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Simon Maarfield

@simonmaarfield.bsky.social

Eisenbahner, transport planner, rail fan, environmentalist

253 Posts120 Follower47 Folgt
Jo Kibble (Political Animal)@politicanimal.bsky.social · 2d ago

Andrew Gilligan: rabid on Muslims, terrible on buses, annoyingly and generally consistently good on active travel. (‘Best person I ever worked with at City Hall on this stuff’, according to the pro-cycling Labour council leader I used to work for)

Tim Bale@timbale.bsky.social · 2d ago

BREAKING: Tory talking sense on ULEZ etc. "If we campaign on a platform of taking out LTNs, be aware that we’re campaigning to send floods of traffic back down the now quiet streets where many of our voters, and many more of our potential voters, live."

The Man in Seat 61@seatsixtyone.bsky.social · 3d ago

No wonder the infamous Renfe.com needs the upgrade! “The current system is based on almost 400 interconnected applications, many of them programmed in obsolete languages and having been in service for between 20 and 30 years”

Renfe | Train tickets AVE, Avlo Low Cost (with No Booking Fees)

Buy cheap train tickets AVE, Avlo high speed Low Cost ✓ Timetables, Fares and Discounts ✅ No Booking Fees! ▷ ( Renfe.com )

renfe.com

Railin EN (formerly Trenvista)@railineng.railin.net · 3d ago

The Spanish state operator Renfe will begin rolling out a new ticketing system in the coming months, promising to resolve shortcomings in the current platform and improve the passenger experience. We outline the key details. railin.net/en/news/r...

Brent Toderian@brenttoderian.bsky.social · last wk.

A #WarOnWalking. A war on biking. A war on public transit. A war on any transportation choice other than driving. A war on better cities. But a war on cars? Hardly. Cars still get most of the space, rights, budget, prioritization, etc. And any effort to add more choice is immediately attacked.

Urban Truth Collective@urbantruth.bsky.social · 2w ago

The WAR ON WALKING has taken many forms around the world. It’s often as simple as how we signal who space is and isn’t for. Once our eyes are opened to all the ways we’ve prioritized cars over people, we can’t unsee it. Frustrating photo contributed by @stadsplanering.bsky.social. #WarOnWalking

Background photo from North Macedonia, where “sidewalks are mostly used to park cars” as explained by photo contributor Carl-Henrik Barnekow. Text says “Don’t buy the lie that there’s a war on cars. They’ve been waging a war on walking for a century.” Via the Urban Truth Collective. #WarOnCars #UrbanTruth
Meredith Glaser@cyclingprofessor.bsky.social · 5d ago

BREAKING 📣 For several days, a peaceful protest took place in the morning, after a young child was killed by a car driver. The child was riding his bike to school, the father with him. The grieving community came together with hundreds of people, cyclist or not, creating a 3km long human bike lane.

Dr Charlie Gardner@charliejgardner.bsky.social · last wk.

This year has been brutal, and like most people you probably want to do more about climate change. But what, and how? Great news – I’ve written just the book for you! It’s called What One Person Can Do and it’s a clear and simple how-to guide, a roadmap to help you make influential changes...

Bild
Railway Gazette International@railwaygazette.com · last wk.

DB says it welcomes competition but prefers collaboration on international routes https://www.railwaygazette.com/high-speed/2026/09/24/db-on-competitors-entering-the-german-market-we-welcome-competition/

DB says it welcomes competition but prefers collaboration on international routes

EUROPE: ‘To state clearly: we generally welcome competition under fair and transparent conditions’, Dr Michael Peterson, Deutsche Bahn board member for Long-Distance Passenger Transport said at InnoTrans 2026.  ‘When that is the case, the offering for rail passengers can indeed be improved.’  But in DB’s view, ‘an efficient cross-border long-distance traffic is currently best delivered…

railwaygazette.com

Leo Hickman@leohickman.carbonbrief.org · last wk.

'Miliband will appoint a new special representative for climate security, as well as a new ministerial taskforce on “the national security and resilience risks of a changing climate and nature loss”, with military and security experts as well as climate scientists.'

UK shares findings of damning climate crisis national security report suppressed under Starmer

El Niño poses critical threat to nations’ defences, says Ed Miliband in presentation to global foreign ministers

theguardian.com

The Guardian@theguardian.com · last wk.

UK shares findings of damning climate crisis national security report suppressed under Starmer

Hackney Cyclist@hackneycyclist.bsky.social · last wk.

Eerste van der Helststraat, Amsterdam, in 1982 and today. A street once dominated by parked cars to a car free place for people, with children playing, greenery and cafés making use of reclaimed outdoor space. This is what’s possible when we choose to redesign our streets for life, not storage.

Split-screen comparison of Eerste van der Helststraat in Amsterdam in 1982 and today. The historical black-and-white photo shows the street with parked cars on both sides of the street, a cyclist and pedestrians. The modern colour photo shows the same street transformed into a car-free public space, with trees, plants, outdoor seating, pedestrians and children playing hopscotch.
George Monbiot@georgemonbiot.bsky.social · 2w ago

A macho culture of performative selfishness might start on the roads, through racing, rolling coal, ever bigger SUVs ... But it doesn't end there. If we want to live in a decent country which values human life, we need to change this culture. My column. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Driving that’s too fast, too dangerous and utterly lawless: why do we tolerate this petro-masculinity? | George Monbiot

In towns and in the countryside, I see 4x4s and pick up trucks driven without care or consicence. It’s a Magafication of transport, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot

theguardian.com

Simon Maarfield@simonmaarfield.bsky.social · last wk.

This looks fantastic. Assuming the road space for it was reallocated from car to bus, I wonder if there was resistance to its construction? If so, from whom?

Jo Kibble (Political Animal)@politicanimal.bsky.social · 2w ago

A fine bit of infra on this insanely frequent and rapid bus corridor between Amsterdam and Purmerend: a segregated single bus lane that switches direction for the peak flow. It does mean in Watergang, half way along, which side of the road you catch a bus from is different in morning and afternoon.

Madeleine Bonsma-Fisher, PhD@mbonsma.bsky.social · 2w ago

In a massive dataset of over 10,000 cities around the world, the strongest association with distance travelled by cycling was not climate, topography, or even infrastructure - it was *gasoline prices* doi.org/10.1073/pnas...

Figure 3 from "Global health and climate benefits from walking and cycling infrastructure" by Adam Millard-Balla, Monisha Reginalda, Yasmina Yusufa, and Christopher Bian. The figure shows factors associated with distance travelled by cycling and walking, arranged in order of effect size. For cycling, the largest effects are gasoline prices, GDP per capita, rail service, steep terrain (negative effect), minimum temperature (negative effect), population density, and bicycle lanes. For walking, the largest effects are population density, gasoline prices, bicycle lanes, and maximum temp (negative effect). Fig. 3 Caption: Factors influencing active travel. Each coefficient represents the impact of a one-SD change in each variable on the share of kilometers traveled by cycling (A) and walking (B). For each city-level variable such as density, the model estimates a separate coefficient for each country. The shaded area shows the distribution of country-level coefficients; for density, for example, the effect on walking ranges from about zero to ~0.11, excluding one outlier. For country-level variables such as gasoline prices, there is only a single coefficient. Variables are ordered by the size of their absolute effect in the median country—density and gasoline prices have the greatest impact on walking and gasoline prices and income (GDP per capita) on cycling. The minimum temperature variable shows the marginal effect of both the linear and squared terms.One might expect climate to have a major impact on active travel, and many studies highlight the impact of weather on daily and seasonal travel decisions (9, 25). However, in our model, there is a negligible association between precipitation and the mode shares of walking and cycling. Hotter temperatures decrease walking but have no effect on travel by bicycle. Colder temperatures only reduce walking and cycling in colder climates (SI Appendix for further Discussion). At the national level, gasoline price has the largest association with the share of travel by active modes. A one-SD increase in the price per liter (equivalent to US $0.40) is associated with a ~1.0 percentage point increase in walking and a ~0.5 percentage point increase in cycling—notable given that the mode share of cycling across the entire dataset is just ~0.9%. These findings echo a large volume of research that shows how vehicle travel declines in line with rising fuel prices (26). Gasoline prices also have an indirect effect in promoting denser, mixed-use development (27).
Peter Flax@pflax1.bsky.social · 2w ago

Anyone using weather as an excuse to advocate against safe biking infrastructure is a counterfactual asshole. Some of the cities around the world that have the highest rates of transit riding have real winter conditions. Riders deserve to get home alive even if it is chilly out.

vlado@mejs.eurosky.social · 2w ago

If Serbia actually wanted to do something for the people of Zvornik, they would lay a few hundred extra meters of track and rebuild a station approximately where the old "Zvornik Grad" station used to be. BiH residents of Zvornik could then access it by foot via the King Alexander Bridge

stations marked up on a map
Simon Maarfield@simonmaarfield.bsky.social · 2w ago

Does anyone know when the track works on the R3 Latour de Carol / Puigcerdà - Vic - Barcelona #Rodalies rail line will finish? I see these are currently an excuse to reduce service at upper end of the line to a measly 2.5 train pairs per day. #CrossBorderRail @seatsixtyone.bsky.social @jonworth.eu

Jo Kibble (Political Animal)@politicanimal.bsky.social · last yr.

Latour de Carol is the only current cross-border rail route across the Pyrenees (the other lines go around the edge). Because of the different gauges (standard gauge in France, broad in Spain), trains can’t run through. They can also, thanks to insular bloody-mindedness, barely connect. #Schengen200