Kurt Raschke
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kurtraschke.com
Kurt Raschke
@kurtraschke.com
they/them

Transit and technology, mostly. Prone to ranting.

Reposts and favorites are not endorsements. Posts are solely my own.

ABATE NOXIOUS STIMULI.
Reposted by Kurt Raschke
no one has ever spoken like this about a GoA4 (grade-of-automation four, or no staff on-board and completely automatic) driverless metro
November 20, 2025 at 1:06 AM
I think I’ve mentioned this before but a fun little data science project for someone would be to build a map of places where you can see the stars at night and which are transit-accessible.
November 21, 2025 at 9:45 PM
Reposted by Kurt Raschke
On this Trans Day of Remembrance, we remember the bright and courageous trans people whose lives were stolen by hatred. Their absence is felt across our city.

We will honor them by building a New York where every trans person can live safely, fully and freely.
November 20, 2025 at 4:57 PM
(as regards the last repost, there is an increasing view among consultants and operators that GoA 3/4 systems simply _must_ have PSDs, and that doesn’t have to be the case! SkyTrain and the DLR have functioned just fine for decades!)
November 19, 2025 at 11:58 AM
Reposted by Kurt Raschke
I understand the benefits perfectly, and they make sense, but platform boarding doors for metro systems are my worst nightmare. Removing the rush of air and unobstructed view of a train arriving in a station is an unimaginable loss of romantic feeling and metaphor from society. Don’t @ me about it.
November 17, 2025 at 7:20 PM
Reposted by Kurt Raschke
[Ed Harris in Apollo 13 voice] alright. What do we have on this spacecraft that isnt gender.
November 12, 2025 at 3:07 AM
I understand that folks may not view transit agencies as paragons of functional behavior. But, in two particular ways, I contend that thinking and acting like a transit agency may improve your life: kurtraschke.com/2025/11/neur...
Thinking (and acting) like a transit agency can improve your life: two vignettes
I realize the assertion in the title of this post may sound outlandish, so I should start by clarifying: when I say “thinking and acting like a transit agency”, I don’t mean showing up late, or perhap...
kurtraschke.com
November 9, 2025 at 4:55 PM
Reposted by Kurt Raschke
finally wrote that blog post, in which i argue that "people will lie about using AI for coding" is not a good reason to allow people to use AI for coding:

blog.xkeeper.net/thoughts/ran...
November 3, 2025 at 8:04 PM
Reposted by Kurt Raschke
like, i’m sorry man, but gun to my head, i’ll take the statistical probability of another fukushima nuclear disaster over the certainty of what we’re losing to climate change

turning off existing nuclear plants before we’re out of fossil fuel consumption to displace is objectively insane!
November 3, 2025 at 9:49 PM
I seldom post on LinkedIn, so you should know that when I do it must be for a darn good reason. In this case, the Subways Performance Analysis Unit, a great group of people I work with closely, is hiring for an analyst:

www.linkedin.com/feed/update/...
Transit Management Analyst Series - Performance Analysis Unit (PAU) in Brooklyn, New York, United States | Kurt Raschke
In 1981, after the landing of the first Space Shuttle mission—the first time a reusable space vehicle had ever been launched and returned to Earth fit to fly again—Johnson Space Center Director Chris ...
www.linkedin.com
November 4, 2025 at 2:01 AM
The interminable wait for DNS to propagate.
November 1, 2025 at 8:00 PM
What can you learn from 80 million GTFS-realtime feed fetches? I dig into the good, bad, and ugly of real-time transit data in my latest post: kurtraschke.com/2025/10/gtfs...
Lessons learned from consuming GTFS-realtime at scale, hundreds of billions of StopTimeUpdates later…
Disclaimer: I work for a transit agency and have, at times, worked on passenger information and open data. The views contained in this post are entirely my own and not reflective of or endorsed by any...
kurtraschke.com
October 29, 2025 at 1:02 AM
Happy Subway Day!
October 27, 2025 at 11:59 AM
Reposted by Kurt Raschke
Proud papa moment: my son J published a letter in the @nytimes.com today (in print tomorrow) on the need to think our definitions of autism.
October 18, 2025 at 8:06 PM
I was recently in the Bay Area again, and each time I find it a little bit harder to leave behind.
October 12, 2025 at 3:33 AM
I use they/them pronouns now.

Yes, I know what today is.
October 11, 2025 at 2:49 PM
I had an insight this morning: the way I am coming to feel about autonomous vehicles is a lot like the way I feel about nuclear power.

kurtraschke.com/2025/10/nucl...
How autonomous vehicles are like nuclear power, and how we should think about them both
I have a confession to make: when I was in San Francisco in 2024, for the BART legacy fleet retirement, one of the things I did while I was there was ride in a Waymo. I had no reason to do so other th...
kurtraschke.com
October 5, 2025 at 4:32 PM
Reposted by Kurt Raschke
I have a major piece in Bloomberg Citylab today. Should the US let transit fail, as Pennsylvania is already doing? And if not, what are the arguments we need to let it succeed?

www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
Should We Let Public Transit Die?
Urban-rural hostility is fueling a public transportation crisis in US cities. But demands to abandon bus and train riders ignore the economic and social costs of cutting service.
www.bloomberg.com
September 19, 2025 at 7:38 PM
Reposted by Kurt Raschke
nothing more freeing than pushing absolutely terrible nondescript commit messages to a private repo only you are in
August 30, 2025 at 9:14 PM
Reposted by Kurt Raschke
AI weirdos can pry em dashes and sparkle emojis from my cold, dead hands
June 5, 2025 at 5:36 PM
You can say that machines don't have a soul, but the motor in this elevator made it to the very last trip before flashing over, just as the decommissioning process was about to begin.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFxR...
A Last Ride in New York City's Disappearing Horse Elevators
YouTube video by Bloomberg Originals
www.youtube.com
August 17, 2025 at 1:55 AM
Reposted by Kurt Raschke
Every Reason Why I Hate AI and You Should Too

malwaretech.com/2025/08/ever...
Every Reason Why I Hate AI and You Should Too
maybe it's anti-innovation, maybe it's just avoiding hype. But one thing is clear, I'm completely done with hearing about AI.
malwaretech.com
August 4, 2025 at 8:32 AM
Reposted by Kurt Raschke
A lot has happened to PATH in the past 25 years -- 9/11, major construction work, COVID, etc. But consistent across all of these events have been ensuing reductions in off-pk service levels: since 2005, the number of PATH trips crossing the Hudson on Saturdays has fallen by *50%*
July 27, 2025 at 4:19 PM
Does it still count as a “burrito taxi” if it’s a robot?
July 27, 2025 at 1:14 PM
They’re moving in herds!
July 20, 2025 at 1:53 PM