Welcome to the New Home of Straphanger, from Taras Grescoe

I’ve been living in the future all my life: a world without automobiles.

I’ve never owned a car, which gives me a unique perspective on the world. I go to the places that cars don’t, and try to get around as much as possible by train, public transit, bicycles and my own two feet.

I’m the author of Straphanger: Saving Ourselves and Our Cities from the Automobile, a book about my adventures in fourteen different cities around the world, looking at the best, and worst, in urban transportation systems.

I’ve been sharing my adventures on Twitter for over a decade, but using a platform owned by the man I consider the biggest troll in the transportation world is sitting heavily on me. I haven’t been posting since Elon Musk bought Twitter, except to direct people how to find me elsewhere. I was on Substack, until that platform became infiltrated by Nazis, and the administration refused to take substantial action (in other words, not publish them). I’m happy that you’ve found me here.

I hope you’ll consider signing up for these bulletins. Some of the Straphanger posts will be free, but you can also support this project with a monthly contribution, or a yearly subscription. Or you can become a founding member, for which you will earn my undying gratitude. If I stop posting for a while, because I’m travelling or otherwise absorbed, I’ll turn off paid subscriptions until I post again.

I’ve got a lot to say about getting to a world beyond cars—things I couldn’t say on social media, except in the occasional long, tedious-to-put-together thread. I’ve been to places where they’ve found the solutions to congestion, pollution, and traffic deaths, places that point the way to a better future. I know a lot about the policy changes that can get us there. I’ve been riding buses, trains, and subways (not to mention bicycles) all my life, and I’ve figured out a thing or two about ways of getting us out of current nasty car-bound predicament.

Join me. I’ll be going to places not many other people around here have been…at least not yet.