Today's fun, Part 1: I'm on East Street between Mt Pleasant and Milroy. Posted 35. The scooter goes 30, not 31. 30. Car comes flying up behind me. No horn, just floors it and passes me over the yellow, on a blind left curve. Probably on the high side of 50.

This is why I take the lane, without apology.

An early Toastmasters day and the weather's nice so I decided to scooter the whole way in. Up 4:45, out the driveway 5:22, parked 5:55, at the bagel shop for breakfast 6:02 just after opening. Successful trip so far. 1/

A big travel day! Up at 2:57, tires on asphalt 3:22, headed downtown via North Versailles, parked in Greyhound garage, at East Busway Penn Station 4:30, 5:05 P1 ob 3419 with about 20 people all headed initially to Wilkinsburg, then to Harrisburg. 1/

Noon, starting my hike to get the scooter. 1/

An interesting and challenging travel plan for tomorrow. Starting in McCandless, first get to Monroeville Mall, then to Pittsburgh Indoor Sports Arena in Harmar. By bus. 1/

8am medical appt downtown so scooter to bus, which will get me to a bus stop 200 feet from the office door. 7:10 left house, 7:20 parked, 7:25 O1 ib 6308 Perry park & ride lower lot shelter. Gotta be 25-30 on board. 1/

Drove to park & ride to get a bus downtown; noon meeting. 11:01 8 ib 6008 Perry Hwy at Ross p&r lower lot shelter. 1/

A livestream of a volcano in the Philippines captured a meteor crashing to Earth today. What are the odds? Mayon Volcano, Location: Albay, Luzon, Philippines

Bicycles are hugely space efficient, which is why they make a lot of sense in congested cities. This video demonstrates why there aren’t traffic jams in bike lanes. Just imagine the traffic queues if every bicycle here was a car.

For those who know this game, this is a major accomplishment! Several days’ effort.

5:40 out the driveway to set up the polling precinct. I'm not going to number these posts as I'll surely mess up the count. Focus on getting the real count correct!

Friday, Saturday and Sunday, all three days I drove over 50 miles. I had a convention to attend on the other side of Pittsburgh (Airport Marriott off Montour Run Rd). No transit option, too far for the Scoobi, and too much to carry via motorcycle. Well, when ya gotta, ya gotta, I guess. 1/

Scooter to park & ride to head downtown for my early Toastmasters meeting. Out the driveway 5:15, parked 5:30, but no O1 on the tracker, just two 8 Perrysvilles. 5:40, board the first. I sit down, check the tracker, yep an O1 due in 5min. Oh well, too late now. 1/

Making my Spring Garden food donation run on a Saturday bc I have other plans for tomorrow. 15:15 left the driveway via scooter, went straight to the Ross Park & Ride lower lot. Arriving, Truetime said the bus would be here in 3min. Turned out to be more like 6, but 15:35 8 ib 6712 Lower lot shelter

First Friday, early Toastmasters, so out the door 5:20, parked 5:29, straight onto the bus, 5:30 O1 ib 6601. Almost got the bus at the lower lot shelter but chased up the ramp to the second upper lot shelter. Really never stopped moving. Eight passengers on this early trip into town. 1/

If I can haul home a box this big on my electric motor scooter, there are a heckuvalotta people who do not need to be driving gasoline automobiles. Most everything a single person needs to haul around will fit in the big hatch on the back.

Let’s try again for that Board meeting, OK? Headed out on the scooter about 7:20. Parked ~7:35. 7:41 O1 ib 6413 Perry Hwy at park & ride lower lot shelter. HOV Lane is closed for some reason so this fully loaded 40-footer is using the I-279 mainline. 1/

The Ross park & ride doesn’t look too busy yet at 8am. The NFL Draft special service 99North bus does not start running until 10, I’m told. 1/

Spent Saturday with President Obama and New York's Cutest — turns out my first name is Mayor and I need to be doing more squats.  Here’s to building a City where families can thrive and every classroom is full of this much joy.

Today’s transpo, like many Mondays, is mixed mide. Started with my weekly food rescue run, requiring the car. Sat in a coffee shop to figure out my day. Then hop on a bus to get the next part done. Could’ve driven but why bother when there are two buses to get me there & back to the car? 1/

Going to work on more sidewalk surveying today. Started by scootering to West View then jumping on a bus. 14:23 13 ib 6102 WVw Park Drive at U-Haul. 1/

Today’s transpo fun: I had to be downtown for a 10am Toastmasters meeting. Scootered to the park & ride but 18 minutes to a bus? Naw, I can scooter the rest of the way in faster. Made the meeting site with 10 minutes to spare. 1/

Prague just opened the new Dvorecký Bridge. It's exclusively for trams, buses, bikes, and pedestrians. Private cars are completely banned.

I’ve always been diligent about my travels on transit. I have not been as detailed about my travels on or in anything else. Today, for example, I went out on the scooter twice. 1/

There are a few things I hate more than standing at a bus stop with two people smoking at the most upwind place to stand, but I can't think of them right now. 1/

Every single one of the astronauts who went to the moon and back on Artemis II was educated at a public school. Thinking of the teachers who poured into Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen tonight. You helped send a kid to the moon! 🌕 💛

Okay CTA. This is a good sign.

Tonight is my monthly meeting in Dormont. It looks nice out, with zero chance of any sort of precipitation, but darn it's chilly out. I don't like to ride the scooter when it's near or below freezing, more out of concern for the battery than the human riding it. OK, so what's Plan B? 1/

I am front-page news in today's Post-Gazette business section! pge.post-gazette.com/.pf/showstor...

All “1”s on the scooter’s odometer!

Today's travel fun was walking the mile-and-change home from Northland Library. Due to the steady stream of traffic on 19 at 5:30pm, it was not possible to cross to where there is a sidewalk or at least a decent path along the road. 1/

Yesterday’s trip was McCandless to Bridgeville & back on the Scoobi scooter. Qualified success, the qualification being I had a battery failure upon arrival so needed to swap out batteries. How that was pulled off is its own story but the trip itself went OK. 1/

Downtown trip today, scooter to bus. Had hoped to get out of the driveway by 7:45, finally hit pavement 7:57. That put me in the park & ride lot about 8:10. TrueTime said 10-minute wait for a bus. That’s OK, I’d built in some slop time. 1/

Sunday's not-fun is to attend the calling hours of a man I knew through Toastmasters. It's in Sewickley, about 10 miles distant. But how to get there? I could get in the car & drive there in 20 minutes. Also will be stormy during the open hours. 1/

Trying a very long scooter trip today. Wife and I need to travel to Harmar separately. I first needed to go to the North Side. She's bringing the backup scooter battery. 1/

Don’t buy a cow, or a car, and expect your city to give you someplace to park it. #UrbanTruth

Also applies to wherever you are in North America. Figure it out, make it work, whatever the solution.

Scootered all the way downtown this morning, the first I'd done that in a while. North Side a few times, but no more than a time or two since winter began. Left the house about 5:15, walking into the bagel shop right at 6:00 opening time. 1/

Another evening excursion into the city with Ms. Spouse at my side. Drove to the park & ride, a comfortable five-minute wait, then 17:45 8 ib 6106 Perry Hwy at lower lot shelter. 1/

A mid-day scooter-to-bus trip. 14:10 8 ib 6704 West View Park Drive at what-used-to-be-Taco-Bell-20-years-ago. #PittsburghDirections 1/

it's not exactly rocket science. Simple, costs almost nothing to implement & changes how you interact with your city immediately. Kids biked independently with me to soccer today ~4 miles each way on an essentially car free route. Crisscross corridors like this through a city, get people out of cars

A late afternoon bus ride to finish my sidewalk survey along Perrysville Ave. Parked in West View then 17:51 8 ib 6353 WVw Park Dr at Perry Hwy. 1/

Chances are pretty good you are going to see more bicycle traffic than you have in the recent past.

As I've said during many of these time changes, fixing the clocks is easy; I'll have every clock in the house fixed in five minutes. It's all the not-clocks: Cameras, old electronics that don't change themselves, all of which need their own instructions manual and 10 minutes apiece of fiddling.

@jaythurber.bsky.social Make sure you play some Dea Matrona next week! They're from Belfast, Northern Ireland, but new music, and they're good! Excellent rockers: "Red Button", "Get My Mind Off You". Laid back: "Glory Glory I Am Free", "So Damn Dangerous". Single: "Magic Spell".

Here is the original video. See the Description field for a complete timeline. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0V3...

Urban sprawl is bankrupting us. Applies to NZ (and Auckland gets a mention)

Two successful scooter trips in the last two days. Thu, I rode it to Murray Ave in Squirrel Hill. I’d planned to recharge once I got there but forgot. Fortunately I thought to conserve battery juice on the way there, so managed to travel 14 geographical miles on only 12 battery range miles. 1/

An afternoon trip into the city. Started off on the scooter, rode to the Ross park & ride. Upon arriving, noted that the inbound 8 wouldn’t arrive for > 15 minutes so decided to get some walking in. Walked upstream two bus stops. Now, only 4min until the bus. 1/