I think there are a few practical reasons why American cities should start building new elevated trains, but also just because the old Els in Manhattan inspired a lot of cool art. Ralston Crawford Third Avenue Elevated #4 1952

There's been a lot of talk about NYC generating new revenue from on-street parking, but I love this idea from the Center for an Urban Future to redevelop some of CUNY's surface parking lots. $55 million of new recurring revenue is real money, and would advance other goals like more housing too.

Very funny candidate Mamdani had to pretend he was on the fence about the pro-housing charter amendments (including the one creating ELURP) until literally the morning of election day to not cause too big of a riff with the hotel worker unions and SEIU. But YIMBY actions like this are what counts!

Many of the community centers in new subsidized residential developments are incredibly redundant with other nearby public amenities like libraries, which are accessible to more community members and better programmed. Utilization is often very low and space is essentially wasted.

Any guesses what this is a map of?

We need the transit costs guys to come up with a better two billion plan that we can implement instead of doing both free buses and the better billion plan

It's crazy how much simple string lights can improve the vibe of a block on a cold winter day. Wide sidewalks that allow for plenty of street trees are such a necessity in dense neighborhoods.

Candidate Mamdani campaigning on property tax reform only for Mayor Mamdani to then turn around and propose disproportionately raising property taxes on apartment buildings (including rent stabilized units) is just the latest example of why YIMBYs shouldn't rush to claim him as one of our own.

Faye Resnick's book about her friendship with Nicole Brown Simpson is a fascinating window into the world of the wealthy in the early 90s, so *of course* Donald Trump makes an appearance and *of course* he comes off as a boor.

You can learn a lot about a neighborhood and city by whether or not the local library requires a key to access the bathroom.

Transplants from cities like Philadelphia have a much more acute understanding of how bad stagnant job growth is for a city than most native New Yorkers, and it seems like we've entered an era where that perspective is especially needed in NYC.

Opening the emergency exit for fare evaders at subway stations is anti-social behavior that ought to be punished.

"Won't somebody PLEASE think of the petit bourgeois!" -NYC DSA, apparently

The little funicular on this old poster for the Palermo-Monreale tram [1900] is just too cute 😍

The New Deal public housing policies in NYC weren't perfect, but some of the art is truly outstanding. Clinton Pettee, for the Federal Art Project [1936]

I'm increasingly convinced cyclists and safe street activists should push for removing painted bike lanes. They're not doing anything to make biking safer or more appealing. Instead they exist to give cowardly politicians and bureaucracies cover for defending illegal parking.

One reason why I don't bike around NYC is you never know if a bike lane is real until you get there, even if it's on a map.

Focusing on the local environmental impact of highways seems so much more important than climate change when discussing urban highways. Decreasing traffic on the Cross Bronx Expressway won't have much of a global impact, but it'll make it easier to breathe for local residents.

A 23 minute gap in service IN THE MIDDLE OF RUSH HOUR makes it clear buses are for poor people.

If your only source of news about transit in NYC was local advocacy groups you'd think one of the biggest problems facing the MTA was having too much revenue 🥴

We unironically need to give critical support to politicians willing to change their mind like Mayor Mandani acknowledging expansion of the CityFHEPS program would blow up the City's budget. No shame in "flip-flopping" to the correct position! www.nytimes.com/2026/02/12/n...

The Venn diagram of folks who complain about the lack of manufacturing jobs in NYC and those celebrating a drone manufacturer being forced out of their site at the Brooklyn Navy Yard isn't exactly a circle, but it's pretty close.

I genuinely believe many of the supporters of the initial NYC Landmarks Law in 1965 would be SHOCKED at how many structures are now historically preserved. Just no way they would've guessed ~38 THOUSAND buildings would be covered by the legislation only a few decades later.

Simply begging Democratically controlled cities to develop state capacity to directly operate worthwhile programs instead of blindly cutting checks to connected nonprofit entrepreneurs.

A revived Liberal Party in New York City could potentially serve as a useful organizing tool for urbanists, YIMBYs, and supporters of the Abundance agenda.

It would seem like there's at least one issue where the new socialist mayor of New York agrees with conservatives:

A five week free bus "pilot" in NYC during the World Cup would permanently raise fare evasion rate on buses (just like it did after COVID) which would then cynically be used as further justification for free buses. Transit advocates should fight this defunding of the MTA!

"If you build a really good looking building there's a better chance it'll eventually get historically landmarked and property owners will lose a lot of control over the site" doesn't seem like a totally irrational concern for modern day developers.

Whispers: the bright red porcelain skyscraper proposed for the site of Carnegie Hall would've been pretty cool looking.

SEPTA has been working on a Regional Rail Master Plan for 5 plus years and still hasn't completed it, which is not exactly giving me much confidence Philly's commuter rail system will be significantly upgraded anytime soon. Steady work for the planners (AND CONSULTANTS) though.

Absurd how much gentrification dominates the discourse about housing, development, and economics in Philadelphia when the city remains so predominately poor and working class.

Disappointing how little interest there is among foundations and institutional donors in supporting advocacy groups in NYC (and other US cities) focused on improving transit service. Encouraging the MTA and other agencies to be more efficient/effective shouldn't be so secondary!

You can really see the difference between Central Harlem and East Harlem here, but it's also obvious just from walking around.

So much of our current era is shaped by the successes and failures of rural land reform attempts in the 20th century: In "Land Trap" Mike Bird argues the antagonism caused by the Shah's ambitious (but unsuccessful) redistribution program led to the revolution in Iran:

YIMBYs ought to be real careful about claiming Mamdani as one of their own when his deputy mayor is pretending we can achieve housing affordability by taxing residential development. This is either delusional or dishonest, and no reason for housing advocates to give it cover.

Maybe some socialists don't want to hear it, but Mayor Mamdani needs to bring down the cost of MARKET-RATE housing if only because the alternative is the City's voucher program devouring any additional revenue sources he finds, leaving nothing for any other new initiatives.

We've known for decades strict screening of tenants and speedy evictions for anti-social behavior is the only way to keep subsidized housing projects livable. Unfortunately blue cities like Portland have tried more lenient approaches recently, with predictable outcomes:

The cost of New York City's housing voucher program (CityFHEPS) growing at 4% A MONTH is just totally unsustainable. There will just never be enough money for housing subsidies in NYC if we don't bring down the cost of apartments by drastically increasing the supply. ny1.com/nyc/all-boro...

I know the Lieutenant Governor isn't a particularly powerful position in New York State, but Hochul picking Adrienne Adams as her running mate doesn't give me much confidence pro-supply housing reform will be much of a priority for the governor's next term 😬

Can you really blame elected officials for seeing transit primarily as a welfare program when most local transit advocacy organizations are more-or-less really just anti-poverty groups?

A lot of pro-housing advocacy has pivoted to the state level, but implementing citywide zoning changes can still help get more housing built, like City of Yes in NYC. So exciting to see a new ballot measure in the works in Denver to legalize more transit oriented development:

I'm glad @mtaoig.bsky.social found most subway bathrooms in NYC they visited were functional, but odd they were only able to visit 32 out of 125 bathrooms over a 5 month audit? They're all transit accessible. Doesn't seem like they tried for a geographically representative sample either.

The venn diagram of people who believe NYC can build Socialism in One City and the folks who believe NYC could NEVER develop the state capacity to efficiently and equitably collect transit fares is damn near a circle.

"We're going to make our city affordable by forcing developers to include below market rate units in their new buildings"

Streetsblog constantly publishing pieces about the merits of fareless buses is a great example of how the focus on free transit has sucked up all of the oxygen and leaving little room for discussion about superior fare system reforms like cheaper passes.

Free bus advocates acknowledge the existence of tradeoffs challenge (impossible) nyc.streetsblog.org/2026/02/03/o...

New York and other states need to be more willing to straight up seize the cars of drivers caught driving with a suspended license. Or even throw them in jail. This type of dangerous anti-social behavior cannot be tolerated.

It really is painfully obvious how much more space-efficient rail is compared to auto-infrastructure when you see a train whizzing by a highway, like the Major Deegan Expressway here in the Bronx.

The third season of The Wire is only the fourth best season of the show

So does anyone at SEPTA have any plans to prevent trains to and from the airport getting canceled due to lack of crews during the World Cup?? The trains usually only run every half hour as is (sometimes less) so things start getting pretty embarrassing quick if runs are missed.