Unfortunately, it transpires that “The Great Horse Manure Crisis of 1894” is an urban myth. The story was that someone had written to The Times of London that year predicting that every street in the capital would be buried under nine feet of manure within 50 years if something wasn’t done about the pooping horses that transported goods and people around the city. But what is true is that there were, according to the London Transport Museum, some 300,000 such animals in London in the late 1890s. And yes, they left a lot of manure in their wakes. Oh and regularly dropped dead on the streets.

It’s a useful image to mentally hold when people harumph about the number of share bikes on our streets. London has about 55,000 and they cause daily debate as riders discard them willy-nilly on pavements. As someone who uses every form of urban transport, I understand the disdain in which e-bikers are held (especially when I’m doing my best to sympathise with an irked taxi driver). But I also know how they unlock the city in miraculous ways. A 40-minute Tube journey swapped for 20 minutes of pedal pushing on a pleasant day? Bliss.

So, while there are splutters and missteps, for every tale of e-bike armageddon or how in the 1950s flying on a plane was a moment of unbridled glamour, actually great democratic steps are being taken around the world when it comes to mobility – and, thank goodness, none of them involve shovelling dung.

To capture some of the changes at play, each year we compile a survey of best-in-class operators and innovators, plus some of the challenges on the road ahead. This time we get you on board the Shinkansen’s new supreme class in Japan, nip through Nairobi’s traffic on an electric motorbike and hear what the rise of Chinese automakers means for the once-untouchable soft-power influence of Germany’s car marques.

This issue is also our autumn Design Special, with a couple of star commissions from our newly elevated Nic Monisse – he has gone from design editor to executive editor (design), gaining some nicely crafted brackets and a dollop of extra gravitas. Fancy job titles aside, Monisse has commissioned a fine essay from our design correspondent, Stella Roos, about a 1947 competition by Moma in New York to find the standard for inexpensive furniture and kick-start the postwar American design scene. It’s fascinating how many now-classic designs were generated by the competition but Roos also asks whether today, when you can buy a new sofa for a couple of hundred pounds, we have too much affordable design.

Monisse has also been busy cajoling 10 designers and architects to take us to a building that has shaped their practice and outlook. Theaster Gates takes us to an electrical substation in Chicago, while we join Joana Abreu at her father’s office in Abu Dhabi. I wonder what shaped me? Perhaps growing up in a 1960s home has left me always feeling at ease around modernism and as a fan of a straight, clean line and plentiful light.

Finally, there’s our Expo. This is Monocle issue 198 and I’m delighted that, as we approach our 20th “birthday”, our founding promise to always innovate in print still burns bright. This month, we have doubled the length of the Expo section for the first time to allow Thomas Prior’s photographic profile of the Tokyo Fire Department to blast across the pages like a gallery exhibition. This is why magazines continue to remain such powerful cultural plays. It’s also why we love making Monocle.

If you would like to send me ideas, thoughts or style tips, I can always be found at at [email protected]

With next week’s midterm elections approaching in the US, Republican senator for Maine Susan Collins and Donald Trump are locked in an intriguing dance. Collins openly criticises the president’s decisions and he responds with policies to help her get re-elected. For a president who famously demands absolute loyalty and punishes dissent, he is surprisingly tolerant of criticism from the 73-year-old, five-term senator.

Fiercely independent Maine is a special case. It is solidly blue: the last Republican president it voted for was George H W Bush in 1988 and its two representatives are Democrats. Maine has two senators: one is an Independent who caucuses with the Democrats and the other is Republican Collins, who has held her seat since 1997. During almost three decades in Congress, she has gained great influence in the corridors of power and sits on the powerful Senate appropriations committee that oversees federal spending. As the Democratic Party tries to flip at least four Senate seats to regain control of the upper house, the state will be home to one of the most closely watched races this election.

According to conventional wisdom, Trump’s abysmal approval ratings – which are plummeting to historic lows as his unpopular war with Iran hikes up the cost of living – mean that his party will be punished with a rout in the midterms. But in Jackman, along the Canadian border, Mainers offer a word of caution. Predominantly a logging town, Jackman has fallen on hard times as the industry has suffered setbacks over the years, now compounded by tariffs and the soaring cost of diesel. “We don’t really fall for smoke and mirrors up here,” says chef Jason Shaw, who works at one of a handful of restaurants still in business. “We’re probably in the hardest economic area that there is, so we read the bottom line. We don’t really get caught up in the big political mess.”

In theory, people such as Shaw should be holding the Republicans responsible for their woes and flocking to Collins’s Democratic challenger, Troy Jackson. A fifth-generation logger from Allagash – a similar rural community close to the Maine-Quebec border – Jackson portrays himself as a quintessential working-class Mainer. He campaigns in worn-out denim and faded baseball caps, and speaks in his thick north Maine accent about his hardscrabble childhood.

It would be easy to assume that Jackson has it in the bag, especially since Trump’s trade war with Canada disproportionately affects US states along its border. Mainers who work in key industries such as logging and fishing are struggling to stay afloat with the cost of diesel, which has risen by about 75 per cent since the war in Iran began. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) operations in Maine are also deeply unpopular: a Colombian man was killed by an Ice officer in July.

But Collins has a track record of winning. From the logging forests to the fishing piers dotted along the coast, there are few industries in Maine that have not directly benefitted from her interventions. “They can point fingers all they want but she’s got a 30-year record and the most votes ever in a row by a senator – just go with that alone,” says lobster boat captain Rick Moody.

Troy Jackson’s campaign is struggling to undercut the perception of Collins as a centrist, bipartisan politician who is standing up for Mainers’ best interests in Washington. But one number kept coming up among Jackson’s supporters: 96 per cent, which they say is the rate at which Collins votes in line with Trump.

Collins keeps hitting back and, in recent debates, has criticised everything from Trump’s war with Iran to the Ice operations in the state. Trump, who knows how important the Maine race is, has responded not with his usual huffy hurt feelings but by announcing plans to lift tariffs on some Canadian goods. Republicans are doing all they can to push Collins over the line and keep the seat out of Democratic hands.

With just a week to go, polls show that the candidates are neck and neck. Some polls give Jackson a slim lead but, in 2020, Collins was also polling behind. While Joe Biden won Maine by nine percentage points that year, Collins beat her Democratic opponent by the same margin. Mainers might still have a few more surprises up their sleeves – and Democrats taking a win there for granted do so at their own peril.

On a wet autumn morning in Tokyo, four firefighters in hazmat suits are trying to pull an unconscious person from a basement room that’s filled with poisonous gas. They only have 15 minutes before the oxygen tanks on their backs run out. Despite their ungainly attire, they move with precision. One firefighter patches the leaking pipe while the other three strap the slumped figure on the floor into a stretcher. Within 10 minutes, they have all climbed up two flights of stairs and are back outside. Thankfully, this is just a training exercise. But the next bit isn’t. An alert comes buzzing over the PA system and the firefighters freeze. A man has sprayed an unknown substance over teachers at a school in Higashiyamato city. At least two people are injured. “This is not a drill,” Tokyo Fire Department (TFD) official Yuto Azuma tells Monocle.

A dozen firefighters load up three vans with hazmat suits, oxygen masks and tanks, testing kits and gauges. Seconds later they speed away, sirens blaring. All are members of Hyper Rescue 8 (8HR), one of five TFD teams that are called upon in the most serious emergencies. The units were formed in 1996 after a 7.3-magnitude earthquake levelled Kobe, killing more than 6,400 people and injuring almost 43,800 others. Terrorist attacks, chemical fires, toxic spills, nuclear meltdowns, landslides and volcanic eruptions all fall within their purview. When Monocle meets 8HR at its base in Takichawa, on the outskirts of Tokyo, the team has just returned from weeks spent battling wildfires in Iwate prefecture on the northern tip of Honshu, Japan’s largest island.

With 18,800 personnel, the TFD is the world’s largest fire brigade, responsible for safeguarding a megalopolis of 14 million residents and millions of daily visitors. Its ¥310bn (€1.7bn) annual budget helps to maintain a fleet of 2,000 special-purpose trucks, off-road vehicles, ambulances, boats, cranes, motorcycles, helicopters, amphibious vehicles, drones and robots. Though, in some respects, Japan’s capital has never been safer, climate change has increased the frequency of extreme-weather incidents including heatwaves, typhoons and torrential rain. In April the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) began to use the term kokushobi, which means “brutally hot day”, for when temperatures soar to 40C or higher. (For Tokyo, the all-time high was 40.8C in 2018.) Rising temperatures have resulted in more fires. In 2024 the TFD mobilised for more than 4,500 fires, the highest number in a decade. Paramedics were also the busiest that they had ever been, with ambulances dispatched 935,373 times – about once every 34 seconds. TFD’s ambulances have seen a surge of calls for heatstroke cases and have had to reassess their training guidelines since 2017, when a paramedic died of heatstroke following a summertime drill.

Firefighters and medics have just arrived for their shift at the Ikebukuro Fire Station, one of 81 stations and 200 substations in the metropolitan area. After daily calisthenics come vehicle inspections. Every working part of the gleaming machines is checked: engines are revved, brakes are slammed, sirens are sounded and water-pump switches are flipped. Next, all of the firefighters’ gear is laid out on the garage floor: coats, trousers, boots, gloves, helmets, oxygen masks, stretchers, hoses and defibrillators. At dusk, the whole process will be repeated. “We try to leave here within a minute of the alarm sounding,” says Toru Hishinuma, who heads Ikebukuro’s fire investigations. “Everything has to be ready to go because every second counts.”

From the rear of a water-pump truck, firefighters lower a two-wheeled cart laden with hoses. The Ikebukuro district has one of Tokyo’s busiest railway stations, which links the city centre and suburbs to the north and west. Around it, hotels, department stores, theatres and restaurants pack the labyrinthine streets, many of which are too narrow for fire engines. “If we can’t get the trucks close enough to a fire, we use the carts to move extra hoses,” says Hishinuma. Nearby, firefighters and a paramedic are huddling around several maps. These drivers keep binders of them to memorise the fastest routes to any address within 6 sq km of the station. “On our days off, we go out and wander the streets,” says Shoki Yamada, who drives one of the station’s two water-pump trucks. “I know which streets my truck can and can’t pass through, and which corners are too tight to get around.”

Tokyo has had fire brigades since the Tokugawa shogunate established the city (then called Edo) as its seat of power in the early 17th century. The modern TFD began as a single fire station with 12 firefighters and a Leyland fire engine in 1923, near what is now Tokyo Central Station. The capital has since been ravaged by fires twice: after the Great Kanto Earthquake in 1923 and during the Allied firebombing raids at the end of the Second World War, which destroyed almost 60 per cent of the city’s buildings. Tokyo’s wartime experience led to strict building codes and zoning regulations, which included street-widening initiatives and regular inspections for fire-safety violations. Around this time, the Shobodan – a volunteer corps of 26,600 civilian firefighters – was also formally established.

The TFD’s new recruits are young and hail from across the country. “Most people seem to recognise how demanding it is to be a firefighter, working 24-hour shifts and putting your life on the line to save others,” says Ryosuke Tomoguchi, a 37-year-old former Tokyo firefighter who runs Tosho Juku, a cram school for those studying to become one. After six months of training, recruits are assigned to a station. Here, they work one day on, two days off. At the Ikebukuro Fire Station in the city’s northwest, firefighters are on call from 08.30 until 08.40 the following morning and spend the night at the station. During the day, they drill in a half-completed structure behind the building – spraying from trucks, scaling walls with ladders and carrying dummies. Every few weeks, teams participate in night-time sessions that test their skills in the dark.

Ayuna Shimohara, who is one of Ikebukuro’s five female firefighters, is put through daily drills that are aimed at reinforcing the basics, such as putting on oxygen masks, connecting hoses and extending ladders. “The drills test your stamina and physical fitness,” says the 24-year-old. Both attributes are crucial, as is adamantine mettle.

Shortly after Genta Saito joined in 2021, he was dispatched to the scene of a gas explosion at a restaurant. “Our team leader warned us that there might still be gas in the air and a chance of another explosion,” says the baby-faced 27-year-old. “I was so scared that I was shaking.” Masatoshi Komatsu’s most terrifying experience sounds like a firefighting cliché. “Years ago I had to save a kitten that a dog had chased into a tree,” says the 51-year-old driver. Komatsu stood fully outstretched on the top rung of a three-piece extension ladder. “I was so afraid that I would fall.”

The physical demands of training, long hours and lure of higher pay in the private sector lead many TFD firefighters to leave the job before retirement. The average length of service is 16 years and some who stay become instructors at the Honjo Life Safety Learning Centre, in Tokyo’s Sumida ward. One of three that the Tokyo Fire Department operates, the centre opened in 1995 as a free, interactive disaster-simulation theme park for the public to learn about fires, floods, storms and earthquakes. On a weekday, preschoolers push on a door that floodwater is pressing shut from the other side, while a dozen college students take turns duckwalking through a room filled with (harmless) smoke.

In the earthquake room, Monocle and three PR officials are curled up on the floor. A moment later, the ground is bucking violently. “When there’s a big earthquake, you can only think about protecting yourself,” shouts Shinji Kitamura, the centre’s deputy head and a retired firefighter. “You won’t be able to do anything else.” We put on coats and boots to enter a room where we get lashed by wind and rain. “If it’s pouring and you can’t see what’s in front of you, then you shouldn’t be outside,” he says. Kitamura once saw a police officer on a flooded street fall into an open manhole. From simulated disasters, he explains, people learn how to reduce the chances of injury and property damage.

But there’s only so much that the public can prepare for and that an ordinary fire brigade can do. Which is why 8HR exists. It is the only elite squad that can deal with major earthquakes as well as nuclear, biological and chemical disasters. It has machinery capable of digging for survivors in a house buried in a landslide and souped-up trucks to shoot fire-retardant foam at, for example, a burning tyre factory. The unit led the emergency response to the nuclear-reactor meltdowns at Fukushima Daiichi power plant in 2011 (Japan’s worst nuclear accident) and the 2014 eruption of Mount Ontake on the border of Nagano and Gifu prefectures.

Today’s school attack in Higashiyamato turns out to be less severe than feared: the substance was just pepper spray. The reality is that 8HR rarely sees much serious action. Its members spend the time between drills and callouts testing new equipment. Ryo Yokota, a 36-year-old paramedic, is showing off a dog-like robot. He uses a monitor and video-game controller to get it to pick up objects with a claw. One day the robot could be the eyes and ears of rescuers searching through rubble for earthquake survivors. Across the yard, another team is lowering one of its members upside-down by rope from a balcony to a mat below. “Tokyo has a lot of narrow wells,” says Keita Morikawa, the team’s 41-year-old leader. “This is what we would do to save someone who had fallen into one.” As we watch, Captain Mitsuaki Kobayashi, 8HR’s second in command, leans over. “We must be prepared to deal with anything.”

On the shores of Miami’s South Beach is a hotel with two names. It’s ostensibly called The Tony Hotel, after historic preservationist Tony Goldman. That is what’s on its notepads, website and door. But a neon-lit tower above its façade bears the name Tiffany.

You can thank the Miami Design Preservation League (MDPL) for the appellation pile-up: the non-profit organisation insisted that the 1939 Tiffany sign be preserved, even though the operation of the original hotel was stymied after a lawsuit by jewellers Tiffany & Co. It was one of the neighbourhood’s art deco icons in an area defined by its finned signs, angular fonts and sills that sit above windows like curious eyebrows. Its survival was “a particularly memorable victory” for historical preservation, says Meg Lousteau, the executive director of the MDPL – a reminder of how signage can “become part of a building and part of the city’s identity, even when the business changes”.

South Beach has seen a flurry of luxury development. The Shelborne became The Shelborne by Proper in May 2025; the 1936 Ocean Spray Hotel reopened as Le Particulier in November 2025 after restoration; and the Delano threw open its doors in May after a six-year, $100m (€89.3m) renovation. In August, the 348-room W Hotel closed with plans to reopen under a new operator, Waldorf Astoria, in winter 2027.

All have preserved and restored their original signage – though the Shelborne’s neon lighting has been tweaked from the original in order to comply with turtle-protection legislation. (Bright seafront lights can disorient hatchlings on their first journeys to the sea.) The MDPL has been championing the preservation of this stretch of the city since 1976. Today about 70 per cent of buildings in Miami Beach are considered “historic” or contributing to the area’s history. Lousteau says that keeping them that way is essential. “Once historic context is lost, it cannot be recreated.”
mdpl.org

Born in Barcelona and raised in Geneva, Marc Grebler studied finance in the UK before deciding to take his career off-road. Back in Spain, he turned his boyhood passion for four-wheel-drive vehicles into a small family business that restores, customises and modernises Land Rover Defenders.

“My grandfather on my mother’s side had a workshop just outside Barcelona that specialised in servicing Saabs,” says Grebler. “But Saab stopped making cars in 2015. Shortly afterwards, my grandfather died and there wasn’t much for the mechanics to do.” After a period of inactivity at the workshop, he approached his aunt, who had been running the business for her father, and suggested trying something new.

“I was always a car fan and fell in love with Land Rover Defenders in my teens,” he says. “At the time, you could pick them up for very little in Spain. My idea was to renovate Defenders in my grandfather’s workshop. I was still at university and the family thought that I was crazy, so we decided to start with one vehicle. When it sold, we began to see the idea’s potential and Costa Motor found its second wind.”

Then the coronavirus pandemic hit. Though Grebler initially saw this as a setback for the company, it allowed him to spend more time in Spain with his aunt and the cars. Plus, the period had an unexpected bonus. “There was an explosion of interest in Defenders during that time,” he says. “People were buying them, painting them and selling them on for two or three times what they had paid. But we decided to double down on quality. That’s how you build trust and a loyal customer base.”

Costa Motor’s clients are predominantly wealthy European car enthusiasts who appreciate Grebler’s personal approach. No two builds are the same and the process begins with a personal consultation. “First, I ask them what they want it for,” he says. “Do they have children? Dogs? Will they drive it in the city? Is it going to Mallorca? Will they head to the beach every weekend?” Once Grebler understands his clients’ intentions, he can build the concept and source an original Defender shell. The finished models typically sell for about €160,000, plus tax.

“If it’s a businessman who wants a fun car for his holiday home in the Med, we recommend technical upholstery,” says Grebler. “He can jump in wearing a wet swimsuit, his kids can spill drinks in the back and everything is easy to clean. Someone else might want a 200TDI because that’s what his father drove. He’s looking for authenticity. For him, we recommend real leather that will age beautifully over time. It starts with a conversation.”

Grebler restricts Costa Motor’s workload to no more than 12 projects a year. A team of craftspeople – including mechanics, leatherworkers and paint specialists – spends an average of 900 hours on each car. The approach is uniquely Iberian. “They’re incredibly committed,” he says. “Most of them have families so we have found a rhythm that works for everyone. We start at 07.00, work until 10.00, then there’s a pause for breakfast. After that, they work straight through until 15.00, then head home. There’s a flexibility in Spain that you don’t find everywhere.”

As well as Grebler’s hands-on approach, what sets Costa Motor apart is its focus on materials. Leather is a key element for Grebler. “You can have the most incredible engine in the world but if the leather feels cheap, the whole experience is ruined,” he says. “We’re obsessed with how the car feels. Everything your hands touch should feel substantial. We replace plastic with aluminium wherever we can. We cover surfaces in leather. We want to keep the original character of the Defender but give it a premium feel.”

This approach extends beyond materiality. Costa Motor recently delivered a Defender 90 to a client who loves his dog so much that the team incorporated its likeness alongside the company’s wolf logo throughout the interior. Once the cars are finished, they will be sent to their new owners; so far, their destinations have included Saint-Tropez, Verbier, Andorra and Comporta.

So, with Costa Motor’s order book full until well into 2027, what’s next for the company? “I would like us to become less dependent on Defenders,” says Grebler. “We’re finally at a stage where we have almost a year’s worth of work, which gives us peace of mind. There are so many possibilities. What I really want is for a client to come to me and say, ‘I loved what you did with my Defender. I also have a Porsche 911. Can we do something equally special with it?’ That would be the dream.”
costa-motor.com

The global car market is in the midst of a huge upheaval. Chinese electric-vehicle (EV) manufacturers have eaten away at the sales of established Western brands to the point that giants including Volkswagen are laying off tens of thousands of workers. The EU has responded by raising import duties, relaxing its climate commitments and even threatening to exclude Chinese companies from the bloc entirely – which the US has already done. So where does that leave smaller legacy European brands such as Volvo, whose position is further complicated by the fact that it has been majority-owned by Chinese automotive group Geely (which also owns EV brands Zeekr and Lynk & Co) since 2010?

The Gothenburg-based company celebrates its 100th anniversary next year and is planning to launch an unprecedented 13 new models to celebrate. “When you sit in a car like this, you realise the strength in having a design heritage,” says its chief design officer, Thomas Ingenlath, as he prepares to weave a bright-orange 1975 Volvo 242DL through the Gothenburg traffic. “Developing a brand in an evolutionary way is totally different from starting with a blank page.” The 62-year-old German has done both – as the CEO of Geely stablemate Polestar and, prior to that, as the vice-president of design at Volvo, where he returned this year. His job now is to evoke the brand’s history without resorting to retro; ensure the survival of a European brand within a Chinese group, while competing with other companies both within and without it; and continue the transition to electric at a time when European efforts appear to be stalling. Volvo once pledged to be all-electric by 2030. Now it hopes to be “over 90 per cent”.

Ingenlath has returned to Volvo at the same time as its CEO, Håkan Samuelsson. Is this the car world’s equivalent of the Oasis reunion? “Hmm, not so many arguments,” he says with a laugh. They are certainly reuniting at an interesting moment. Chinese companies enjoy highly beneficial conditions in terms of government support, environmental frameworks and labour rules. Ingenlath points out that there were the same kinds of accusations when Japanese cars arrived in Europe in the 1970s. “But the competition has to be fair,” he adds.

Monocle meets the man responsible for some of the most elegantly proportioned cars of recent decades, epitomised by his 2013 Volvo Coupe Concept, at his favourite coffee shop in central Gothenburg. The plan is to take a drive out of the city, before ending up at a “top-secret” warehouse used to store 300 cars from every era of Volvo’s history. Do car buyers even care about brands any more? “My children are still very aware of brands – in luxury goods, in fashion and also in cars,” he says. “It is not some shallow advertising thing. It is about the values that you deliver.”

Ingenlath cites brands such as Rolex and Louis Vuitton that excel at adding value through design. “We have to go premium,” he says. “We made that jump in perception with the XC90 12 years ago. In Sweden, there is still an attitude that a Volvo is a car of the people but in America the XC90 made it a prestige brand. That’s what we have to do to survive. Now, we have to go more and more to electric cars.” The challenge here is that EV technology has also affected a key element of a car’s appearance. “They don’t require as much cooling so everyone has decided that they don’t need a grille. That means you lose the ‘face’ of the car.” Ingenlath can’t divulge too much about Volvo’s near-future but a new face will be revealed next year to mark the centenary.

We are now heading out towards the Kattegat Coast, close to where Ingenlath and his family have lived for 14 years. “Gothenburg is great because you can be out in nature in just a few minutes but it’s still a big industrial city,” he says. He spent last year commuting to Geely’s design centre in Shanghai, which he still visits every three weeks or so. Geely’s long-term position as majority shareholder might make Volvo seem like a Chinese Trojan horse but Gothenburg still produces more cars than any other Volvo plant. And though they benefit from parent-company technology, the technological traffic goes two ways. “Geely has a big safety centre in China, which is inspired by the safety centre that we have here,” he says.

In Ingenlath’s homeland, Volkswagen’s crisis is highly political. Things are different in Sweden. “The tradition here is not to interfere,” he says as we head back into the city. “An industry needs to be strong enough to survive on its own.” Soon, we’re not far from the Volvo plant, which has the capacity to produce 300,000 cars a year of the company’s annual production of some 700,000 cars.

Most of the cars that Monocle sees in Gothenburg seem to be Volvos and we half-expect the traffic to part for our highly visible icon – but we have to wait our turn at junctions. Arriving at the secret warehouse, we find 300 or so cars from the past 100 years: production models, show cars and competition heroes. It’s a fitting place to end a discussion about the brand’s values and future. “We have to fight for our existence,” says Ingenlath. “We need to deliver history and culture. This is a 100-year-old company with incredible values. I would love that to continue in the next century.”

From the window of the 08.19 to Fujairah, Monocle watches a man run the length of the platform at Abu Dhabi’s Mohamed bin Zayed City Passenger Train Station, a cup of coffee in hand. The coffee isn’t remarkable but a dash for an intercity train is – at least, here in the Gulf. People in the region are so accustomed to the freedom of driving that a railway timetable is an unfamiliar consideration.

On board, impeccably uniformed hostesses welcome us with more coffee and chocolates. The UAE knows how to make travel feel like an occasion. The challenge for Etihad Rail, which began running trains across a hugely expanded network this summer, is to make rail travel feel routine. In June passenger services started connecting Abu Dhabi and Fujairah using an existing 900km freight network. The trains, capable of reaching 200km/h, make the journey in 111 minutes. Dubai and Al Dhaid joined the line at the end of September, with the centrepiece trip from Dubai to Abu Dhabi taking about an hour.

These changes – linking the country’s two principal economic centres and allowing travellers to avoid the car-clogged Sheikh Zayed Road – could revolutionise how people get around. Inside Monocle’s carriage, most of the passengers are Khaleeji (from the Gulf). They read the Qur’an or scroll through the news on their phones as apartment blocks give way to pylons and scrub. A trolley brings tea and spiced milk tea. As we approach Fujairah, many gaze out the windows at the changing scenery.

For residents, the railway could be transformative. A reliable service would make taking a job in another emirate far easier and give greater independence to those who don’t drive. Any reduction in car traffic would also benefit those who never even board a train.

“Every great piece of national infrastructure has two beginnings: the day it’s built and the day people begin making it their own,” Azza Al Suwaidi, Etihad Rail’s COO, tells Monocle. Early ticket sales have been encouraging – 150,000 were bought by mid-September – but it remains to be seen how many regular drivers change their habits. Monocle’s journey suggests that the experience needs some tweaks. There’s a persistent rumble from the carriage floor and the wi-fi is patchy. Passengers bound for Dubai or Abu Dhabi’s main station also have to carefully plan a trip at either end (see box). On our visit, the board at Mohamed bin Zayed City Passenger Train Station lists just three Fujairah departures across the day. Comfort-class trips between Abu Dhabi and Dubai are reasonably priced at AED39 (€9.5) but if repeated daily, with taxi fares on top, the calculation changes.

The network will become more useful after the planned openings in Liwa and Madinat Zayed in November, plus three more in Al Dhafra in December and Sharjah’s University City in March 2027. Hafeet Rail is building a connection to Oman too. And a separate, fully electrified high-speed line is expected to bring Dubai and Abu Dhabi within 30 minutes of each other at speeds of up to 350km/h.

Approaching Abu Dhabi on our return, we spot some passengers touching up their make-up – something that they couldn’t do if they were driving. This is the sort of simple perk that could make the railway indispensable in the UAE.

It’s 07.00 and Monocle is following Alain Lambert on a cargo bike along Paris’s Canal Saint-Martin as he makes his daily dog-park-hopping circuit. The founder of Le Chien du Citoyen (The Citizen’s Dog) has been teaching Parisians the etiquette of dog ownership since 1999. He’s currently supported by the French capital’s town hall and Maison de l’Animal en Ville, a municipal resource that promotes the coexistence of animals and humans in urban spaces.

Le Chien du Citoyen’s name neatly captures Lambert’s philosophy: dog ownership in Paris is not only a private matter but also one of civic responsibility. Lambert has dedicated himself to navigating a very real problem: how do two million residents and about 100,000 dogs share this congested landscape? An off-leash dog, an owner distracted by their phone or a small “present” left on the pavement can quickly escalate into a dispute.

“The problem with Paris is density,” says Lambert. “Whoever the mayor is, left or right, it’s always the same challenge.” He has become the town hall’s endorsed voice on canine concerns, with a team of pet-psychology specialists supporting his work behind the scenes. Today, Lambert wears a fluorescent yellow vest as he pedals ahead of Monocle. “Hideous,” he admits – but it’s somehow fitting attire for a man who’s more concerned with the mechanics of his role than looking stylish. Two dogs in his care for the day, Hermès and Igor, ride in his bike basket.

Lambert talks Monocle through his route. First up: Parc de la Villette, where Lambert also leads dog-training workshops, and Parc des Buttes-Chaumont, where bobos (bourgeois-bohemians) stroll with their mongrels. Towards Square Georges Cain and Square Nadar, the breeds become chicer: pomskies, labradoodles and cockapoos. At Parc Monceau and Jardin du Luxembourg, we meet pedigree dogs and their “rebellious bourgeois” owners who never put their pets on a lead. “The freedom of their dog comes first,” says Lambert, disapprovingly. “Doesn’t it bother you when he runs off like that?” he asks one owner. The next time that he sees her, he will bring it up again.

The clock strikes 12.00 as we meet the well-bred hunting dogs of the 16th arrondissement. The area might be wealthy, says Lambert, but that doesn’t necessarily translate into good manners. “Even more than 20 years after the motocrottes [the municipal scooters used to clean up dog mess] stopped operating, people still expect them to pick up after their dogs.” Today, one owner claims that they have run out of dog-mess bags. “Did you know that you can buy 1,000 for €10 on the internet?” replies Lambert.

He also collaborates with the town hall on the development of public canine spaces, advises owners on everything from vaccinations to where dogs can roam and visits schools and care centres to teach owners about living harmoniously alongside their pets. These workshops are funded by La Fondation Adrienne et Pierre Sommer, a non-profit that teaches domestic-animal ownership.

The new mayor of Paris put dogs at the centre of his election push, using a social-media campaign called “Hot Dogs with Emmanuel Grégoire” to share his canine policies, including extending access to parks for dogs on leads.

But solving the issues also requires someone on the ground. As Lambert puts it, “My job is to educate dog owners about respecting the rules of the city.”
chiencitoyen.com

Supermarket checkouts can be stressful. “You’re in a rush to pack your items and suddenly it’s time to pay, and the next person in line is breathing down your neck,” says Finnish shop manager Toni Pokela. “Nobody wants to be the one who creates a hold-up.”

Pokela runs K-Citymarket in Espoo’s Iso Omena shopping centre, one of the few places to offer respite from such anxieties. Above a till at the far end of the shop hangs a sign that says, “Älä hättaile” (Finnish dialect for “Don’t hurry”). Shoppers lining up beneath it are encouraged to take as much time as they need.

As cashier Karoliina Chinsan opens the slow line on a weekday morning, Monocle watches a steady stream of regulars steer their trolleys towards her till. The clientele is skewed towards seniors but also includes families on grocery runs. Many of them pay with cash. Chinsan is happy to pack bags, exchange pleasantries and wait patiently for anyone fumbling for their wallet. “It’s nice for the cashier too,” she says. “You have more time to help the customers.”

The shop introduced the slow till in 2011 after Pokela was approached by a team from Aalto University that was exploring ways to aid life for disabled people. Its launch generated bemusement and scepticism but, 15 years later, it remains a fixture in Pokela’s shop and the idea has been adopted by other K-Markets, as well as by Dutch supermarket chain Jumbo.

“It’s a philosophical choice, rather than a practical one,” says Piia Lehesmaa as she packs groceries alongside her husband. “There’s simply no need to always be in a hurry.”
k-ruoka.fi

On a lane in the town of Thalgau, a 25-minute drive from Salzburg, a group of runners whizzes by – then another and another. These elite athletes are students from Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo. Amid this backdrop of mountains, cow-dotted meadows and babbling brooks, they are a curious sight. On a nearby street is a community swap shop with a jumble of prams and children’s bicycles outside. Further down the road is an undertaker’s office; in the distance, a church spire.

But these trappings of a sleepy idyll belie the town’s growing reputation as a hub for high-performance training and sports. Behind the swap shop is the Red Bull Athlete Performance Center, one of the two outposts of its kind operated by the Austrian energy-drinks giant. What was once Europe’s biggest zinc-oxide factory, supplying materials for kitchen fixtures and crockery, is now a facility that offers training, physical therapy and diagnostics for athletes from across the globe.

It also hosts training camps, one of which Monocle has been invited to try out. Earlier this year, Red Bull launched a partnership with Aoyama Gakuin University to bring a top Hakone Ekiden relay marathon team to Austria for the first time. Contested between universities, the race is one of Japan’s largest annual sporting events; its next edition, on 2 and 3 January, is expected to attract 50 million live viewers. Day one starts in central Tokyo and ends in resort town Hakone. On day two, runners complete the route in reverse. Teams comprise 10 runners; instead of a baton, the university’s tasuki (sash) is passed from athlete to athlete.

Today the team is completing 2km laps. Monocle is given a choice: join on foot or e-bike. Given that even the slowest team member can cover that distance in about five minutes, Monocle chooses the bicycle.

This is the first time that an Ekiden team has attended a training camp of this scale outside Japan. Such is its importance that a journalist from Nippon Television, the broadcaster that will provide the live coverage in January, follows the athletes everywhere they go. For many of the 26 students, who are between the ages of 18 and 22, this is their first time abroad.

During the bus ride to training, a sign along the village road advertising Japanese Wagyu burgers elicits a cheer. The soundtrack in the athletes’ earbuds is dominated by Japanese artists such as rock band Mrs Green Apple. “There isn’t much awareness about Austrian customs or culture in Japan,” says coach Yuta Shimoda, as team member Kenta Torii shows Monocle his playlists. “There has been a lot of learning.” One of the biggest differences has been the food. “They miss rice,” says the team’s liaison from Red Bull Japan, who is also acting as our translator. “It shows today. They are usually even faster.” A nutrition station by the finish line has both rice cakes and Austrian pretzels.

After training, the sweaty teammates gather in a circle and sing songs by Japanese pop-rock band Sakanaction, before a final wind-down jog along the shores of Lake Fuschl, near the Red Bull headquarters. The hope is that such camaraderie will help the team to secure another win in January.
hakone-ekiden.jp