What’s New? Winter, 2025/26

I deeply apologize for being offline during the past several months. When life gets busy, you have to put the hobbies aside sometimes.

In this post, I’ll highlight recent blog posts & website updates.

What you’ll find here:

Recent Vacations

In 2025, I was able to embark on not one, but two separate vacations!
The first was during the month of March, where I was able to visit Washington, D.C. & New York City. My visit to the former was my first in nearly 30 years, while my visit to the latter was my first since May of 2017.
During this adventure, I had the opportunity to venture out on several transit systems – including WMATA in D.C. & the MTA in New York City.

The second venture was out to Chicago & portions of Michigan (Kalamazoo, Grand Rapids, Mackinaw City, & the upper peninsula), with a brief stop in Milwaukee. This vacation would mark the third time that I visited both Chicago & Grand Rapids, but the first for Kalamazoo, Mackinaw City, Mackinac Island, Milwaukee, & other points along the way.
Additionally, the height of the fall foliage (changing of leaf colors) was underway throughout the state of Michigan, which allowed me to capture some cool scenery!

During my midwest journey, I got to ride across the CTA, Metra, & Pace systems in Chicago, as well as The Rapid in Grand Rapids. I also was able to get a glimpse of the MCTS bus system & The Hop Streetcar in downtown Milwaukee. In total, I was able to witness vehicles across 24 different transit properties, while hopping aboard 14 of them (not including Amtrak services). Being able to see all of these systems, as well as ride many of them in the process, has further strengthened my interest in public transportation.

Both of these trips also marked a few other firsts – transportation-wise: I took not one, but two long-distance Amtrak train rides (my first time ever), as well as my first ride on the Amtrak Northeast Regional service & my first ride on one of the Amtrak Midwest services (the Wolverine).
In total, I’ve now ridden one Amtrak long-distance route (the Floridian), the Amtrak Northeast Regional service, & two state-supported Amtrak regional services (the Wolverine & the Capitol Corridor).

Note: I rode the Amtrak Capitol Corridor service in September of 2024.

What systems did I get to observe & ride during both of these vacations?

I’ll be more than happy to summarize! More detailed postings about both of these vacations will be made in the distant future through my Journeys Afar series.

Note: The orientation of this section will appear out of order on mobile devices.

Key:

Blue – Illinois
Green – Washington, D.C. Metro Region
Navy – New York City Metro Region
Includes New Jersey
Olive – Michigan
Red – Wisconsin
Teal – North Carolina

A *Silver Line* BRT Lite bus in Grand Rapids, MI

Transit systems observed & used:

Alexandria Transit Company (d.b.a. DASH)
Alexandria, VA
Arlington Transit (ART)
Arlington County, VA
Chicago Transit Authority (CTA)
Chicago Metro Region, IL
Fairfax Connector
Fairfax County, VA
Maryland Department of Transportation’s commuter rail division (d.b.a. Maryland Area Rail Commuter, or MARC)
State of Maryland
Metra
Chicago Metro Region, IL
Metropolitan Transportation Authority of New York (NY MTA)
New York City, NY
Montgomery County Department of Transportation’s transit division (d.b.a. Ride On)
Montgomery County, MD
New Jersey Transit Corporation (NJ Transit, or NJT)
State of New Jersey
Pace Suburban Bus
Chicago Metro Region, IL
Port Authority Trans-Hudson (PATH)
New Jersey & New York
The Interurban Transit Partnership (d.b.a. The Rapid)
Grand Rapids, MI
Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA)
Washington D.C. Metro Region
Westchester County Bee-Line
Westchester County, NY

HARTride 2012’s Transit Journeys Map

The map has been updated with the additional transit agencies listed, along with the accompanying list.

What was my favorite part of these trips?

It’s really hard to say at this point because there were many memorable moments throughout both trips. However, I’ll say that seeing the fall foliage while driving through Michigan was one of my favorites.

Transit systems observed (only):

Crawford County Transportation Authority (CCTA)
Grayling, MI
CTtransit
State of Connecticut
Go Cary
Cary, NC
Kalamazoo Metro
Kalamazoo, MI
Loudoun County Transit
Loudoun County, VA
Milwaukee County Transit System (MCTS)
Milwaukee County, WI
Nassau Inter-County Express (NICE bus)
Nassau County, NY
Potomac and Rappahannock Transportation Commission (d.b.a. Omni Ride)
Washington D.C. Metro Region
Shoreline Metro
Sheboygan, WI
The Hop Streetcar
Milwaukee, WI

Amtrak services used:

Floridian (Amtrak long-distance)
Tampa to Washington, D.C. (March, 2025)
Tampa to Chicago (October, 2025)
Northeast Regional (Amtrak Northeast Corridor)
Washington, D.C. to Newark, NJ
Wolverine (Amtrak Midwest state-supported)
Chicago to Kalamazoo
Amtrak Thruway Connection Bus
Kalamazoo to Grand Rapids
Operated by Indian Trails

Rental car segments:

Unfortunately, visiting some areas during my October trip were either not possible or too difficult to achieve via public transit routes or intercity transportation modes. Therefore, two portions of my trip involved me renting a car.

10/18 – 10/19/25: Grand Rapids (outer northwest area) & Muskegon.
10/23 – 10/24/25: Grand Rapids to Mackinaw City, then to Chicago via the Upper Michigan Peninsula & Milwaukee, WI.

PSTA Network Redesign

The Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority (PSTA) officially launched its Connected Community Bus Network system redesign on Sunday, October 26, 2025. The redesigned system allows for more streamlined bus service across the entire week while introducing a new premium rapid bus service – the Spark. Details are included in my CCBN blog post series – with a route-by-route breakdown of the changes coming soon!

New PSTA Website Launches

While the GTG website has been getting some much needed updates, the PSTA website has received its own overhaul – designed to make it easier for customers to locate system information more easily. The new site is optimized to display properly on any device type.

At this time, I am not sure if I will have a separate blog post that discusses the new website in further detail.

Website Updates

Speaking of which, here’s a brief rundown of the updates I’ve been making to the GTG website. The following Transport pages received major updates:

Hillsborough Transit Authority
(d.b.a. HART)
Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority
(PSTA)

Central Florida Regional Transportation Authority
(d.b.a. LYNX)
The Interurban Partnership
(d.b.a The Rapid)

Updates to the above pages include updated route lists, fleet information, & fares.

The most radical changes were made to the PSTA subsection, where I not only updated a ton of information, but also reconfigured the orientation of the routes list. Once I’m content with how the subsection looks, I may end up incorporating at least some of the changes to the HART & LYNX subsections in the near future, followed by other subsections as they come along.

Fictional Communities by HARTride 2012

AI Image – Created by HARTride 2012 – Created with Microsoft 365 Copilot.

For a while now, I’ve been wanting to better showcase a couple of my fictional cities & communities on the GTG website, but just haven’t had the motivation to do so. However, with the advent of generative A.I., I’ve been experimenting more with how some of my fictional creations would look like in a more real-life setting. For this purpose, I’ve created a whole new section dedicated to discussing about these fictional communities & how they’re structured. Go check it out!

Well, that’s all for now! I’ll try to post more updates as they come along. For the most part though, these update posts will be done roughly every month to every quarter – depending on how many major updates I make & what content do I want to cover in each post. Until next time, have a great day & Happy 2026!