urbanism
A place to talk about urban design, transit, and all things cities
@miawintam
More of one of these, than the other please!
The impact of having poetry in our communal public spaces is 10x compared to having just another AI ad.
The poem on the left is put on by The Poetry Societyx MTA’s Poetry in Motion program, which places poetry in transit of cities all over American cities.
Public transit is a space where we are quite literally in transition, in flux, and having an opportunity to pause, interact, and engage with beautiful words brings life to my daily rhythms.
Please more of this instead of just more vc funded AI promotion
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@miawintam
“Bastard Chairs” by Michael Wolf, photographed between 2003-2005
“Photographed in the back alleys and streets of Hong Kong and mainland China, these hybrid seats were improvised repairs made by local residents using whatever materials were available. Broken plastic backs grafted onto wooden stools. Metal legs bolted into mismatched frames. Tape and wire binding incompatible parts into something functional.
Wolf documents them as he found them. Each chair reflects a culture of necessity and repair. Objects extended beyond their intended life through practical invention.”
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@naomiii
Less is more when it comes to bus stops. I never thought much about the bus stop placements until this weekend when reading this article.
Seems like an actually very practical, fairly simple to implement way to make bus service better. Gave me some newfound appreciation for the real-time panels showing what buses are about to arrive they got at bigger Hamburg stops ^^
That said, I live in a small town with meh bus coverage, but distances are small enough to easily cover them by bike - often quicker than with the bus.
https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-united-states-needs-fewer-bus-stops/
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@miawintam
https://nextcity.org/urbanist-news/how-blockchain-technology-could-make-zoning-work-for-people
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@miawintam
I wrote a cheeky little piece on SF's AI billboards and how I want to brick them away from existence
https://miawintam.substack.com/p/who-gets-to-write-the-citys-surface
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@miawintam
Portland’s 1978 bus network (TriMet)
You can see that there’s very few crosstown routes. This kind of radial network design was very typical of American transit agencies prior to the 1970s
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@miawintam
Micromobility is very important, but Citibike is just too damn expensive.
NYC’s Citi Bike system is the most expensive bike share program in the US, by a lot.
Citi Bike is the only US bike share system with no government subsidy. All the others have at least some public funding.
https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2025/11/19/citi-bike-rinses-riders-compared-to-bike-share-in-other-cities-report
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