Ilya Petoushkoff
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petoushkoff.bsky.social
Ilya Petoushkoff
@petoushkoff.bsky.social
Transport planner with views and opinions.
Formerly of Moscow, Russia.
Currently based in Melbourne, Australia.

Coffee, cities, public transportation, piano music.
Occasional cat noises may occur herein.

🏳️‍🌈
Pinned
Now that I'm getting a few followers here:

I am a transport planner and project manager from Moscow, Russia, currently living in Melbourne, Australia, where I am trying to make sense of my new life.
I have a lot of experience with Moscow's transportation system, incl. Moscow Metro.
Ask me anything!
Reposted by Ilya Petoushkoff
Google at its peak was basically the best information retrieval system in human history and they and every competitor decided going from there to “you didn’t want answers you wanted half-assed auto-complete 80%-wrong hallucinations” in a few years was the right idea
November 25, 2025 at 1:57 AM
Reposted by Ilya Petoushkoff
Shout out to the recent upgrades to Crown St, Surry Hills. City of Sydney removed several car parks in favour of landscaped outdoor dining areas. Some were turning temporary ones from COVID permanent, others are new. It's a really great area to walk along and enjoy.

Here's some before and after:
November 25, 2025 at 12:22 AM
The last remaining Soviet 'Em' series metro trains in Russia, in operation in the city of St.Petersburg, were finally withdrawn from service this month.

Images from Transphoto by:
- Matvey Boksov (exterior) transphoto.org/photo/2197130/
- 'Imgetawaycar' (interior)
transphoto.org/photo/2021299/
November 24, 2025 at 8:10 AM
Reposted by Ilya Petoushkoff
Metrolinx: we'll need to do discontinuous electrification at Union Station because we can't touch the heritage canopy

SBB/CFF/FFS: we are raising the existing canopy at the Gare de Lausanne by 1 m and move it laterally by 90 cm to slightly modify the tracks' geometry.

youtu.be/CNuJLQguRgo?...
Gare de Lausanne; la métamorphose expliquée.
YouTube video by SBB CFF FFS
youtu.be
November 22, 2025 at 6:26 PM
November 17, 2025 at 11:58 PM
Great news from Montréal where the REM has finally become a major cross-city route.

The wise decision to retrofit Édouard-Monpetit and McGill stations into the original rail tunnel REM has taken over has resulted in a highly connected network with tens of thousands of existing trips streamlined.
November 17, 2025 at 12:22 PM
'the deputies of State Duma have declared Cheburashka Jewish'

I am not sure I can find the right words to explain the meaning of this to people around me.
November 17, 2025 at 9:18 AM
another confirmation that we all live in the matrix
November 10, 2025 at 7:03 AM
It is extremely hard to comprehend what Americans know and do not know about this when the American media space (social and papers alike) appears to be full of mostly incoherent screaming.

Loud propaganda is generally extremely efficient in disorienting people when words are devoid of meaning.
November 5, 2025 at 9:26 AM
What the Russian gov't did was deploying scanners, detectors, guards, and facial recognition cameras on stations nationwide and demanding travellers present their bags and switch their devices on.
No-one cares if that's efficient.
The excessive surveillance and state-led humiliation is the point.
Thinking about it for just a minute it would have issues. Every detector would need to have attendants, male and female to check anyone who set it off. Meanwhile, anyone could drop something through the gaps in fences if they wanted to get around the checks.
November 3, 2025 at 11:19 AM
Two fun facts about these:

1. These trains are the remainder of Moscow Aeroexpress's order they could no longer afford paying for in 2014—in Swiss francs—after Russian ruble collapsed (due to you know what).

2. Russian rail industry has always been unable and is still unable to build one.
I'm a standard gauge absolutionist, but I'll admit those superwide broad gauge Kiss staircases always make me question my faith for a split second
November 2, 2025 at 11:20 AM
How do you mean, it's almost Christmas

what the hell
November 2, 2025 at 7:44 AM
As an emigré, throughout my journey I always have to think about many things normal people don't have to worry about—and they don't, largely because it doesn't occur to them that these things are possible.

One of these extremely important things I wish more people thought about is—'who owns me?'.
November 2, 2025 at 4:11 AM
This may not be the best kind of a plan in the event the investors may be looking into getting a new CEO and considering the possibility of saving themselves a trillion whilst doing so.
October 28, 2025 at 7:27 AM
Reposted by Ilya Petoushkoff
The rest of the planet, since the late 19th century: let's move our tramways in a central alignment away from the curb, to diminish conflicts and make it faster.

US streetcars: Wait, what?
October 24, 2025 at 1:05 PM
Nearly three years in Australia and I am still not hanging out all that much with any groups of people who'd have a lot of interest in cities and public transport, beyond attending professional events. Almost as if they don't exist!
October 25, 2025 at 7:27 AM
On Thursday at a conference there was a session guitarist playing in the pop-up cafeteria seating area. Among other songs, he played You and Me by Lifehouse.
October 25, 2025 at 4:50 AM
'Car brain' is neither a condition nor the problem. It's a symptom of poor infra and poor enforcement.

What is needed is adequate infrastructure.
Every council should do whatever it takes to embed cycling in all roadworks.

Repaving? Maintenance? Construction?
Include cycling infra everywhere.
Screw people who think cyclists deserve to get hit by cars. Screw people who say “use common sense, cars are bigger so get out of the way” to justify people driving dangerously around cyclists. Australia has a real problem in regards to entitled drivers and their car-brain. Needs to be addressed.
October 25, 2025 at 3:42 AM
OK, I have a genuine question about apps of love and lust.

An app for, shall we say, like-minded individuals seeking comfort suggests it's perfectly anonymous but creating an account requires an email address.

In year 2025, how exactly do 'anonymous' and 'account tied to an email' even co-exist?
October 20, 2025 at 7:57 AM
Reposted by Ilya Petoushkoff
most people don't want politics that hurt other people. we just want a long overcoat like david bowie and affordable housing
October 20, 2025 at 5:46 AM
This train between Canberra and Sydney runs thrice daily with the travel time of 4h8m in each direction.

Murray's buses run every hour 6am-6pm and make the journey in 3h30m.

This line would be about as popular as Sydney to Newcastle if it were to offer competitive service frequency and speed.
Only a couple of minutes after departing Canberra station, the Sydney-bound SP34 Xplorer service passes through the industrial suburb of Fyshwick at midday, Sunday 19 October.
October 20, 2025 at 4:54 AM
It makes me sad that there's no way to get a MacBook with a Russian keyboard in Australia.

You can do it in a lot of places around the world, but not in Australia.
October 17, 2025 at 6:47 AM
Reposted by Ilya Petoushkoff
Question for the handy folks, is there any decent interior paint that isn't filled with polymers?
October 11, 2025 at 12:51 AM
Reposted by Ilya Petoushkoff
I’ve connected with incredible scholars, some of whom later became co-authors, colleagues, and even friends. Together, we’ve published some exciting papers in top journals. I’ve learned so much from them, and these experiences have helped me grow both as a researcher and as a person.
Has anything great happened in your life because of social media?
October 10, 2025 at 10:52 PM
Reposted by Ilya Petoushkoff
I'm wrapping up the case study of Bologna's 1970s - 1990s traffic plans, and I think that there are three main overarching policy takeaways:

- a strong initial vision, which is both simple and sophisticated;
- incrementalism, but with strong commitment over time.
- total pragmatism;
October 10, 2025 at 3:50 PM