Welcome to Reconnections’ Friday Reads: • How the Tube pioneered bank cards (Forbes) • Layers of London map documents local history (MappingLondon) • Free French buses in Dunkirk (Guardian) • Why transit works better outside the US (CityLab) • ‘Art on the MART’ debut (ChicagoCurbed) • National links: Walking along (TheOverheadWire) • Developer sought to transform Sydney underground station into attraction (GlobalRailNews) • Oil spilt at sea chart ...

The Gates of Light project does not advertise itself as an attempt to reinvent the lamp. Launched in December 2017, it is part of a design celebration of a Dutch infrastructure icon – the 32 kilometer-long Afsluitdijk (literally, ‘cut-off dike’), which has helped protect the low-lying country from flooding since 1932. Along one section of the dike, 60 concrete floodgates loom over the busy multi-lane highway. Years of exposure to the sea air had left the towers looking unloved, so Studio ...

With 55 million different fares currently available in the UK, industry bodies are urging ministers to simplify ticketing and end anomalies like split ticketing. Could a door-to-door system be the solution the industry is looking for? In May this year, Uber launched a partnership with Virgin Trains that enables passengers to purchase a ride from their doorstep to any destination in the UK via a combination of taxi and train services. The move, which Virgin Trains says is an attempt to encourage ...

Transport authority Île-de-France Mobilités has outlined a 10-point package running until 2024 to rehabilitate the urban realm around Nord and Est stations in Paris, as well as improving access between them. The €50m programme is intended to enhance the walking routes between the two stations, which using existing streets are approximately 500 m apart. The authority points out that in total 800 000 passengers/day use the two stations, as well as Magenta station on RER Line E which is located ...

As TfL makes plans to reduce bus network capacity, one of the people in charge of running the capital’s bus services gives a rare interview. John Trayner is managing director of Go-Ahead London, the capital’s biggest bus service operator. We met last Friday at the company’s Waterloo garage, the most centrally-located in the capital and currently home to an all-electric fleet. The outcome of Transport for London’s review of bus services, which proposes a seven per cent cut in network ...

Welcome to Reconnections’ Friday Reads: • UK rail companies’ message: We’re very sorry (NYTimes) • Tube Map of Summer Olympics host cities 1896-2020 (BrilliantTrains) • Civilising the City of London (UrbanTransportGroup) • London City Airport’s ongoing hunt for WW2 bombs (TheEngineer) • UK canals time map (CityMetric) • The Trolley – evolution of Toronto’s streetcars (StephenLowCo) • Bringing back Denver’s Union Station (StreetsBlog) • Worrisome ...

Forget curtains and blinds, one company exhibiting at InnoTrans has unveiled an intelligent technology that shuts out light from train carriages in a futuristic fashion. Dubbed ‘Intelligent Glass Control’ or IGC by developer Continental, the system relies on a film sandwiched between two panes of glass which is connected to an electronic control unit. The film layer contains particles that can change to alter the transparency and colour of the window to allow different levels of light to ...

The second Thursday of the month brings with it our meetup, which happens next on 11th October from 6pm. As always, these are informal affairs where the beer flows, offering an opportunity to put faces to the names of a few LR writers as well as regular commentators. All are welcome, and conversation is often as much general as it is transport-specific. Where to find us We will be in the upstairs backroom at The Royal Oak on Tabard Street. Its location makes it easy to get to from a number of ...

Ofo is out: Just a year after launching 40,000 lemon-yellow bicycles in more than 30 different markets in the United States, the Chinese dockless bikesharing company is scaling back its operations and has laid off 70 percent of its North American operations team, as Quartz reported recently. Ofo’s American journey ends where it began: Seattle. Last Monday, the City Council voted to make its pilot dockless bikesharing program permanent and made allowance for doubling the total bikes and ...

Between Brussels’ autonomous fleets, New York’s passenger-centric design and London’s top-notch signalling, which countries are leading by example and delivering some of the world’s most modern, efficient and reliable metro systems? Transport systems around the world are in a race against time to modernise their services and serve an increasing number of passengers with much higher expectations from their daily journeys. This pressing need to revolutionise urban transport was highlighted ...

In 2012, the City of Vienna capped off several decades of heavy investment in the expansion and modernization of its already-extensive public transport system with a dramatic reduction of annual transit ticket prices. Since 1993, the City has also adopted, district-by-district, a system of resident preferences in the allocation of on-street parking, built around sharply increased prices and tighter time limits for non-residents. In addition to implementing parking management, Vienna traffic ...

Welcome to Reconnections’ Friday Reads: • St Pancras at 150 (HydeParkNow) • Women built “The Ladies’ Bridge” – Waterloo (AtlasObscura) • Why Liverpool MerseyRail needs its Circle Line (CityMetric) • How Boston designed its T (CityLab) • E-Scooter deaths show urgent need for safer streets (StreetsBlog) • LA’s Regional Connector downtown tunnel construction (LACurbed) • US National Links: Paving potholes with pizza (TheOverheadWire) • Hong Kong ...

The French government is to prioritise investment at key rail hubs outside Paris. Reflecting what Transport Minister Elisabeth Borne terms ‘a national priority’ to improve access to rail services outside the Paris region, €2·6bn is to be spent on enhancing capacity at key hubs to support ‘greater rail use in cities, improved links to medium sized towns and improving transport connectivity in semi-rural areas’. Borne has set a target of doubling rail’s modal share ‘for daily ...

When transportation planners drool over the Emerald City’s transit successes, they shouldn’t overlook the decades of investments in this legacy asset. In transportation circles, the word “trolley” can sometimes come with decades-old reputational baggage. Getting around on one might seem antique and quaint, best suited for tourists taking in local attractions at a leisurely pace, not daily commuters trying to get from Point A to Point B. But that’s not the case in the Pacific ...

San Francisco’s new Transbay Transit Center will remain closed at least through the end of next week, officials said Wednesday, after yet another cracked beam was discovered during an overnight safety inspection. The $2.2 billion hub for buses and eventually trains, which opened just last month as the flashy centerpiece of city infrastructure, was closed abruptly Tuesday afternoon after a fissure was spotted in a beam that helps hold up the sprawling complex. The initial tear runs about 2½ ...