Instituting #decongestionpricing and building protected bike lanes is a wonderful way to get double-parked delivery trucks out of our way.

For those interested in California's upcoming election, I've posted my recommendations for statewide and #SanFrancisco candidates and ballot measures (with links to useful voter guides) on my other account. Don't forget to vote!

Our political discourse needs focus on the Auto-Oriented vs. Walkable City divide among candidates. If reporters pay attention to it, they will reveal a major divide. They won't churn out forgettable pieces that (mistakenly) say SF Democrats differ little on issues of substance.

Amen. If you try to improve life safety in the US, you'll learn: 1️⃣New apartments are much safer than old homes. 2️⃣We could save many lives by building new apartments. 3️⃣US planning & building codes make building new apartments very expensive, so they are scarce.

In other good news, the decline and fall of minimum parking mandates continued this week.🧵 "Much of Evanston is set to lose parking minimums for new developments next month, as city officials will let a new state ban on transit-served areas take effect..."

Fossil gas sputters to a record low, meeting only 2.9% of demand (16.1 GWh) as record new nighttime wind on the CAISO grid complementing daytime solar & batteries kicks it to the curb Wind record 8.29 GW 1:40 AM 5/15 due to SunZia line from NM (part of CAISO). Record has grown by 1.64 GW since 3/25

Americans tend to be libertarian when they move in and communitarian when disaster strikes. I want a country that doesn’t let us have it both ways. If you pick libertarian, you shouldn’t get FEMA bailouts.

I am now old enough to have lived through a time when people were extremely worried about rapid population growth and a time when people were extremely worried about rapid population decline.

Good point. Canadian planners seem to be turning away from the old religion.🙂 It’s funny, though, how they left a few quirky exceptions. A Vancouver resident can now build a car-free apartment building, except they still have to install a curb cut & driveway to access a visitor parking space or two?

Housing and urban design preferences cannot be fairly determined in cities that impose minimum parking mandates and exclusionary zoning.

Among US planners, minimum parking requirements are almost a religion. The Squamish Nation doesn’t share that faith.

At #CNU34 listening to Dallas leaders explain how they reformed building codes to make missing middle housing (triplexes, etc.) more affordable. citysecretary2.dallascityhall.com/resolutions/...

Residential turnover is a policy opportunity too! It was key in West End Vancouver's shift to 'market based' parking permits. Permits at the old low grandfathered price are phasing out quickly.

At #CNU34, listening to Raj Chetty explain how much, and why, better urban design led to better outcomes for the children who grew up in revitalized public housing projects.

“It took me moving to Bayern, Germany, to really understand how different our codes were…” If every architecture, planning, and fire protection engineering program in the US required a year of overseas work experience, all 50 states would rapidly legalize tall single-stair buildings. #CNU34

I had to go to Colombia to find a consultant to do an electrification alternatives analysis on a mixed system with existing trolleybus lines because there were no North Americans who could do the work. And guess what...it showed we can electrify cheaper, faster, with fewer enviro & ops impacts

My old firm developed a reputation for being ”innovative” because we kept hiring foreigners, who would tell us about practices their native lands had adopted 20 years earlier.

Why does America have so many empty storefronts? Maybe we started this century with too many and zoning codes keep demanding more?

Is there a fire station anywhere in the United States or Canada with as many bays? Have any US fire departments adopted the German approach? If not, maybe we should. Germany’s fire death rate is a lot lower than America’s (even though they allow much taller single-stair apartment buildings).

San Francisco Chronicle endorses fire code reformer!😊

Switzerland doesn't require fire sprinklers in "residential accommodations." That's according to the European Fire Sprinkler Network. Am I right in thinking that this recently-built 25-story single-stair tower doesn't include them?

@sierraclubnc.bsky.social‘s “lobbying team joined partners to support House Bill 369,” which abolishes minimum parking mandates statewide. This is the @sierraclub.org America needs.😊 Now we need to help @sierraclublp.bsky.social and @surfrider.org become just as progressive.

“Putting solar panels on parking lots…requires more labor and materials, which makes costs significantly higher than a comparable ground-mounted system. The aluminum beams that support MSU’s solar carports are more than 14 feet off the ground.“

Happy Birthday to the Parking Reform & Modernization Act! 🎂 @jessdbateman.bsky.social www.sightline.org/2026/05/07/w...

The retired farmworkers who will live in these homes don't have cars. They can't afford them! They've explained that to the Council. Yet Half Moon Bay Councilmembers would kill this affordable housing if they could, by insisting on more parking. This is why America needs statewide parking reform.

@sierraclub.org, why isn’t Mike Ferreira of @sierraclublp.bsky.social upholding the Club‘s national policy of supporting infill housing? Trying to block 40 affordable homes for retired farmworkers, on a previously developed downtown site, because he wants more parking? Who speaks for the club?

If you're in California and agree that it's wrong to make regular people pay high fees to find out what the law is, email [email protected] at Ted Lieu's office. I did! Something short and sweet is fine.

US model fire codes demand wide roadways (with 20 or more feet of clear width), even on very low-traffic residential streets. Am I right in thinking that few if any other nations demand such wide streets?

"When cities are built around cars instead of people, our subsidy bill will continue to rise." Minimum parking mandates ➡️more cars, more driving➡️more gas burned ➡️growing fuel subsidy bill for Malaysia's government➡️strained budget, unpopular subsidy caps

"St. Petersburg residents could see new buildings constructed without parking spaces..." If you read this, remember that the only thing cities need to do to successfully remove minimum parking mandates is to manage curb parking, using prices and/or permits, to keep it readily available.

"Kansas City Council voted to eliminate...minimum parking requirements across much of the city. The old rules drove up construction costs, kept storefronts empty & made it harder to build affordable housing. This is how we build a more walkable, more affordable Kansas City" – Mayor Quinton D. Lucas

I'm reviewing the online prep course for the Congress for the New Urbanism's CNUa accreditation exam. The section on parking mandates and parking reform is (appropriately) dominated by quotes from, articles by, and interviews with Donald Shoup, @citizen-cate.bsky.social, and @tonyjordan.bsky.social.

Instead of just blaming others, US fire officials should look in the mirror and ask: "What have WE done to drive up apparatus prices?" Our firefighters' unions should do the same. So should US elected officials, at the federal, state, and local levels. If you can't think of anything, think again.

Mahan: "We were the first big city in the country to eliminate parking minimums. (Editor’s note: This is true depending on how you define a big city. Buffalo, New York; Raleigh, North Carolina; and Minneapolis all eliminated parking minimums before San Jose.)" Parking reform is popular, but...

"...parking minimums have long been identified as a barrier to more affordable housing in Hawaiʻi. This session, two bills took aim at them. Senate Bill 2356...targeted transit-oriented development zones. Senate Bill 2981 cast a wider net, covering new developments near transit hubs statewide."

According to the U.S. Fire Administration, the fire death rate in Switzerland is "less than a sixth of the United States rate."

In the #BART system, "Incidents of graffiti, vandalism, garbage can emptying, and fire extinguisher spraying have plummeted since the 'Next Generation' gates were installed last year, according to reports presented to the board of directors in February."

Flashback to 2014: “The San Francisco Chamber of Commerce & the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition are united in support of Sunday meter enforcement and we urge the transportation agency to keep this smart parking management policy in place for the good of our city.“

Good news for #Oakland shoppers, business owners & residents: convenient front-door parking will soon be readily available. Frustrated drivers will no long circle in search of underpriced and overcrowded curb spaces.

#Columbus, OH, has made it legal, once again, to build accessory dwelling units in all residential districts. No additional parking will be required. #ADU #ADUs

In #Maui, "omitting minimum parking requirements will help the rebuilt town be as pedestrian friendly as it was before being destroyed by the August 2023 wildfires."

North Carolina's HB 1056, a sweeping housing reform package, "bans minimum parking requirements on new development. Experts say the change cuts costs and frees land for housing."

As parking scholars age, they choose wider tires and add a cupholder.

Planning codes that demand highly-articulated buildings are, in no small part, downstream from US building codes that demand two stairs separated by a corridor. To make those buildings pencil, developers build block-long behemoths.

This firm promises to save time, money & hassles by connecting curbside chargers directly to the electrical panel of the adjacent building, instead of needing a direct connection to utility power lines. They promise building owners no-cost installation & passive income of $700 – $3400/year/charger.

CA Gov. candidate Mahan opposes allowing 4-plexes in single family zones, saying: “At the end of the day, a one-size-fits-all upzoning in an expansive, sprawling city like San Jose, which already has some of the worst traffic and least-effective transit in the country, is simply a flawed approach.”

I’ve been a transportation planner in California for more than 30 years. I’ve never heard a candidate for governor make as compelling a case for legalizing apartments near transit as Tom Steyer does in this essay. He wrote it to support SB 79. 🎁link:

“I think this is one of those few instances throughout the course of human history where we are literally having a huge paradigm shift and having a huge rethinking of how do we build buildings and...how do we do it in a safer way and how do we do it in a more sustainable way.” Is this hype, or...

“In 2015, the state legislature passed the Racial and Identity Profiling Act (RIPA), which requires detailed reporting on all pedestrian and traffic stops.” This law was likely necessary to stop racial profiling. However, did it reduce traffic citations because doing the paperwork takes time?

”The chassis requirement, they say, has also created an unnecessary burden for manufacturers because it doesn’t allow the frames to be removed & reused after a home is delivered — a cost of several thousand dollars that is passed onto consumers.” I keep learning new reasons why homes cost too much.