DART board meeting only starting a wee bit late today, by 53 minutes. Thread time!

Southbound Akard has been closed from Main to Commerce for weeks. As a pedestrian, the reduced traffic flow has made the walk so much nicer! Can we make this permanent please?

We did it! At midnight, all the remaining bills threatening DART died in the Senate! Huge victory for everyone involved! open.substack.com/pub/dallasur...

“It's not my duty as Mayor to make sure you have a parking spot. For me it's the same as if you bought a cow, or a refrigerator, and then asked me where you're going to put them.” — Mayor of Pontevedra, Spain (re-elected 6 times)

Parking reform just passed Dallas City Council! That sound you hear is… absolutely nothing happening, as the city isn’t going to just change overnight. But man, I can’t wait to see how downtown and ToDs pop off over the next few years!

HB 3187 (the Texas House bill to cut DART) died last night! Time ran out to schedule it for a vote on the House floor. Huge victory for @ridewithdata.org! The game’s not over yet, because SB 1557 (that does the same thing) is still floating out there, but the HB dying is major progress.

I am hearing some Texas reps are getting hundreds of emails per day in opposition to Plano's Kill DART bill. Some say emails don't work but there is apparently a tipping point when their staff can't deal with anything but one issue. Engagement works. Save public transit!

@wfaach8.bsky.social The riders are ready for their 5 minute interview regarding the DART legislation HB 3187. Representative Shaheen vastly understated the impacts of his legislation. Contact us at [email protected] and we can set something up.

@wfaach8.bsky.social Rep Shaheen made several factual misrepresentations in this interview. Please allow equal air time for the riders or DART to correct the record.

They’re going for a whole new style of decoration at Parker Road Station!

This book was written 60 years ago! We’ve known for 60 years! And yet we still have to have the “Won’t somebody think of the traffic??” fight every time anyone wants to build anything.

Absolute victory tonight at Rowlett! Council unanimously voted to rescind their resolution to defund DART and instead passed one in support of full funding. It was very encouraging to see all their speeches leading up to the new resolution.

Oh man, why did I wait so long to read Death and Life? It continues to astound me how perfectly this 60 year old book describes Plano’s current predicament.

New month, so time for a new book! This month, I’m reading a seminal book I should have gotten to a while ago: Jane Jacob’s Death and Life of Great American Cities. This is April’s @ridewithdata.org book club book!

Had an important debate with my cat tonight. “Are you a good kitty, or are you a very good kitty?” She refused to make a selection!

A bill filed in the Texas House Friday would reduce the amount of taxes regional transit authorities like Dallas Area Rapid Transit can collect from member cities.

In a statement to the Dallas Morning News, DART board member Randall Bryant, who represents Dallas, said that he believes ”a bill to fundamentally dismantle and defund our agency would be filed, and that is exactly what HB 3187 would do.” www.dallasnews.com/news/transpo...

And there it is- Shaheen has filed the expected "Kill DART" bill. We're going to be opposing this with everything we've got at @ridewithdata.org. Time to make some phones ring off the hooks.

The new bike ramp at Arapaho Center Station is open! I’m super excited to see that bike lane project finish.

NTX Urbanist book club with Better Block last night was great! We discussed the first three chapters of Paved Paradise, a book I highly recommend. We’ll be continuing the discussion next month! Third Tuesdays from here on.

Finished Human Transit! It was very good. I love that he has a whole chapter dedicated to what cities like Plano can do to make their situations better. I’ve been saying forever that the right-of-way of Plano’s 6 lane stroads allow for many options. Glad to see Walker emphasize that too!

Human Transit explains why putting the high speed rail station at Cedars is a mistake. Union Station is right there and already connects to Red, Blue, Dallas Street Car, TRE, and Amtrak. Instead, we’re putting it barely a mile away but where it only connects to Red and Blue. This is an own goal.

Chapter 8 clearly demonstrates why one hour frequencies on the Silver Line is a huge whiff. I can’t realistically plan my flights around the Silver Line train table. If, on average, just waiting for the train is as long as the drive home (and sometimes far worse), it might as well not exist.

I’m really excited about the new bike infrastructure Richardson is putting in on Greenville near Arapaho Center Station! I hope that’s the first of many ToD projects there and the first of many such bike projects throughout the city.

The idea that ”urbanists want to ban cars and force everyone to bike everywhere” comes from a car-centric mindset (assuming everyone must rely on one mode and urbanists just want to swap cars for bikes). There are zero cities in the world that I know of where you have to bike to function.

Chapter 5 of Human Transit breaks down flexible vs. fixed routes. Woof, it really shows the folly of Plano’s single GoLink zone proposal. It’s just spending money to spend money and fix one number the city doesn’t like. It’s bad transit policy and will cost much more money to serve fewer people.

A great summary of the recent negotiations between DART and Plano. www.dmagazine.com/frontburner/...

Funny thing about diving in to these urbanism books: I’m not learning a ton of new concepts, but I am absolutely learning succinct new ways to express them. I’m on chapter 3 of Human Transit, and already have several good highlights of better ways to express the same ideas.

New month, new urbanism read! This month, I’m reading Human Transit by Jarrett Walker. Really looking forward to this one!

I finally finished Walkable City this morning. It’s not earth shattering if you’ve been around urbanist circles for a while. It laid it all out really nicely, though, and I’m walking away with a ton of highlights for future reference. Highly recommended!

Sen. Kevin Cramer touts $16 billion in cuts to the transportation budget 12 hours after the deadliest plane crash in America in 24 years

Mary set an exceptionally powerful example of leadership in advocacy. I've been an advocate in various causes for years, and I can count on one hand the number of times I've met someone as capable, passionate, and committed as Mary. The transit advocacy community has lost one of its best this week.

It’s been a tough week. We’re going to miss Mary so much.

Had a great @ridewithdata.org meeting today! Lots of important topics to discuss as we ramp up our advocacy as the legislative session starts. Thanks to everyone who turned out- we’re gonna have to find a bigger venue soon because we keep filling up that meeting room at the library!

Asking the public what they want in a plan more than once is a great way of saying you don't give a damn what ordinary people want, you only care what people with time on their hands think.

Im guessing the bridges into the city dont often look this green during 8 am rush hour

One reason I think it’s important to continue to highlight the disparity on our streets is that most people just don’t see it. Despite it being obvious to some, so many people don't have clarity because we have done such an incredible job of normalizing this imbalance.

@lemononapear.com Choo choo

Dare I say it is extremely disconcerting that the depth of our moral compass seems to be, "gas chambers would be both economical AND efficient. It's what pencils!" therealnews.com/advocating-i...

Walkable City cites a connection between the best and worst cities for asthma and the walkability of those cities. I’m not surprised at all by this. As an asthmatic, air quality makes a big difference to me. Tailpipe emissions are a huge contributor to bad air quality.

The new year is here, so time to start on my urbanism book list! Up first, Jeff Speck’s Walkable City. Didn’t take long to get the first eye popping statistic. Wowza!

I don’t mind people owning cars. What I do mind is the insistence that they should be allowed to leave them on publicly funded streets, while also demanding an excess of parking lots that consume finite urban space, sterilize our environment, and make cities more hostile to exist in.

Getting started on my yearlong read of this tome! I’m reading through the intro this week so I’m ready for chapter 1 in the first week of the new year.

I’m disappointed to see my own city ringleading these efforts. While it’s completely understandable that Plano wants to boost their intracity transit, making threats to DART in a way that harms their own residents and the rest of the region is not the way to accomplish this.

Thanks @ridewithdata.org for coming out to the DART board working session this afternoon. It’s so important that we stay on top of what’s going on with our agency, and I was thrilled to see so many of you show up at a moment’s notice. Keep it up, and see you all January 8!

Working on my reading goals for 2025. I haven’t read near enough of the urbanism “must reads”, and I want to rectify that. Here’s what I have so far. I’ve already read Strong Towns, Confessions, Arbitrary Lines, and Paved Paradise, and I’ll spread Power Broker over the year. What else am I missing?

Riding the Red Line in to the Dallas Marathon Festival this morning. I love these trains to special events! It’s a whole different kind of energy from my normal commute.

Great victory tonight at the DART board meeting! You can’t run a competent transit agency without functional busses. Thanks to all the @ridewithdata.org members who came out, and thanks to the DART board members who voted in favor. Enjoy it, because we’ve got plenty of fights coming in the new year!

Second year out of the last three getting the holiday train! What a fun surprise!