Cassie Smith (she/her)

Today's #TransitCat of the day, a few weeks ago⤵️💜💜💜

Most transportation problems are actually land use problems.

The best first mile / last mile transit technology even invented is a good sidewalk. That’s how all the world’s successful transit systems work.

A cat carrier with orange cat inside and heavy purple blanket on top being pulled on a blue sled.

Oh! I forgot to share this one from a few weeks ago - to get to the very close vet on a very very cold day. I think he really liked it 😂

Two side by side windows - in the left is an orange stuffed cat and a plant, in the right a real orange cat. Both are looking out the window (at an unseen squirrel).

It's a dark, heavy, sad world these days.

Timeline #Caturday cleanse!

We've spent a ton of time talking about teens getting injured on e-bikes (or illegal e-motos).

We've heard that crash rates are skyrocketing. Marin County Dept of Health even set up a dashboard to see how many e-bike/e-moto crashes are happening.

But how many kids are getting hurt *in cars*?
🧵

Increased emissions! Would be far less if the only new housing allowed was greenfield sprawl, right 🧐🫠

BREAKING: Winter sports fans want Olympic organizers to drop fossil fuel sponsors.
Good to join international colleagues in a unified call to protect our health and save our snow and ice.
More here: www.newweather.org/2026/01/29/n...

Algonquin: 'We don't want the college to raise the white flag on journalism' The program is one of 30 the college has proposed cutting this fall, but those fighting to save it say the world still needs storytellers.

I use the skills I learned in Algonquin's journalism program every day. Its graduates play a key role in shaping our city - its civic, cultural and economic life. It is no exaggeration to say that it changed my life This is gutting news. Joe, Julie, Charlie, Jon: thank you for your advocacy.

17/

Interrogator: “Nature adapts and uses resources efficiently, but also preserves redundancy, resilience, robustness, and circularity, resources flow, recycle, and regenerate. Features often ignored by human optimization, which favours linear extraction.”

It’s the big day! The appeal hearing @cycletoronto.bsky.social’s successful Bill 212 case is being heard at Ontario’s Court of Appeal. Time permitting I’ll try and live post the proceedings, like I did for the Ottawa convey injunctions back when #lawtwitter was a thing.

There is a way to make Vancouver buses up to 18% faster that no one is talking about.
It does not require digging tunnels.

The solution is hidden in plain sight at our intersections.

Bike Ottawa’s Take on Racks A few years back, Bike Ottawa convened a bike parking working group. They established recommended standards for bike parking and shared widely with the city, with community members, and on the micr…

We often hear from people about the lack of bike racks at their destination or people wanting advice before emailing their councillor to ask for racks to be installed. Here’s our take on it. 👇

bikeottawa.ca/2026/01/26/b...

If only they were this nonchalant about it in real life 😂

Related - this was our trip home from dance class last night and we ended up having to walk.

Repercussions are very tired and cranky kids this morning (despite the nice dream).

@bettertransitottawa.ca @jleiper.bsky.social

8yo: "I had a nice bus dream last night."

Me: "oh, tell me more. Was the bus on time?"

8yo: "No. It was like 8 hours late, but it *was* coming"

A megastudy of behavioral interventions to catalyze public, political, and financial climate advocacy Abstract. Addressing climate change depends on large-scale system changes, which require public advocacy. Here, we identified and tested 17 expert-crowdsou

New study finds that emphasizing collective efficacy (people's ability to catalyze large-scale change) is very effective in catalyzing behavioural change.

As you can see from my pinned post, I'm a big fan of simple messages that can mobilize public support for climate action!

Dreams for ALTO.

In a world where grief bleeds through the seams of our hyperconnected lives, where minds fracture under invisible weight, where democracy withers in the shadow of rising authoritarians—joy is no longer luxury. It's insurrection.

Imagine if your car only started 37% of the time when you went to take it to get to work in the morning.

We found that while 57% of women reported feeling uncomfortable in mixed traffic, nearly half (46%) of their travel distance was spent in these high-stress environments.

Excited to share our latest research, now published in the International Journal of Sustainable Transport: "Gender differences in bicycle infrastructure use and preferences: A disconnect between ideals and reality."

Article: www.tandfonline.com/eprint/XMQVJ...

It makes me so mad that for so many people this kind of work is unseen, unquestioned and taken for granted.

An urban Arrow e-cargo bike with a trailer behind pulling two kids bikes

My kids could not participate in @kidicalmassottawa.bsky.social without him. This is the set-up he usually has to help us bring all the things we need for our family and the wider community.

I'm really grateful to have a husband that understands that there is so much unpaid labour that requires "professional grade logistics".

We're also nerds that have a weekly team meeting. And even with that support and structure (and 🇨🇦 social safety net) I am drowning in tasks.

I'll pass on a hold-the-date. Thanks @railfans.ca and @bettertransitottawa.ca for talking transit data with me on February 2.

Notez bien cette date. Merci à @railfans.ca et @bettertransitottawa.ca pour nos échanges sur les données de transport en commun le 2 février.

There’s your Ontario-built equipment going up against an unarmed crowd.

In Our Own Hands tools for talking abolition & transformative justice with little ones

You can download it here www.raniawrites.com/inourhands