human Transit in Victoria | McRae's Restaurant (1652 McRae Ave @ Shelbourne) The second edition of the Strong Towns Victoria Urbanist Book Club will take place on Friday April 10th at McRae's. This month we picked Human Transit by Jar...

New Urbanist Book Club just dropped! Reading Human Transit which I'd had on my 'to read' list for quite some time. Looking forward to talking buses, trains, trams, and maybe even urban gondolas with y'all next month.

www.lamppostsocial.com/events/stron...

Great new initiative to develop better messaging around the value of good urban planning, led by @brenttoderian.bsky.social, @grantennis.bsky.social and
@tomflood.bsky.social.

The City Where Free Buses Changed Everything New York’s new mayor Zohran Mamdani has said he’ll make every bus free to ride. This French city did just that — and is reaping the rewards.

Come on, @planetizen.bsky.social!

Dunkerque, France is not a good model for free fares in New York City! The math is different in such small cities. When Paris or London do free fares citywide, that will really be news.

www.planetizen.com/features/136...

A bad but universal metric of public transit reliability is the % of a line that is in its own lane.

It is easy to create exclusive lanes where there is little delay, but not at the bottlenecks where they matter most.

So this metric says nothing about speed or reliability.

The Humanities Are About to Be Automated AI can now write convincing academic papers. There’s no more room for denial.

I want to believe that AI can't replace human philosophers, theorists, or historians.

But this scholarly paper about AI's distinctive threat to democracy is very good, and an AI wrote it with only minimal prompting ...

writing.yaschamounk.com/p/the-humani...

In the Colombian town of El Carmen de Viboral, where I seem to be the only tourist, evidence of Canadian soft power.

Zeno's paradox of editing: every time you proofread your work, you'll find half the remaining errors.

Woman accused of wiping out entire family in San Francisco crash likely won't get prison time An 80-year-old woman accused of driving at a high rate of speed and crashing into a family of four, killing them, at a San Francisco bus stop nearly two years ago, appeared in court on Friday. Mary Fo...

Do YOU have an aging friend/relative who should stop driving? Tell them this story from San Francisco. Ask how they will feel if they kill an entire family.

But don't tell them that even then, they'll be forgiven and be able to drive again.

This verdict is obscene.

www.ktvu.com/news/woman-a...

I am not following this at all. You're going to have to explain how the New York situation is relevant to Chicago.

Tallinn's free fares moved people from active modes to public transit, but didn't reduce car use. A few people got shorter walks in the snow, which is nice for them, but this was a very expensive way to deliver that.

No, this is not like the Chicago situation at all. New York MTA is all one agency and it doesn't matter much to them whether fares are collected on the subway or the bus. The problem is that pushing people from subway to bus encourages more wasteful network design.

Opinion | Something Surprising Happens When Bus Rides Are Free

Sorry, but this @nytimes.com op-ed on free fares in New York City, by @galvinalmanza.bsky.social, is deeply ignorant of the issues.

It proposes that pretty social justice vibes and some careless citations will change facts of math. Thread: 1/

www.nytimes.com/2026/02/13/o...

I like Zohran Mamdani and wish him every success. I'm one of many transit experts who would have supported him despite this one bad idea. But the @nytimes.com needs to start listening to actual transit experts, instead of trying to shout us down with well-meaning social justice vibes. 8/8

When Buses Are Free but Trains Aren't — Human Transit I’m in Bloomberg CityLab with a piece on the dangers of applying free fares to buses but not to trains in the same city.  Key quote: When we encourage people to get off trains and onto parallel buses,...

Then there's the fact that free fares on buses but not the subway will move riders from the subway to the bus, as I argued back in 2022. This will be very, very bad for transit and its customers overall.

humantransit.org/2022/12/when... 7/

The only way to avoid that outcome is to imagine some new funding source that will appear in response to the beauty of the free fares vision, but any such funding source would be better spent on service, regardless of whether the goal is ridership or access to opportunity. 6/

In a big city, where fares produce a lot of needed revenue, eliminating fares mean less service. It means that the poor people that the author claims to care about can't access opportunity, because the free bus they need doesn't exist, or is too crowded to board. 5/

She also cites the limited experiments in Boston, encouraging the reader to think that it was tried citywide. In fact, only a few routes in low-income areas are free. Outside of emergencies, citywide free bus fares have NEVER been done in any big city in the world. Maybe there's a reason! 4/

Free fares are still working in some smaller US cities -- Richmond VA and Albuquerque NM are now the largest. But Kansas City just went back to charging fares. Why? Some feel security was worse. But the big reason is: They need the money!!! 3/

The author cites all the usual examples that have nothing to do with NYC, such as entirely rural systems in Washington State. Yes, free fares work OK in rural places and small towns where ridership is so low that fares don't even pay for the costs of fare collection. 2/

Opinion | Something Surprising Happens When Bus Rides Are Free

Sorry, but this @nytimes.com op-ed on free fares in New York City, by @galvinalmanza.bsky.social, is deeply ignorant of the issues.

It proposes that pretty social justice vibes and some careless citations will change facts of math. Thread: 1/

www.nytimes.com/2026/02/13/o...

When Buses Are Free but Trains Aren't — Human Transit I’m in Bloomberg CityLab with a piece on the dangers of applying free fares to buses but not to trains in the same city.  Key quote: When we encourage people to get off trains and onto parallel buses,...

Can buses be free but not the subway? I explained to this problem back in ‘22, and it sounds like more folks would benefit from this piece. Pls share.

humantransit.org/2022/12/when...

I am old.

Apple Liquid Glass is what happens when a junk food company sees sales declining and the only thing they can think of is to add more sugar.

Apple Liquid Glass is what happens when a junk food company sees sales declining and the only thing they can think of is to add more sugar.

So people walk or use bikes, unless the destination is up a steep hill on a dangerous road.