came across one of my first public takes on transportation. feeling good about it 17 years later

I am not certain this is real or precisely true, but I do know it's true that delivery apps are in no way a "free market" and they have and use the ability to price discriminate, play dirty tricks, and generally squeeze every dollar from drivers and restaurants

Seattle’s new comp plan

ranking portland public high schools by how much parking they have: a thread

If public policy can make elevators cheaper to build, not only will we build more homes in the middle of our amenity-rich and desirable neighborhoods, but all the homes we do build will be accessible to people who can't always take the stairs. housing affordability and accessibility overlap!

@quickbrownfox-42.bsky.social oh good I did find this account earlier

Happy New Year to Eugene, where the private sector is spending $$$ to build student housing near the University of Oregon The 15-story Chapter Alder is replacing two restaurants and and a house with a 491-bedroom tower Great reporting on this by @eugeneweekly.com eugeneweekly.com/2025/12/24/c...

Hasn’t been since 2012 that I knew so many people looking for work

Trump Abandons Efforts to Deploy National Guard to Portland, Chicago & LA www.nytimes.com/2025/12/31/u...

This is 100% my expectation as well and if we (researchers, policy people, etc.) don’t think that outcome is obvious, then we need to make plain the effects of changes that indirectly facilitate it.

Never read an interview quite like this www.nytimes.com/2026/01/01/a...

“Happy new year, there is no Santa” - @briancpotter.bsky.social www.construction-physics.com/p/should-us-...

2026 comes with shiny new policy! Here's what we're excited about kicking in on Jan. 1 (or later in the new year) in Cascadia. 🪩✨ First up: Washington's carbon cap, outlined in the Climate Commitment Act, will tighten about 7% at midnight.

this is an *outstanding* report on the #1 form of public transportation and how it's priced, practiced, and implemented globally. Utterly informative, read all 110 pages.

The Americas see about 3% of global elevator installations as of 2020. The U.S. & Canada: even less. But we've stuck with our own unique set of elevator codes, as if elevator companies still have no choice but to beat a path to our door. Nope! "Everywhere else" is a bigger common market now.

This would be an incredibly stupid thing for any Portlander to vote for. Portland already meets the conditions necessary to conduct sweeps so it wouldn't give us any more options, but it would enable other cities to shirk their responsibilities and offload their problems onto us

Th AGs are on a winning streak, but this is of the more important wins for Oregon

IMO it's good to have a cultural taboo against suicide for people who aren't terminally ill. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/29/h...

Hot take: Weed should be at least a liiiiiittle bit illegal

In @nytopinion.nytimes.com "The United States has been profoundly changed by Indians coming to the country," our columnist Lydia Polgreen writes. "It stands to reason it will be changed by their not coming, too."

unfair for the headline of the year to allow all the other contenders to keep their hopes up until the last minute www.popularmechanics.com/science/arch...

Murders through October: 14% below 2019 levels jasher.substack.com/p/2025-year-...

It's remarkable how low COVID deaths have fallen in the last year. The 2024 summer wave peaked at 1,358 deaths per week; the 2025 summer wave peaked at 466 deaths per week. www.cdc.gov/covid/php/su...

Muhammad Alameldin on the Housing Voice podcast with a quote that just sums up a lot of US policy development www.lewis.ucla.edu/2025/12/17/1...

“Behind only California and Nevada”

Transit's main competition is cars. If you raise fares from $2.50 to $3, you're still way more affordable than driving. But if you cut the bus from every 15 to every 20, you're screwed because cars have infinity frequency and 24 hr service span.

Actual 2025 tariff rates are, to date, far less than statutory rates, but the costs of the tariffs are mostly borne by the US – estimated tariff pass-through to US prices in 2025 is 94%. Tariffs on imports act like a 1 to 2pp tax on US manufacturing. brentneiman.com/research/GN2...

Dean Martin, born Dino Paul Crocetti, son of Italian immigrant Gaetano Crocetti Frank Sinatra, son of Italian immigrants Antonino Sinatra and Natalina Garavanta Merry Christmas to everyone except Stephen Miller and his enablers and handlers

writing the first of what I hope will be many articles about elevators and trying to keep eyes on the prize

when everybody knows the primary will be decided by one endorsement anyway www.vanityfair.com/news/story/t...

Tired: deciding when to tell your kid about sex Wired: deciding when to tell your kid about Santa Inspired: deciding when to play your kid What’s He Building by Tom Waits

Just doing my part in the new cold war by visiting Japan in April. I’ve never crossed the Pacific! Tell me what to do in Tokyo, Kyoto, and/or Magome

Honored that @IslandPress has named my book "Human Transit" as one of their top 10 Built Environment books from their 40 years of publishing. It's a friendly, readable guide to help you think about public transportation issues. www.planetizen.com/features/136...

One of the worst but most common arguments against removing parking mandates in WA was the idea that “transit isn’t good enough yet.” As if auto-oriented zoning hadn’t been sending transit service down a long spiral since 1950

Here's each G7 country's cumulative increase in real GDP per capita, since just before the pandemic: 🇺🇸 +11.3% 🇮🇹 +7.7% 🇯🇵 +3.7% 🇫🇷 +3.2% 🇬🇧 +0.8% 🇨🇦 +0.5% 🇩🇪 -1.7%

This has always been one of my favorite Discworld quotes. ❤️💚

If you’re wondering why your friends in academia are a little on edge right now, it’s because an eighteen-year-old who hasn’t done the reading, doesn’t look at the assignment, and has does no critical thinking skills more complex than “because I think it’s in the Bible” can literally end your career

Its really understated how much of a turnaround Richmond, CA has. In the 1990s Richmond was a homicide capital of the west coast! There were blocks in Richmond I could not walk or wear red shoes on for fear of being shot.

Congestion Pricing's first year couldn't have been more successful. Never forget we had to fight city reps, the state, and the president for this.

Who needs a village when you can have parking lots?

NEW: By a 6-3 vote, the Supreme Court blocks Trump’s deployment of the National Guard to Chicago to assist immigration agents. A majority holds that he likely lacks authority to do so. Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch dissent. www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25p...

A very good thread

Year 1 data on congestion pricing in Manhattan… * Vehicle traffic: -11% * Foot traffic: +3.4% * Storefront vacancy: -0.9% * Pollution: -22% * Revenue for mass transit: $548M So YES this has been a huge success.

Tired: Gnu’s Not Unix Wired: Ass Shit Shit

76 in Denver in late December

Good @oregonian.com report on one of those situations that is gonna force people to update their assumptions www.oregonlive.com/business/202...

They are the conservative option for car replacement. They still take up more physical space than necessary but improve ped/bike safety. I’d like to see dense housing provide shared carts to residents instead of parking.

portland’s residential infill project was a huge step towards ending exclusionary zoning but middle housing improvements are moving so fast in other cities that we’re starting to look conservative in comparison

tonight the government killed a story on cbs about the slave labor camp in a foreign country theyre illegally sending people to

One big takeaway from Mamdani bringing YIMBYs into his transition is that advocates can often gain a lot of power by 1.) having useful answers to questions and accurate information 2.) being reasonably polite and pleasant to elected officials 3.) understanding the actual mechanics of government