"When our government is not just apathetic but an aggressor against our communities,... we need to resist today by creating systems of community care that get people where they need to go right now, even in the most terrible storms." @keawilson.bsky.social usa.streetsblog.org/2026/02/02/s...

This pubbed a week ago while I was on vacation someplace warm (yes, I did pay someone to shovel my walk while I was gone), but wrote about why mutual aid is getting more important for street safety, especially as government gets more violent.

Fellow snowbelt folks: what is your number one tip for clearing a sidewalk of snow? Having a weirdly hard time finding a guide that's specifically geared towards plowing so pedestrians of all ability levels can move comfortably and thinking about compiling one of my own.

"And it would also ensure that taxpayers actually get some of the life-saving benefits they've been promised by transportation officials for decades – rather than seeing their money wasted on endless highway expansion projects that never seem to reduce congestion or cut deadly crashes."

Maybe someday, more politicians will give full-throated support to multimodal transportation policies because the climate emergency demands it. But until they do: *call it a safety policy.* Because it'll have the same emissions benefit either way.

ok so who's going to invite me, Kea Wilson, to moderate a panel featuring Portland mayor Keith Wilson and Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson, thereby unleashing Maximum Multimodal Wilson.

If you need a break from The Horrors, I dug into a wonky but super important bill that would make it possible to use transportation funds to build housing and other important destinations near transit, and why TOD deserves a lot more airtime in the conversation about building livable places.

On the most basic level, transportation reform advocates need to speak out about ICE violence because it is a barrier to movement for countless migrants, brown people, protestors, and anyone else who ICE targets. But there are deeper reasons why this is our issue, too. Explored a few on the pod.

On Saturday we ride for Alex Pretti 1:00pm at Washburn Fair Oaks Park From Angry Catfish: “We're asking folks to host rides and come together. Bike shops and non-profits, cycling orgs and alt cycling collectives, city and rural. We are many but we stand together as one.”

They will create a world so dangerous that you feel you have no choice except to drive a car, or own a gun, or flee a country that they violently destabilized. And they will use that car, that gun, that decision to seek asylum as an excuse to shoot and kill you.

I think it's pretty remarkable how, despite the trillions of dollars we've spent and the century of constant campaigning we've been subjected to in order convince us otherwise, some part of us *still knows* that car dependency is a terrible way to live, and most people still don't want it.

Does anyone know of any solid research around driving anxiety and how it impedes mobility/access? Ideally would love to look specifically about how this impacts people across different age groups, particularly seniors who can "still drive" on paper but functionally can't most of the time.

Fascinated by this report, which found that the average US city is delivering transit at a *fifth* of the level that our peers in other countries are — but closing the gap could be done, in our lifetimes, with a lot less money than it cost to build the highway system.

Extremely late to the party on Kim Stanley Robinson's excellent novel, Ministry for the Future, which did such a beautiful job of narrativizing both the dangers of and solutions to climate change, including the sector that we have the weakest collective imagination about (transportation.)

I want to be clear here that fascistic regimes don't really need a pretext to kill people who oppose them. But we make it a whole lot easier when we force everyone into a 4,000 pound vehicle that governments can credibly claim could be weaponized at any moment, or not, as suits their purposes.

Because someone in the comments asked about masculinity and car brain, I'm re-sharing this fun conversation I had with @keawilson.bsky.social at @usa.streetsblog.org usa.streetsblog.org/2023/04/11/h...

"...it's also important to remember the role that car dependency itself plays in our housing crisis, and how inextricably intertwined the two crises are." - @keawilson.bsky.social

"less opportunity for transportation access" in plain language means "you can't go places". Just like "less opportunity for food access" in plain language would mean "you don't have food".

This is the kind of sentence in articles about transit cuts that make me furious. People don't just "have less opportunity for transportation access." They are confined to their homes, miss work, skip school, forgo medical care. This drives people deeper into poverty, and often, *it kills them.*

So smart to rebrand the "Reconnecting Communities" program as "repairing" American infrastructure, by reimagining things like downtown highways as people-first places that can address housing shortages, create jobs, and more. This shouldn't be partisan; it's just good policy.

Not saying anyone should hack a variable messaging sign to send a message to drivers...but if you theoretically did, we came up with some punny suggestions that are perfect for the holidays.

Heading back from my grandmother's funeral, and want to say how much I appreciate Amtrak in times like this. An affordable last-minute ticket, a comfortable seat, some comfort food from the cafe car and unhurried trip with no TSA shakedown was exactly the rest I needed in a difficult time.

Stoked to have a new interview with Katie Wilson (no relation), Seattle's new mayor, Transit Riders Union co-founder, and living proof that bold vision for (and wonky obsession with) transportation reform can win elections.

"We've already got driverless trucks...That technology is gonna explode. We have to anticipate where that technology is taking us and put together a bill that addresses it." A technology that has exploded with limited federal support is shared micromobility - imagine if we supported it

RETVRN to traditional infrastructure.

It sucks that we have to write this same article over and over again every year, but I always appreciate it when larger media outlets do it, even if they never quite hit the most important point: that we won't solve this without confronting car dependency itself.

I was really proud to write an endorsement for @carterlavin.bsky.social's book, which is essential reading for anyone who wants to turn their theoretical love of stuff like biking, walking, buses, and mobility justice into political campaigns that actually change our world. Get a preview here. 👇

We stop this, in part, by having lots more folks organizing in their communities to support transit and pressing their Senators & House Reps. Want to learn how to do that organizing for free? Ask your local library to stock a copy of my new book and then borrow it islandpress.org/books/if-you...

The Trump administration wants to do two unbelievably dumb things that would collectively devastate mass transit in America — and be *epically bad for drivers, too,* especially in red states. Broke down the (many) problems with nuking the mass transit account and taking away flex funding.

Eavesdropping in a coffeeshop, and the guy at the table next to me is talking about how the most-watched videos in prison media rooms are walking tours of major cities, because even just the visual and sonic experience is therapeutic when you don't have freedom of movement. 💔

The highest-ranking transportation congressman is saying that biking & walking paths aren't "traditional infrastructure" and don't deserve funding in the next federal transportation bill. Broke down why that's historically inaccurate, morally wrong, and *possible to defeat* — if we organize.

Wrote about Waymo's co-CEO acknowledging that even she thinks traffic violence is inevitable, what's wrong with aiming for "fewer" road deaths rather than demanding zero, and the way automobility limits our imagination and our empathy.

Horrifying, heartbreaking, and something everyone who counts themselves as a member of the Safe Routes to School movement should absolutely be speaking out about.

"Frankly, it's the book the transportation reform movement has been waiting for." -- @keawilson.bsky.social , Senior Editor, @usa.streetsblog.org Check out the book and other reviews here www.amazon.com/You-Want-You... and via @islandpress.bsky.social at islandpress.org/books/if-you...

Thrilled that someone finally made a documentary about the rail trail movement that treats that history for what it is: a fascinating and shockingly controversial story about the right to public space, which is every bit as epic as the battle against the highway movement (which sometimes overlaps).

Reflections on last week's #WeekWithoutDriving in a city that still refuses to acknowledge the existence of its nondrivers — which a comprehensive new report claims make up one-third of LA's population

If you saw a headline about NYC potentially losing two big transit projects "because of the government shutdown," know this: 1) it's bullshit, and 2) ending the shutdown on the Trump administration's terms would be terrible for transit *all across the country*, and very likely in your community. 🧵

It's one thing to talk about the 1 in 20 Americans who live in households without cars. But it's another to talk about all the people who live in households with fewer cars than people who need to drive to participate in an autocentric society, particularly kids, elders, and people w/disabilities.

Today's the last day to claim the federal EV tax credit. I’ve written a ton about why EVs aren’t the solution to our transportation problems, but I’ll admit: my household bought one two months ago. And I want to do a short thread about why.

Few days late but wanted to be sure to shout out this great convo I had with Ashton Rohmer, who points out that all the deaths and damage that flows from car culture isn't dissimilar from the horrors of war, and what it would mean to apply "peace building" strategies to urbanism.

Curious if anyone is doing work on the shortcomings of telematics as a tool in predicting road safety trends + guiding investments...? I just signed up for one of those safe driver apps to get a car insurance discount, and I'm kind of shocked by how easy it is to game.

We'll have a lot more on this soon but for now, the big takeaway is this: the mask is fully off, and USDOT is straight up telling grantees that they are taking their bike trail money back and using it to "promote vehicle travel" instead. Wild, unprecedented shit.

If I am a little quiet on here, it's because we recently found out my dad has terminal cancer and I am taking care of him. Not a lot of overlap with this + what I write about every day, except that light walking is one of the only things that helps his pain and he lives in a place without sidewalks.

Thinking of New Orleans this week. Amazed by its assets but also its inequities that many "rebuilding" efforts deepened. @keawilson.bsky.social wrote about our research @annalivia.bsky.social on NOLA inequity via streetcars for (exclusionary) economic development usa.streetsblog.org/2020/10/26/s...

*Loved* this breakdown from BanksRail on why the urbanism YouTube universe is so overwhelmingly white, male, and gen X, why that's a problem (with zero shade to the folks who fit that profile doing great work!), and a low-lift experiment he did to try to give new voices a platform.

Comment period extended until September 8!

Fascinated by the idea of evaluating city streets not just based on car crash hot spots, but also how bored, joyful, stimulated, depressed, valued, or safe people *feel* when they move through them, and how radically that might change them way transportation planners operate.

Did not think I would ever have to research nuclear power plants on the moon for my job reporting on (*checks notes*) sidewalks and bike lanes and stuff, but this administration is full of surprises

Just watched the Biggest Loser docu series and gotta say: it is wild how little we STILL talk about the structural drivers of the obesity epidemic in this country like car dependency and food/medical deserts, even when we're (rightly) critiquing awful, masochistic shows like this.

Last day to do this, transportation advocates!