data availability plus maybe a touch of "nobody who works for us is willing to try and find/read it". the correlates probably just don't work outside of their home environment too. the very strong Osaka cycling culture exists in such a different infrastructural environment than European examples

well, every other city in Taiwan too

World indices that are pretty much just Europe and her children give

osaka, with like 30% bicycle commuting rate, not on the list, but taipei, with <1/10th that, 2nd? feels like what you get when you build the model on Euro infrastructure expectations and then misfit horribly on dissimilar environments

The prediction is of course coming true, although most of the entrants do so at urban population densities 2-4 times greater than that of Japan and 10 times USA. It has been trial and error into an efficient path to modernity.

An old post by @jrurbanenetwork.bsky.social got me interested into this system. It turns out to have had an unexpectedly complex history.

The electric railway was always freight-first, and after 2009 it continued to perform internal transportation for the Fushun mines. A tourist train briefly restored public service in 2019, but it has since ended and the lines are planned for reuse as a transit railway in the city's 5-year plan.

The system faithfully hauled around Fushun residents until 2009, when municipal subsidies ran out. Its various archaic-looking trains draw a lot of curiosity.

First constructed by Russia in 1904, the system was subsequently expanded by Japan and the People's Republic. Although primarily a mining railway, it came to take on a role of urban transportation, especially for workers in the city's industries.

Yes they're talking about the assembly at the launch shaft.

The suburbs. Take the train to Agincourt or Milliken or someplace like that

lmao wtf

I feel like the financial district is a pretty obvious candidate? it's very use-specific now but has a bunch of the traits.

yeah. there are real things that hurt GRT - decrease in int'l students, the sluggishness of downtown & uptown employment since covid. but the great majority of the ion decline story relates to more free transfers!

What frustrated me is that he presents an argument that ridership is falling, an effect whose magnitude shrinks considerably when you consider unlinked, not linked, trips. (The GRT transfer window extension in 2024(?) decreased the latter by ~10%.)

basically every one of the "west taiwan" posting guys is like this. they don't need actual taiwanese politics to exist so long as the country can be used to clobber their country's enemy