Most of you know me from transportation, but I also direct UT's prison-ed program and we need your support! Our instructors are volunteers, but we rely on community funds to pay for books and supplies. Our fundraiser goes through the end of August. 💚 give.utexas.edu/texas-prison...

What would it to take to make Austin's Lady Bird Lake swimmable? 😍🏊 Especially as temperatures rise, this would be of tremendous value to the city!

Austinites: milk cartons, disposable coffee cups, etc should now be recycled! www.austintexas.gov/recycling

SB 15 has now been revived and scheduled for the Tuesday calendar, after being killed by a point of order earlier today An impressive organizing effort, required emergency meetings of two different committees to vote the bill through today, great job y’all!

Please call (512) 463-1000 ASAP and ask Speaker Burrows to bring SB 15 (allows smaller lot sizes) as a major state bill! Just did it - it takes less than a minute. Thank you!!

Air pollution kills millions of people worldwide every year, and without research and air pollution standards, millions more will die.

NYTimes didn't flag this, but the most consistent increase in police killings since 2020 in this graph is by VEHICLE, currently outpacing all the other non-gun methods. Any idea why this would be? Size? www.nytimes.com/2025/05/24/u...

Why not do your Saturday walk at the state capitol and save Project Connect while you're at it? 👣🛤️

Make three quick calls this weekend (before Monday at 10) to save Project Connect! Just these 3 numbers and say (likely on voicemail) that you oppose SB 2519. The state should not override the will of Austin voters for transit! More info: docs.google.com/document/d/1...

Another person killed on I-35 in Austin. This is your annual reminder that fatal crashes on TxDOT roads in Austin are increasing, while City of Austin efforts to increase safety are yielding results. www.kvue.com/article/news...

"In Mississauga, Ontario, the 130-acre Square One district is undergoing a huge transformation, with thousands of residential units set to replace some of its 8,000 parking spaces. Last spring...Toronto announced plans to develop up to 130 parking lots across the city to support housing."😍

A new CDC report shows that pedestrian deaths fell across the rich world 2013-2022 -- but not in the USA. Americans were 50% more likely to die walking in 2022 than they would have been in 2013. By 2022, the US was more deadly for pedestrians than all other countries studied.

Austin's I-35 expansion is in Scientific American: "Widening projects are sold to the public by touting benefits that won’t last, but their unadvertised costs will remain for decades." www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-...

Great article!

Fascinating!

Today in unsurprising but important news: Building bike lanes increases bikeshare usage doi.org/10.1016/j.jt...

Info for protest on Monday if you're in Austin or nearby. If you make a sign, I recommend something simple on foamboard & anti-Elon. Firing Elon is a limited, achievable goal. Dems will need people on the ground to show them their base is on board for playing hardball with the March 14th shutdown.

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Austin's HOME allows 3 units per lot. And that's *just below* what we need. "In sum, investors..may not see much benefit in buying a single-family home, tearing it down, and replacing it with 2-3 units ....[In Portland] permits for fourplexes have far outnumbered those for duplexes and triplexes."

Let's go Austin!!

Rest in peace, Professor Shoup (1938-2025) We will keep up the good work. Share your stories and thoughts with the parking reform community here: parkingreform.org/donald-shoup

Pedestrians and bicyclists will have to cross EIGHT lanes of fast moving frontage roads to access the I-35 cap from downtown. 🙄. Pathetic. (p.26 of ACT publicinput.com/Customer/Fil...). Absolute MAX # of lanes here should be 4.

Also in Cedar Park 💔 www.kut.org/politics/202...

Happy car free day to those celebrating! Mayor Enrique Peñalosa who started this tradition in 2000 is one of my urbanist heroes. Read up on him if you need some good vibes! www.reuters.com/video/watch/...

"The most abundant nanoplastic was tyre particles (41%), then polystyrene (28%) and polyethylene (12%). Each tyre on the world’s 1.6bn vehicles can lose 4kg during its lifetimes and may be the largest source of tiny plastic pollution."

A great resource for tracking progress on the city's climate and environmental goals! Excited to see what 2025 brings for helping us get on track for land/use transportation. austin-climate-equity-plan-implementation-dashboard-austin.hub.arcgis.com/pages/database

New evidence that reducing cars is good for business: In London, retail spending was stronger after neighborhoods were added to the Urban Low Emissions Zone (ULEZ). Spending was also higher than in areas nearby but outside the ULEZ. www.centreforcities.org/blog/ulez-ex...

The laws of physics have entered the chat! 💥

Florence vs an American highway interchange (Reddit)

“It’s really important to me that we, as a city, stop forcing developers to build parking they don’t want to build — it’s an unnecessary burden.” That's my council member @cmzoqadri.bsky.social in the NYTimes! 🫶 www.nytimes.com/2025/01/12/b...

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Even the best of the models used by MPOs, rarely account for the impact of highway expansions on land use! This is a problem! "study of models.. found underestimation of induced VMT up to 102% and overestimation of reductions in travel time up to 236% when feedback to land use was not included"

"Two of the most important factors were by then ubiquitous technologies: the automobile and the television set...Americans used their cars to move farther and farther away from one another, enabling the growth of the suburbs and, with it, a retreat..."

"Public safety in the Sixth Street area is, in my opinion, unacceptable. One thing is you can't talk about an entertainment district without incidents like what happened in New Orleans being top of mind." Proposed solution: We open up 6th St to...[checks notes]..CARS?!

Great article. One policy challenge in the car bloat case that didn't exist in the cigarette case: Consumers see purchasing larger cars as a way to protect themselves against others having larger cars, while smoking was never considered a protection against others smoking.

"Research has shown that adding lanes does not cut commute times." Another great piece by @megankimble.bsky.social

It's not just me! The "this grade does not reflect the effort I put into this course" complaint is a recent phenomenon that drives me crazy. www.nytimes.com/2024/12/26/o...

Did you see this? 7 blocks in downtown Houston are going to be permanently transformed into a people-place and pedestrian promenade. From Rusk Street to Allen’s Landing Park. No trial or pilot. Not seasonal. Permanent. If Houston can do it, what’s your city’s excuse? www.bisnow.com/houston/news...

A national trend that must stop!

What do you think Austin?🤔

Huge thanks to Council Member @paige-ellis.bsky.social and co-sponsors @zoforaustin.bsky.social, R. Alter, A. Alter, and Vela for the Austin City Council resolution saying that the Mopac South project should not increase vehicle miles traveled or greenhouse gas emissions! 👏👏👏

What considerations should be used to determine whether it makes more sense to invest in transit vs bike/ped infrastructure for mode-shift goals?

L.A needs to Austin their California.

The most brutal class divide in America may be around social support. Rich, college educated Americans have more access to social spaces, and enjoy more support from friends. The poor and less-educated are increasingly left out. Read the report: www.americansurveycenter.org/research/dis...

Gross

The strength of this piece is in the data visualizations, which are fantastic. From @washingtonpost.com.

Austin's zoning commission recommends allowing walkable shops and offices in neighborhoods! We're excited to see this move forward, and we're very proud of our very own board member, Ryan Puzycki, for co-sponsoring the recommendation!

Great article on a rarely discussed aspect of the challenge of car dependency.

It's one click!

the orwellian turn from state departments of transportation is really underdiscussed