Doug

LOL I was going to send this to you, but then got distracted by some other nonsense. Glad you found it anyway.

Not a dad but this looks great. Just pre-ordered a copy.

The flag of suburban America “town” if they followed Eastern European Vexillology formulas

Yesterday was the 45th anniversary of the bombing at Bologna Central station

Bus 37 was standing in front of the station and was used by the first respondents in the immediate aftermath as a makeshift infirmary. Restored, it's now one of the symbols of the event and part of the yearly commemoration

It reminds me a lot of those “Amsterdam wasn’t always like that, either” photos from the ‘70s, with cars just parked all over the place. A lot of Europe is still like that!

We're Not Through With Coal! Robert W. Bruère Norman J. Ware Ellis Searles Housing - How Much for How Much? Henry Wright

It's great that discourse hasn't moved an inch since 1926.

Nah. They’re lashing out because they’re losing and they know it.

Summer Streets - Broadway at Dyckman Street

Summer Streets - Broadway at West 179th Street

Summer Streets - Broadway at West 164th Street

Summer Streets - Broadway at West 152nd Street

Summer Streets goes uptown! This year, Manhattan Summer Streets (August 2, 9, and 16) stretches al the way from Dyckman Street to the Brooklyn Bridge. Had a nice leisurely walk down Broadway from Dyckman to 145th.

Nor I.

I didn’t feel anything.

The tagline here, “the first idea for your new apartment,” really situates this ad in the postwar boom.

The Brooklyn Bridge is one of those things that, somehow, actually lives up to the hype.

Sea lions travel all the way from California to Rhode Island?

What kind of sandwich?

Image of train with a banner that says "Future Home of the IBX"

Rendering of Interborough Express

Today, @governor.ny.gov announced that the engineering and design phase of the Interborough Express (IBX) has begun! This is a major step forward for the project, which will connect historically underserved communities in Brooklyn and Queens to the subway, bus, and @mtalirr.bsky.social.

Creating a “city seal” that looks very similar to the actual one while being wrong is a thing you have to do on purpose.

*even the actual city seal, not other than!

Everything about it is completely wrong, LOL. “Boston Municipal Services” is a wonderfully generic if nonexistent government entity name though!

(Apart from the window decal, the thing that makes me think it looks like an ex-MTA bus is that the livery is really close to the MTA’s, just with a different color stripe. But it could also have been dressed up like an MTA bus for prop reasons!)

Well, none of that stuff looks any more real than the bus, LOL. All those logos etc. (other than the actual city seal) are totally made up.

It also has a red and blue decal in the windshield that’s very distinctive to the (NYC) MTA, which operated Orion VIIs, but it doesn’t seem to be in quite the right spot. Still, leads me to wonder if it’s an ex-MTA bus with its blue stripe repainted… commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:MT...

No, that’s not an MBTA bus; the livery has been more or less the same as it is now since long before that bus was manufactured. Also pretty sure that’s an Orion VII, which the T never operated.

Happy birthday!

Is there a difference between a Select Suites and a…not that?

The High Speed Rail and the City – part 1 Routing High-Speed Rail in urban areas: the case of Florence

I have turned my thread about the history of planning the route of the High-Speed rail through Florence into a Substack blog post, expanding the discussion and making it easier to refer.

I hope you enjoy it.

open.substack.com/pub/marcochi...

Love this!

Take a Ride on the Interborough Express, New York City’s Future Train Line (Gift Article) The Interborough Express, a new rail line that would link Brooklyn and Queens, could change the face of the city.

This new rail line, the most ambitious in 90 years, could change the face of New York City.
We hopped on a freight train to film the route, and show its potential. Take a look! 🚂
www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

This was an *era* of web design.

I think people confuse “strict adherence to rules” for “brutal efficiency.”

Most obviously, the merged railroad(s) would have to actually successfully take advantage of the opportunity presented to improve service. And certainly, coast-to-coast mergers can’t solve all the many problems of an ailing freight rail industry. But there’s at least potential there.