Really nice piece from @idothethinking.bsky.social on the dangers of the dangers of optimizing for narrow goals. open.substack.com/pub/darrello...

Let’s please retire the phrase “induced demand.” Too many people think it means that demand is produced out of thin air. If 6 people want pizza, but there are only 5 slices, making 1 more slice for the last person doesn’t make new demand—it just addresses demand that was always there but unmet.

The Charter Revision Commission voted to place five proposals on the November ballot — four aimed at simplifying and speeding up the development approval process for affordable housing.

YESSSSSS!!! I want to live in a world where mayors jockey to take credit for secure bike parking!

It's time for clear eyed thinking about the potential for the large-scale destruction of public transit in American cities. It could happen in the next two years. Thread... 1/

The Charter Revision Commission just approved the 5 questions that will be on ballots for NYC voters this November! This includes 4 housing questions, which would collectively represent a huge step forward for affordability in New York. 🧵

NJ Transit approves $3.2B budget, engineer contract newjerseymonitor.com/2025/07/18/n...

Long experience has shown me that in local government, the definition of "the community" is "people who own single-family houses."

If anyone wants to work with us to canvass at bus stops on Ocean and MLK so that those bus riders' voices can be heard on this, let us know! It'll drastically speed up their buses, but I'm worried many of them won't even know about this survey or meeting!

It’s remarkable how much more the Hoboken council emphasizes technical proficiency than does Jersey City’s. A Hoboken councilwoman, Tiffanie Fisher, put out a detailed and thoughtful breakdown of her views on the proposed budget. In JC, most council people don’t even attend most budget meetings.

Youth curfew in Newark? Is this real? It must kill summer house parties!

Per r/JerseyCity, it looks like Waymo’s training fleet has arrived in Jersey City. And in Manhattan, Uber has started offering fixed route service. Large L4 AVs operating on fixed routes = abundant, cheap buses. Are we *sure* public transit as currently operated/funded has a future in NJ?

Taxes that pay for themselves aren’t really expenses. They’re investment.

Can we please stop measuring the size of govt by the amount of taxes? It’s wildly misleading. Like, if we didn’t have social security, most people would invest a lot more of their savings in … treasuries. The same thing the social security program does with your taxes.

State & local govts (& unpaid civic groups) do a ton of heavy lifting on disaster planning & recovery, but they will always need backup (staff, $$, info, technical expertise) from the federal govt. by all means, let’s build more state & local capacity but not as a *substitute* for federal support.

People (here, Jack C) complain NJ isn’t affordable because of its high taxes, but we’re skeptical that that’s right, at least in the sense they mean it. The economic cost of govt = (goods/services taxes fund) - (goods/services ppl want). The key thing to optimize is to shrink this difference.

Tapping the sign. A Waymo operator is doubling the size of the fleet.

A bill passed by the NYS Legislature requiring two-person crews for all subway trains would not only leave NY in the past—no other major transit system requires this—it would also cause service cuts wherever trains operate with one person now, including on the G and M. www.etany.org/statements/i...

Yes! L4/5 AV technology deployed sensibly is a huge win for urbanism! Safer streets, way less need for parking subsidies, easier tolling/taxing (ht @lewislehe.bsky.social), and improved bus service, all become possible with strong AVs!

I don't think embracing self driving tech should mean that we quit trying to have less car traffic. I just think the technology will be far, far more effective than speed cameras and red-light cameras. It will revolutionize public transit (busses especially) and reduce car ownership dependency!

Waymo starts robotaxi testing in Philadelphia and NYC

Honestly not sure whether this reflects good or bad performance for SF’s speed cameras?

Are we *sure* public transit as it is funded/operated today has a financial future? Can we please start talking about how to save public transit before it’s too late?

OP here is concerned that North Bergen will build a preschool for only North Bergen kids on county land. JC residents aren’t really in a position to complain because the state did a similar thing on a bigger scale last year in favor of the city when it all but deeded Liberty State Park to JC.

Some great observations from @ilanaglazer.com!

One of the great weaknesses of capitalism is that it doesn’t scale reward to effort. There are few office workers who work harder than roofers. And many CEOs don’t grind as hard as full-time stay-at-home parents.

Automatic Voter Registration has passed the NJ State Senate!! AVR is a major win for democracy and a powerful tool to drive civic engagement. By streamlining registration, we're making sure that more eligible voters have a say in our elections. Thank you to all our partners who made this possible!

Liberty State Park took a lot of digging, a lot of dealing, a lot of disinfecting, and a tremendous amount of determination to become the place we now know it to be.  jcitytimes.com/a-new-book-l...

"The conclusions and proposed solutions in his piece, while well-intentioned, oversimplify both the causes of our sanitation challenges and the realities of municipal management in Ward D." jcitytimes.com/op-ed-domini...

RCV’s impact on the NYC mayoral race is a great example of how impactful procedural rules can be. One really easy procedural improvement to fight the vetocracy is to eliminate the aldermanic privilege—the informal veto power given to council people over projects in their ward/district.

All enterprises are already state owned. Via taxes, the state is an economic owner and via regulation it has governance ownership. What’s different here is direct government *operation*. So what problem does this idea solve better than giving ppl in need vouchers for food + transportation to it?

We have to find smart, content-neutral ways to publicly subsidize news—especially local news, which is least suited to the digital advertising model. Here’s a finding that closing a local newspaper results in an increase to municipal borrower costs. 1/2

Wow. Bus lanes and protected bike lanes on Baldwin/Summit and Ocean/MLK, basically running the whole length of the city. 20mph citywide speed limit. Municipal Council will need to be dragged kicking to do this. We will need to show up and speak out!

So many marginal policies get green light only because we ignore their opportunity costs. You should never fund a program (free buses) before funding a more impactful/desired program (expanded service).

It’s been 25 years since he got the job. Can NJ finally admit that Tony Soprano was a bad administrator and manager?

If you agree and live in JC please sign on here: actionnetwork.org/letters/150-...

The calls for safe streets continue to be stifled by inaction and the inability of our elected representatives to push meaningful legislation.… Ward D will not fall behind. Below is my pedestrian safety plan: hudsoncountyview.com/letter-my-je...

We somehow missed that the @amywilson.bsky.social is leaving Jersey City! Best of luck, Amy, and thanks for running Neighborhood Character all these years! Your newsletter has helped filled a big news shortage for the city and sparked discussion and awareness. open.substack.com/pub/neighbor...

It’s the time of year when political hopefuls try to convince you that any and all tax increases are waste and hurt affordability, as Jack Ciattarelli does here. This is just so clearly wrong. Here’s a 2020 paper linking spending on teachers to increasing home values. Why does this myth persist?

One thing we should have included in our thread about Solomon's housing plan are thoughts on his slate's prospects for horizontal up-zoning. One simple way to increase unit production is to expand the transportation network...

On July 2nd at 8PM, we’ll dive into the full ranked-choice voting results from NYC (& what it means for us in NJ). Whether you are new to RCV or if you are closely following every beat of the NYC local elections, we have you covered: www.voterchoicenj.org/vcnj_deep_di...

Summarizing a couple of threads for posterity because there's some valuable info about James Solomon, one of the leading candidates to be JC's next mayor. -We give background on his housing plan, including some reasons for optimism: bsky.app/profile/jcpo... solomonforjc.com/wp-content/u... 1/4

Love this from @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social. Waste and inefficiency steals from those who need it most! Maximizing the use of public resources is paramount. substack.com/@derekthomps...

NEW: NJ TRANSIT moves 720,000 people every weekday. We know it's important for the state — and now we've quantified its worth. RPA's latest report, The Value of NJ TRANSIT, looks at the real, measurable value of NJ TRANSIT for the state of NJ A 🧵⬇️ rpa.org/work/reports...

The regressive 'Stay NJ' program, which funnels money to wealthy boomers, is still part of the latest NJ budget, even as the state struggles to balance the numbers. The 'mansion tax' on home sales over $1 million (i.e. all homes in Princeton) is also doubling to 2%. www.nj.com/politics/202...

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Why don’t cities install solar-powered misters (w motion sensors) on sidewalks for summer use?

Jersey City is dropping its licensing and fee regime for selling ice. Abundance is finally paying off!

Really cool idea to take ill-gotten gains and invest them in violence prevention!