Amazing image from Mel Scott of the Berkeley Planning Department in the 60s.

It takes the T-Third 4 scheduled minutes to travel 3 blocks between 4th and Brannan and 4th and King after exiting the Central Subway. The multi-phase signal with pedestrian islands (seen along Line 3 in Montpellier) to allow absolute transit signal priority is right there as a fix.

housing researchers observing that home prices correlate with income in the US:

Love this. As a public entity doing housing development you don't need to cover deep subsidized affordability to help ease affordability in the broader housing market. Simply building dense housing without the need to hit private lvl returns helps make housing more affordable.

San Diego Unified School District has quietly embarked on a massive program to build educator housing. The focus has been on maximizing the number of units affordable to staff, not on deepest means-tested affordability. voiceofsandiego.org/2026/01/29/w...

North Concord (1995) & Dublin/Pleasanton (1997) extensions included a bunch of aspirational retail and station space. We knew that programming large station spaces in suburban locations was not cost effective 30 years ago but bc we defer design to local govts we’ve never learned the lesson.

"State Capacity" is when the govt is able to closely monitor the construction market and issue detailed sectoral indexes that can be used to escalate contracts based on actual market conditions instead of using core inflation of gross aggregate construction indexes www.insee.fr/fr/statistiq...

LA City Council’s refusal to fix a measure that has slowed housing development could lead to capping real estate transfer tax statewide. This would absolutely wreck city budgets, including El Cerrito, Oakland, and Berkeley. Deeply frustrating they couldn’t solve a local problem to save our state.

More people are saying we need to institutionalize FRA Fed-State Partnership grants in a similar way to CIG. Although 1) funding needs to rigorously tied to driving ridership, 2) NEC project inventory needs to follow service-driven needs

A good corollary to the Transportation for America's piece on moonshot transit investment from 2 weeks ago is Eno's piece from today on predictability in passenger rail investment. enotrans.org/wp-content/u...

Where & what are the most affordable new homes in California? New @cleeberkeley.bsky.social report examines data in 3 key markets & found urban townhomes are 30% cheaper than same BR/BA single-family exurban when considering ALL homeowner costs. Read more 👇 www.law.berkeley.edu/research/cle...

Will America build transit using the latest design best practices, like automation, electrification and through-running service? Or will it continue to build slow, at-grade light rail lines; infrequent diesel commuter trains; and short, impossibly expensive heavy rail subway extensions?

Sacramento should have a regional rail network imo.

Like @nickandert.bsky.social, I've spent too many hours with 1930s drawings to find storm sewers, pipelines, etc in LA. A county-wide unified "3D Underground" utility map seems like something that could streamline planning from megaprojects to DIY home improvements www.enr.com/articles/620...

Great blog post by David Baker Architects' Bryan Alcorn and Carley Leckie on their award winning Steplight design for the national Single Stair Design competition. www.dbarchitect.com/blogs/buildi...

reading a paper that measures housing affordability as whether or not someone at 30% ami can afford a median 1 bedroom apartment, which I think is a mistake. that’s like a 20th percentile income — if that person can’t afford a 50th percentile apartment, that doesn’t mean they can’t find housing

I'll be at Pleasant Hill BART today defending not only BART but County Connection and Tri Delta Transit from devastating transit cuts that would destroy the backbone of the Bay Area's working class.

Just got canvassed while riding through the Transbay Tube with the petition to put the Connect Bay Area regional transit operations measure on the November 2026 ballot 🫡

Not a fan of Prop 26/218 but I have to wonder if the Jane Kim for Insurance Commissioner campaign has put much thought into how this “public home insurance natural disaster fee based on home value and income” complies with constitutional restrictions on fees/tax. www.sfchronicle.com/politics/art...

Where are the critical geographers at on the proposed guidance for what constitutes a “mom and pop landlord”?

Recently sat in on conversation abt a small tweak to a recent Washington state condo law. Architects were the main audience. This aspect that many insurance carriers won't write an insurance policy for them if something as low as 5-10% of their project work relates to condos was a bigtakeaway for me

One of the bits that gets lost in the condo defect risk conversation in California is that the higher cost of premiums itself is not the binding constraint to production. It’s that many carriers simply won’t write the policy for GCs, subs or designers irrespective of higher premiums.

New Oakland bike lanes weren't wearing enough reflective gear apparently. Asking for all bike lanes to be removed in downtown is *chef's kiss* A+ 311 report

The Nerang station on the electrified Gold Coast Line in Queensland is same distance from Brisbane CBD as Riverside to DTLA. Nerang has worse land use than Riverside but features 2 TPH base frequency to CBD in 1 hr (Cf 1 hr 30 for Riverside to CBD).

Thinking about getting really into Australian regional rail - bus networks.

The 34 ft standard was derived from Sound Transit's use of "passenger level of service", which was derived from highway LOS. At least highway engineering is based off of quantitative speed/throughout; passenger LOS seems to be entirely subjective and ignores flow issues due to poor egress, not width

We're back in the new year! New ep with Joshua B Freeman about garden apartments, the radical ideology that influenced them, and government policy that set them in motion Have you yet heard about Section 608? #GetSection608pilled LISTEN >>>>>>>>>>> seethecat.org/ep/2026-01-1...

We entered the 7th year of debate of the a 45-unit, 100% subsidized affordable development in Mill Valley, CA. Opponents have latched onto the idea that, because the building is in "East Mill Valley" (a city of less than 5 square miles!) it amounts to segregation. www.marinij.com/2026/01/15/m...

Last night Mill Valley re-approved 45 low income homes from EAH at 1 Hamilton Dr using AB 130 CEQA exemption. “Friends of Hauke Park” sued the City and EAH in 2024 - seeking to set aside the approvals and housing element update/rezonings relying on CEQA and Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing.

I don't think we've discussed "hybrid mass timber" construction - metal-framed walls with mass timber decks. This new technique could replace wood-framed and concrete alike for residential projects between 4 and 11+ stories, with big climate and cost advantages.

AC Transit recommended bus stop rationalization as a near term action in 2016 as part of its major corridors study. After 10 years Telegraph, Grand, and San Pablo corridors have just finished this work. www.actransit.org/rapid-corrid...

Young Californians have a message for @agrobbonta.oag.ca.gov: run for governor!

Help kick off the effort to STOP devastating cuts to transit in the Bay Area on 1/23. We need to gather 200,000 signatures to get Connect Bay Area, the regional transit funding measure, on the ballot. This is an all hands on deck moment w/ events through the Bay. Details> luma.com/le1g7slf?tk=...

And without clear agreed-upon goals, this mediation will likely be between safer streets infrastructure and transit travel speeds, rather than balancing the safety and service level goals that should lead such decisions. We need a better process!

RALLY: ROB BONTA FOR GOVERNOR - Sunday Jan. 11 at 11:00am WHERE: Elihu M. Harris State Office Building (outside main entrance), Downtown Oakland

Around 12n today, MTC’s Regional Network Management Council will consider a Transit Priority Policy. The policy aims to prioritize transit on certain regional roadways. It provides a framework for transit agencies to review and provide input on roadway changes. mtc.legistar.com/LegislationD...

I guess it shouldn’t be surprising that Richard Drury’s clients (former Google SWE, historic preservationist, realtor) are seeking to set aside Family Zoning based on lack of CEQA analysis of “shadow and wind impacts” and traffic impacts. www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/f...

ISO: a comparison of the social base and leadership of anti-office downzoners in pre WW1 cities against post 1970 anti-office downzoners.

It would be nice if rolling stock funding/financing were optimized so operators didn’t need 12 different capital partners to deliver new trainsets.

It’s interesting that Fernando Marti (formerly ED of CCHO) cannot even bring himself to support building mixed-income housing in the ultra affluent Marina District. 48hills.org/2026/01/the-...

“UPRR indicated that there could be no further concessions and would not agree to further reducing capital improvement requirements.”

This is a great point from Joshua Freeman's Garden Apartments The History of a Low-Rent Utopia. Garden apartments, despite being a widespread national housing type primarily for lower middle classes, have not drawn the scrutiny of other types of homes. press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...

Earlier this week @josh.hawn.xyz was telling @burke.bsky.social and myself about the Woodstock shuttle’s issues with CARB. Wonder if this is related.

Seems suboptimal that a state is choosing to scope new rail service as intercity rather than commuter rail in large part because the CorridorID program is more service-oriented and supportive of project development than FTA's New Starts program.

A fine night out in Koreatown ruined.

There’s a lot of divergences between land use and transit reform but a consistency is that the practitioners (developers/transit agencies) themselves have substantially more near term priorities for reform than advocates.

Integrated, accessible, through-running electrified regional rail could transform Southern California and move high-speed rail forward. Join us on January 12th for a webinar from 5-6 pm to learn why this is so important and how we make it happen. actionnetwork.org/events/elect...

After 10 years of planning, Palo Alto has voted to advance three different alternatives for a grade separations at Churchill to 15% design stage. www.paloaltoonline.com/transportati...

Muhammad Alameldin on the Housing Voice podcast with a quote that just sums up a lot of US policy development www.lewis.ucla.edu/2025/12/17/1...

It’s pretty well documented that one of the weaknesses of the New Deal was its reliance on local/regional elites and business owners to implement it. The result being clientalism, slow implementation, de-prioritizing of policies that help non-land/biz owners, segregation, uneven development.