Townhouses are IRC…but not after you stick retail at the bottom.

It's interesting that cities develop a preference for specific tools when implementing circulation strategies for pre-car neighborhoods. Stockholm seems to prefer modal filters and short bus-only streets to contraflow bus lanes and circuitous one-way networks Södermalm ⤵️

WA's scissor stair bill just passed senate. now on to ferguson's desk congrats @davina425.bsky.social @sightline.org

We’re back, baby!

Another new paper on housebuilding and vacancy chains, this time with data on every Swiss resident & housing unit! An interesting context given Switzerland's high immigration, very large rented sector and strong tenancy rent controls... frederickluser.github.io/files/Moving...

Huh. I've never heard of a Zotero translator before, but this sounds potentially useful given I both have reason to cite other people's and my own @ggwash.org posts.

I couldn’t agree more! Our housing crisis pushes people farther away from jobs, schools, and more. When we build or expand public transit, we should build housing around it and vice versa. My Build More Housing Near Transit Act would get it done. thehill.com/opinion/cong...

I am absolutely blown away at how strong this bill is. Sixplexes on suburban lots with no parking requirements!

When y’all run out of rice cooker discourse how about you consider how many different kinds of chili peppers (dried whole or powdered) a household should reasonably keep in stock, that should keep you busy for a while.

In @thehill.com with @rohanaras.bsky.social today where we argue that surface transportation policy is not complete without considering housing. thehill.com/opinion/cong...

New piece in The Hill—Congress should consider housing jointly with transportation in Surface Reauth: - Reward places that accept growth with needed transpo investment - Prioritize projects that improve access to daily needs - Improve project delivery thehill.com/opinion/cong...

Wow, I'm impressed. Bloomberg has the best article on the Sepulveda Line I've seen. No errors, very detailed, pushed back on nimby talking points, centered voices like Matute, Schneider, and Raman, and even mentions an EIFD! Full marks.

Very excited to say that the stars have aligned and NYU Marron/Transit Costs Project have landed a grant that will fund a second edition of Momentum, which will apply the high-throughput framework to major regional rail networks beyond the NY area. Our three big new cases: - NJT - SEPTA - METRA

This is as close as you can get to “Dog toilets recommend by scientists”👍

The extent that public spaces are essentially giant dog latrines is really unfortunate.

✨ introducing… ✨ 🌇 Transportation for the Abundant Society 🚅 "Abundance" says our problem is artificial scarcity—especially housing. But you can’t build your way out if transportation policy still treats traffic flow as sacred. Transportation is the binding constraint. ssrn.com/abstract=538...

FWIW: "Absolutely not us" Hochul's office tells me.

what'll it be, high speed trains or liberal values

The framing of this a bit strange when there are techniques in the narrative arts that are more directly applicable. You could even go over to Youtube and figure out what Veritasium did to rake in 4 billion views on pretty dense science topics.

This feels like an argument for giving Sound Transit its own permitting authority?

It's not clear why local permit reform for Sound Transit projects will cost the state much at all, but a fiscal note says that it will, which could doom these bills. The Ways and Means committee is set to advance SB 6309 but without a recommendation to pass it. www.theurbanist.org/2026/02/04/o...

The way to increase construction productivity is to have a long pipeline of small, repetitive projects where crews become efficient by constructing the same building over and over and over. This requires by-right approval and small scopes. The canonical example: Houston townhouses.

From a pure operation expenditure efficiency perspective, making only the buses free means pushing users into a mode with higher marginal costs of production. If really free transit should be, it's definetly better to have it mode-neutral.

The weirdest thing about losing a friend or family member to traffic violence in the US is just how little anyone cares. If you're lucky, there will be a reprint of the policy statement in a local paper. But there will be no reporting. There will be no investigation. There will be no conviction.

It’s interesting how many people seem to think subway and bus riders are entirely distinct communities and not the same one that people back and forth between.

If you squint, Kochi kind of looks like the SF Bay

The federal government is hunting for a justification to eliminate key bike lanes in the nation's capital, sources say — and if the feds are able to push that controversial agenda through, some fear it could set a disturbing new precedent for federal interference in local projects.

Some Sound Transit history: prior to 2010, there was no board committee focused on capital projects and system expansion. The Capital Committee was created that year to handle management of the ST2 program. One of its original members? Claudia Balducci. www.theurbanist.org/2026/01/26/s...

Stratton wants to condition federal funding on local housing reform. And she wants medicare for all. I'm rolling with Juliana!

More American cities could do to learn from this concept tbh

My very boomer take on this is if you believe in cities and DC as the nation’s capital and you’re not willing to revise the height limit downtown, that this space is best used as a way to recentralize federal employment in the urban core.

Time to buy tickets back!

MARCH 28

It's interesting that grade separation in urban contexts was essentially achieved in many cities throughout the developed world by WWII, but by the 1960s the grade separation effort was de facto almost abandoned in North America but continued elsewhere.

1. Manual transmission is still *very* common elsewhere and functionally non-existent in the US. This means that US drivers have a free hand to hold a phone (a fact many take advantage of!) while most of their peer drivers in other countries do not.

It drivers me crazy that so many smart people will look at this graph and say, "Well, it can't be smartphones because other countries have those too." This ignores two critical facts:

'Los Angeles has directed staff to draft its own single‑exit, single‑stair ordinance modeled in part on Seattle.' 👀 www.housingwire.com/articles/cal...

“Brightline Trains Florida…skipped its second interest payment on $1.2 billion of subordinate municipal bonds…However, the incident is not considered an event of default, according to bond documents, which says a default only occurs if the railroad misses three consecutive interest payments.”

BTW, a Moscow (trinocular) or London/Stockholm/Wien/Istanbul (split platforms + connecting vestibules) approach of having circulation between the two platforms rather than above is really the better design for deep station. Cavern station is just too much volume for nothing.

A Renton city council committee is discussing legalizing neighborhood retail right now. A survey result that showed 39% of Renton residents want to legalize bodegas and neighborhood cafes on all city lots was just described by a staff member as "shocking."

Well that's crazy transformative

WE WON BITCHES

Extremely cool policy job opening for anyone interested in transportation. Can be fully remote (US only)! www.metroabundance.org/jobs/transpo...

Wow – legalizes single-stair up to six stories *and* wheelchair-sized elevators (cuts the stretcher requirement). Does anybody have any contact with the legislators or their staffers? I'm interested in talking to them...

we've got a bateman bill on scissor stairs in the senate now app.leg.wa.gov/billsummary/...

Averaged by agency, the ranking among major agencies/modes: Farthest from highways: 1) Pittsburgh PRT 2) Cleveland RTA 3) UTA 4) SEPTA 5) CTA Closest to highways: 1) Denver RTD 2) Miami 3) Hampton Roads 4) Sound Transit 5) San Diego

Inspired by this thread, I calculated the distance from every US streetcar/light rail/heavy rail stop* to the nearest highway. Check it out here! rpubs.com/bensh3/dist_... *does not include St. Louis Metrolink because mode was missing in the NTAD

The IBR will cost as much as $17.7 billion, more than double the previous max. cost of $7.5 billion, according to documents unearthed by City Observatory. cityobservatory.org/17-7-billion...

Woah betting pool at work was 12 B at most. What an upset.