Mark McIntyre

@markjmcintyre

Keen on active travel 🚲 music, cities, odds and ends of Glasgow history, transport. Powoli uczę się polskiego 🇵🇱 posting my own views

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Mark McIntyre@markjmcintyre· 9d

In the city centre too, Vienna's doing away with decades of car dominance - reclaiming space for people walking, wheeling, cycling, using public transport, and generally just enjoying the centre. (📸 Neuer Markt in the centre of Vienna, before and after)

Google Street View image from 2017 looking onto Neuer Markt in central Vienna, one of the city's main historic civic squares. The square is filled with parked vehicles, with very little space for people to move or even sit. In the distance is a historic water fountain, inaccessible due to the parked vehicles. The square has since been transformed for the better (see next image).

A photo I took at the same location as the previous image on Neuer Markt in central Vienna in November 2024. Gone are the parked cars that once filled the street - replaced by a completely renovated civic square, with space for walking, sitting, plenty of bike parking, and an overwhelming amount of new planting and greenery.

Mark McIntyre@markjmcintyre· 9d

Where Vienna is building new neighbourhoods - it's building them around sustainable transport. (📸 info in alt text)

View of a street in Vienna's Nordbahnhof district, a massive new housing district being built on the site of disused railway land, near the river. Many bikes can be seen parked in the foreground, while people walk on a wide pavement lined with planting and trees, and a tram passes along the street.

Mark McIntyre@markjmcintyre· 9d

Thinking more about Vienna. Its city museum - the best city museum I've ever seen - has a very touching section all about transport. Personal stories of what transport and public space means to locals' lives and how sustainable transport is central to where the city sees itself going.

Photo of a section of Wien Museum's exhibibition exploring contemporary Vienna, looking at the role of transport and public space in people's lives. The room was filled with notes and videos sharing the stories of locals, of how public transport, walking, wheeling or cycling is an essential part of their lives.

A small section of the exhibition sharing how Vienna's public spaces have changed and are continuing to change, with much of the city's car-centric spaces being slowly turned into spaces dedicated to people or sustainable transport.

The central exhibit in this section of the museum was a cargo bike from the Vienna Mobility Agency, a charity that launched "neighbourhood cargo bikes", available for people to use for free. The project had grown by 2021 to have 24 cargo bikes like this available in neighbourhoods around the city.

Mark McIntyre@markjmcintyre· 9d

Argentinierstraße is really impressive to see in person. A street running straight from Vienna city centre to the Hauptbahnhof, it had 6,000+ bikes a day on a slim cycle lane. Such was the importance as a N-S cycle route, the city made it a cycle priority street, largely rerouting cars elsewhere.

Looking south along Argentinastrasse in central Vienna in December 2024, close to Karlskirche. The whole street is now a "cycle street", with red surfacing and bike decals denoting priority to bikes. Changes to the nearby road network have rerouted most vehicle traffic elsewhere, keeping it calm enough for cycle priority. Space has been reclaimed for wider pavements, bike parking and lots of new planting and street trees.

Mark McIntyre@markjmcintyre· 13d

#Motonormativity is... focusing on minor overnight disruption for drivers, at news that two essential footbridges spanning the single widest stretch of motorway in Europe are to be repaired - after being out of action for two years.

Coverage of upcoming repair of two essential footbridges crossing the M8 and M77 motorways in the Kinning Park area of Glasgow. These footbridges have been closed for two years. The story is framed entirely as "disruption to drivers", rather than the valuable repair of two rare pedestrian and cycle crossing points of the single widest stretch of urban motorway anywhere in Europe.

Mark McIntyre@markjmcintyre· 15d

A typical street in Strathbungo by comparison.

Google Streetview image of Marywood Square, one of 6 tightly packed terraced streets in the Strathbungo area in the southside of Glasgow. The image shows a street dominated by parked cars. Pedestrians can be seen walking on the road as there is so little space to pass freely on the pavements. Cars frequently come down each of these streets meaning you have to pause and get out of the way before continuing on.

Mark McIntyre@markjmcintyre· 15d

This drone shot of Strathbungo in Glasgow reminded me earlier of a very very similar area in Copenhagen. Similar townhouses, very similar streets. Very different uses of street space. 🌳🛝🚲🌷🏡

A street in the Kartoffelrækkerne (Potato Row) neighbourhood near central Copenhagen. Car parking has been removed from the middle third of the street and replaced with trees.

Mark McIntyre@markjmcintyre· 19d

I'm kinda new to Anno but gave the last one #Anno1800 a chance and loved it. Not quite a city sim, much as I love them, but a trade / supply chain management game (dry as that sounds...) with cities sort of organically building up around that. Clever mechanics and pretty easy to get lost in.

Screengrab of an early stage city in the game Anno 117 on the Xbox Series S.

Mark McIntyre@markjmcintyre· 19d

#Anno117 is a really gorgeous game

Screengrab showing a small Roman port city in Anno 117, captured on Xbox Series S.

Mark McIntyre@markjmcintyre· 20d

Rush hour in C̶o̶p̶e̶n̶h̶a̶g̶e̶n̶ ̶A̶m̶s̶t̶e̶r̶d̶a̶m̶ Glasgow

Mark McIntyre@markjmcintyre· 23d

Need to recommend this book to people. Properly fascinating: touching on all sorts of areas of Viking history (& historiography) by following the trail of a small jewel bead from a grave in the Midlands, to its likely origin in central Asia. With tangents into Viking & other history on every page.

Mark McIntyre@markjmcintyre· 26d

It's 😙🤌

A big group of people cycling home in the evening sunshine, on the South City Way protected cycle route as it passes Gorbals Cross (where new housing is nearly complete).

Mark McIntyre@markjmcintyre· Jul 8

Home time

People cycle home in the sun during evening rush hour in a very sunny Glasgow.

Large group of people on bikes waiting for a green light on the South City Way cycle route in Glasgow.

Mark McIntyre@markjmcintyre· Jul 6

Oldham Council's response to a barrage of racist comments on its FB page should be standard practice for all public sector pages (and local newspapers for that matter). Rather than ignoring it, which most pages seem to do, it needs to be removed and called out forcefully. You don't see this enough.

A post from Oldham Council's "I love Oldham" Facebook page, sharing photos and info of the council's newly elected Youth Mayor. The post received a barrage of racist comments, which the page responded to forcefully.

Response from Oldham Council to racist comments left on the post: "To anyone who thinks it is ok to come to our page and leave racist comments - you are not welcome here. To make this the target of your hatred is vile, and you should be ashamed".

Mark McIntyre@markjmcintyre· Jul 5

Not a terribly exciting photo! But the cycle to the shops was made a bit easier today with this usually nasty junction closed (for resurfacing). A teaser of how it'll be in ~12 months' time after #ConnectingBattlefield works, that'll turn it permanently into a traffic free plaza.

Photo of the junction of Grange Road and Battlefield Road in Glasgow. Soon it'll be the site of Connecting Battlefield phase 2 works, turning this into a plaza and adding a 1km cycle lane connecting Queens Park to Mount Florida via Battlefield Road.

Mark McIntyre@markjmcintyre· Jul 4

Good to see there's at least a recognition of the likely induced demand effects from doing this.

Screengrab of discussion section of linked research paper, with text reading: "while our analysis shows an instantaneous improvement in network efficiency, an induced demand response over a longer time horizon and/or expanded treatment region could mitigate the travel time improvements of our intervention. An induced demand response would entail that additional drivers who had previously been deterred from using the targeted road segments by high travel times would switch to these segments upon learning that the travel times have lowered. While this is an important area for future work, our intervention behaves quite differently from the highly visible supply changes that are typically studied in the literature around induced demand for road networks."

Mark McIntyre@markjmcintyre· Jul 4

This 1975 photo shows Zuiderdiep (one of the first major streets you meet from Groningen rail station) also used to be very different too. Once a traffic sewer, today it's a welcoming, mixed-use space with wide cycle-priority lanes, bus lanes, and refuge islands with seats, cycle parking and trees.

A 1975 photo of Zuiderdiep, a main road on the southern edge of Groningen city centre, looking west from the junction with Oosterstraat. The picture shows a streetscape dominated by car traffic, with a very wide central roadway with 4-5 lanes for vehicles. This was taken two years before major changes brought in to reduce car access to the city centre in 1977. Source: Beeldbankgroningen.nl, press photo agency D. van der Veen.

Google Streetview image of Zuiderdiep on a sunny day in June 2020, looking west from almost the same location but from a lower angle. Today the roadway is massively narrowed to just one lane in each direction. A man cycles towards camera on a former road lane, now converted to a cycle-priority lane. Vehicles can still use these lanes, but are not able to overtake people on bikes. Trees line the street on pedestrian islands, again, using space previously given over to vehicles.

Mark McIntyre@markjmcintyre· Jul 4

Groningen's Grote Markt used to be a traffic gyratory.

Aerial image of Groningen's Grote Markt (main square) in 1977, before implementation of the city's 'Traffic Circulation Plan', which greatly limited car access to the city centre. The picture shows the main square as a large traffic gyratory, with three lanes for vehicle traffic surrounding a the city hall and a small public space in the centre. Source: Beeldbankgroningen.nl Municipality of Groningen Information office 1977

Groningen's traffic free and tree-filled Grote Markt in sunshine, with many people people walking and cycling, photographed June 2026.

Groningen's traffic free and tree-filled Grote Markt in sunshine, with many people people walking and cycling, and lots of terrace seating in front of the city hall, photographed June 2026.

Mark McIntyre@markjmcintyre· Jun 30

I was raised on these streets

Qui-Gon Jinn gets to spend a whole level flaneuring around Mos Espa, buying odds and ends and chatting to the townsfolk as he searches for a T-14 hyperdrive generator, in Star Wars Episode 1 The Game for the PS1.

Mark McIntyre@markjmcintyre· Jun 28

I'm diving back in

Screenshot of a newly started game in Cities:Skylines 1, on a custom workshop map of Passau in southeastern Germany.

Mark McIntyre@markjmcintyre· Jun 22

🦊 They're back!

Murky photo of two young foxes prowling around the back garden.

Mark McIntyre@markjmcintyre· Jun 21

🚲⬇️🚶‍♀️⬆️ Swish new underground cycle parking on Nieuwe Markt, a recently opened public square in Groningen. 1,250 secure spaces for bikes, easily accessible and smack bang in the centre of town. Convenient for residents/visitors. Pretty good for all the businesses nearby too.

People come and go via the escalators leading down to a 1,250 space secure cycle parking facility, at Nieuwe Markt in the centre of Groningen. The facility was co-designed around the newly opened public square and the nearby newly opened civic building, the Groningen Forum.

Mark McIntyre@markjmcintyre· Jun 21

Day trip along NCN75 to Lochwinnoch, managing to find the exact spot I used to go fishing sometimes when I was a teenager (and where I caught precisely 0 fish).

A new fancy looking gate on National Cycle Network route 75 near Paisley. The whole route was looking very obviously upgraded and super smooth to ride on.

The Mile End Mill building in Paisley (one of last few remaining Victorian thread mill buildings that tower over the town) poking through the trees from NCN 75.

My bike parked next to the waterside at Castle Semple Loch in Renfrewshire, on a blistering hot afternoon.

Looking down Church Street in the village of Lochwinnoch, Renfrewshire. Multicoloured bunting hangs above the street, next to small stone buildings and the village's main church.

Mark McIntyre@markjmcintyre· Jun 21

Big group of middle aged men cycling on Damsterdiep in Groningen, and having a very jolly time of it.

Mark McIntyre@markjmcintyre· Jun 16

The finished bit of Argyle Street is looking very good indeed.

Looking east on Argyle Street in Glasgow city centre, roughly outside the Marriot Hotel, near the Kingston Bridge. The street has been significantly redesigned, with a reduced roadway, new pavements, new trees and planting, benches, and a new protected cycle lane.

Mark McIntyre@markjmcintyre· Jun 13

Some non-bikey pics of Groningen

Papengang lane in Groningen, leading down towards Peperstraat where most of the student nightlife is. Blues/reggae Cafe De Zolder ("Attic Cafe") is in shot, one of the best bars in the city.

A busy Drie Gezusters ('Three Sisters') pub on Groningen's Grote Markt - four or five buildings all connected together like a labyrinth of individual pubs - with terrace seating filled with people on a hot, cloudless Friday evening. A person cycles past.

The newly opened public square between the Grote Markt and the new Groningen Forum building (out of shot). The new eastern wall buildings of the Grote Markt (hotel, bars and restaurants) are to the left, with the Martini Tower peaking over the top.

Quiet corner of the canal that wraps around the centre of Groningen, with old canal boats and barges.

Mark McIntyre@markjmcintyre· Jun 12

Lot of noise about "anti car" Oxfordshire 'Quiet Lanes' being rolled out this summer, but hadn't seen any clear maps/info so had a look. Seems a really effective and quite tactical selection of road closures, giving relief for local people in rural villages travelling by bike into Oxford.

Google Mal view of Oxford and the surrounding countryside, showing the rural village of Stanton St John a few miles to the east of the city.

One of 10 'Quiet Lanes' being trialled in Oxfordshire this summer (marked in blue). This small rural road will be closed to vehicles, allowing for a quiet, safer route for people to walk and cycle between Stanton St John and Oxford. Motor vehicles can still travel unhindered around the area by using other nearby roads (marked in red).

Mark McIntyre@markjmcintyre· Jun 10

View of the canal, facing the other way (complete with guest appearance from my thumb).

A sun soaked Spilsluizen canal in Groningen. People lounge in the sun on a newly renovated canal bank, with tiered decking, new cobbled paving and trees. A canal boat is parked in the background and my thumb leers ominously into shot from the left.

Mark McIntyre@markjmcintyre· Jun 10

Corner of the canal at Tursingel, just on the edge of Groningen city centre. Before (2015) & now (2026)

Google Streetview image of Tursingel, on the northeast corner of Groningen's city centre perimeter canal. Taken in 2015, it shows a road, a petrol station, and not much more.

Photo I took at the same location in June 2026, showing the same location utterly changed: grass instead of tarmac, benches, an outrageous amount of planting, with people sitting and relaxing by the canal as the sun begins to set.

Mark McIntyre@markjmcintyre· Jun 10

Woonerf on the edge of Groningen city centre.