Hi!
Wherein I actually start writing about infrastructure
Nothing like an impending plug on a modestly-watched youtube channel to get one’s ass in gear. (I'm discussing Great Britain's barriers to integrated transport with Gareth Dennis on Railnatter, premiering 7pm on the 15th of March).
Hi, I’m Martha, and you may remember me from such Twitter hot takes as ‘Turn The Ville-Marie Expressway Into Rail’, ‘Publicise The Bank and Charing Cross Branches as Different Lines Which Interline in The North’, and ‘Nix Intercity Trains Across The Strait of Messina’.
And very-short-form hot takes were probably a poor way of discussing infrastructure issues even before the Bird App entered a new circle of hell, running roughly the temperature of a lithium ion battery catching fire in a small tunnel beneath the Las Vegas convention centre.
It may just be that in course of an education in geography and transport Planning, a career including road planning, emergency dispatch and wayfinding design, and going just about bloody everywhere as a transit rider, I’ve gained enough expertise to pivot from online opinion-having to long form writing.
In discussions about transport infrastructure, I think a lot about a particular Christof Spieler tweet:
A familiar dynamic in transit: one group that understands all the complexity of the current system and can’t imagine a different future, another group that sees a better way of doing things but doesn’t realize what it will take to get there. Ideally, we learn from both.
I’ve been both in my personal and professional life, and I’m pretty much always doing my best to synthesise the two positions. It’s as good as any description of what I’m trying to do here.
Expect in-depth pieces on transportation, cities and design about weekly, plus shorter posts on things like places and transit lines I happen to like. It’ll be a good time, or it won’t, but it’s free, except for maybe the odd post in future.
Click that subscribe button if you’re into that sort of thing. And if you’ve been enjoying the sort of thing I do elsewhere on The Internet, do consider a paid subscription or a one-time donation to help me devote time to more serious analysis.
Or don’t, but they can’t say I didn’t include a call to action like the grey text told me to. I reckon it’ll be decent though.