PATH Weekend Ridership Smashes Modern-Era Records After Service Improvements Ridership surges 26% in June, after JC & Hoboken stations get 7-10 minute headways all day on weekends and direct Journal Sq-33 St service is reintroduced. betterblocksnj.org/2026/07/21/p...

PATH Weekend Service Improvements Drive 26% Ridership Surge YoY

Discover how recent PATH service improvements boosted weekend ridership by 26% in June, highlighting the impact of transit-oriented development.

betterblocksnj.org

Fun find this afternoon: In 1957, the Port Authority did the engineering work to link the downtown PATH to the Lexington Avenue subway local tracks.

Some local flavor: downtown JC has a 15% IZ set-aside for upzoned land. In five years, not a single affordable unit has broken ground in downtown JC. When thr IZO passed, then-councilman Solomon pledged to relax the IZO if it didnt work. Instead he ran on making it more onerous & applying citywide

@3underscores.bsky.social · 4mo ago

San Francisco is mulling cutting its inclusionary zoning set-aside from 15% to 5% www.sfchronicle.com/realestate/a...

San Francisco is mulling cutting its inclusionary zoning set-aside from 15% to 5% www.sfchronicle.com/realestate/a...

If we could fund better transit in NJ through a new revenue stream, how would you do it? Didn't Pompidou reveal we could be using special improvement districts for regional/localized public goods? @upzonenj.bsky.social @3underscores.bsky.social @mdasilva.bsky.social @eaconner.bsky.social

So...tonight JC's new infrasturture director asked neighborhood meeting attendees for a show of hands if we should have paid parking permit zones. Is this how we're going to do street safety improvements now, under the new admin? Straw polls at NIMBY meetings with an average age of 65?

Bought a coat rack in Bayonne and biked home with it over my handlebars a couple days ago. It was an odd revelation having cars give me almost the legally required 4 feet of passing clearance. Feels so different, and virtually never happens when youre not carrying a 6-foot pole.

The new Target in Journal Sq is a disappointment. The store is too small with not enough variery ir quantity of items in stock, especially value sizes. Fine, but the store 's retail space could easily be 3x larger—above it there are two levels of dedicated "free" parking that sit mostly empty...

In his order denying the city's temporary injunction against closing Christ Hospital on Saturday, Judge Anthony d'Elia basically says Mayor Solomon has been gaslighting constituents with the argument that Christ Hospital illegally closed.

The only ethical slopulism is unethical slopulism, where you don’t believe any of the crowd pleasing shit and will do sane policy in office while handwaving away how it’s actually no tax on tips or whatever. Unfortunately both politicians and voters almost always become what they pretend to be.

If you sign up for updates from Ward F councilman Gilmore, he sends you advertisements for his for-profit business "Educational Gilmore Speaks LLC." The proceeds benefit the "EGS Scholarship Fund," which just means he gives kids discounts for his "services" and pockets the money. Grifter.

If your inclusionaey zoning is well calibrated, you can get vurtually 100% utilization without making it a mandate. If it is poorly calibrated and it is a mandate, it will raise rents by reducing supply.

I went to the Lidl on 32 St in Manhattan today and the produce was cheaper than at the Korean fruit stands in McGinley Square (and fresher). The first time I've ever found cheaper produce in a supermarket than these produce places.

"IZ seeks to produce affordable homes by substituting land use policy in place of broadly shared taxes and public subsidies. This analysis suggests that the public may be paying either way, and that the costs of IZ are both higher and more regressive than the alternative."

Highland Avenue before and after being destroyed by developers

Kind of interesting that this single-family house near the epicenter of the Journal Sq/Homestead Pl construction boom on Van Reipen Ave just sold for 2% *less* adjusting for inflation than it did in March 2018, despite the new retail amenities in the area.

Hilltop, Jersey City

Still the same situation.

@3underscores.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Bus stop on Newark Ave still completely snowed in 3 days after storm, just as it was for two weeks after the last blizzard. Even worse this time: no foot path. Nothing was learned by city government.

Bus stop on Newark Ave still completely snowed in 3 days after storm, just as it was for two weeks after the last blizzard. Even worse this time: no foot path. Nothing was learned by city government.

Amazing. NYC NIMBY populist councilmember is voting FOR an upzoning in her district—because if she didn't, the mayor and borough president would approve something even bigger and with poorer tenants. This is thanks to the charter revision amendments Eric Adams sponsored last November.

11K views · 162 reactions | Back in October, I explained the situation with the potential development project on 24th Avenue in Bayside. It is an unpopular project, and I share community opposition. ...

Back in October, I explained the situation with the potential development project on 24th Avenue in Bayside. It is an unpopular project, and I share community opposition. Those concerns have not...

facebook.com

The Planning Division's analyses and memos about the cost of this law included curtains and blinds as low-cost compliance options. But they have since confirmed to us they are not included under the law. Please email council to ask this law to be sent back to Planning for revision.

Better Blocks NJ@betterblocksnj.bsky.social · 5mo ago

JC Birds Continues to Mislead Jersey City on Costs, Impact of Bird Ordinance Ever since the bird-safe glass ordinance was introduced in 2025, Better Blocks has worked hard to make it a better, more targeted ordinance [Jersey City Times]. Our goal is to reduce bird strikes in high-risk areas…

This debate has shown me how little due diligence the city council does on the ordinances that come before it and how much the activists for it remind me of the lobbyists against nuclear and wind energy. Working to make all new construction in a city more expensive is climate (and fiscal) suicide.

Better Blocks NJ@betterblocksnj.bsky.social · 5mo ago

JC Birds Continues to Mislead Jersey City on Costs, Impact of Bird Ordinance Ever since the bird-safe glass ordinance was introduced in 2025, Better Blocks has worked hard to make it a better, more targeted ordinance [Jersey City Times]. Our goal is to reduce bird strikes in high-risk areas…

This bird-safe glass stuff seems extraordinarily expensive, and that’s before even getting into the questionable benefits (it doesn’t work well at night??) betterblocksnj.org/2026/02/23/j...

JC Birds misleads on costs, impacts of bird-safe materials

Better Blocks advocates for a better bird-safe ordinance to reduce bird strikes in Jersey City without burdening new construction with higher costs

betterblocksnj.org

“Housing for whom?” assumes a zero sum world in which we have to choose between building new market rate housing and building subsidized housing for poor people. No such tradeoff exists. We can let the market serve people who can afford market rate housing AND subsidize housing for those who can’t.

Graeme McGregor@graememcgregor.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Of course it does. The pertinent questions are "Affordable to whom?" and "Who do we prioritise in housing policy?". Is our concern providing slightly more affordable luxury housing to people in the top 10% of earners, or providing quality affordable housing to those in the lowest 10%?

new from me: a story about VACANCY CHAINS, the idea that underlies the argument that more housing is good even if you can't afford it www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

High-End Construction Really Does Help Everyone

A new rung at the top of the housing ladder permits people lower down to climb up.

theatlantic.com

Oregon's state senate just voted to ban unfunded inclusionary zoning, recognizing that it makes housing *less* affordable, not more affordable.

Retweeted by Garry Tan [UNOFFICIAL]@garrytan-mir-rt.selfhosted.social · 6mo ago

Great piece of legislation passed the Oregon Senate. SB 1521 bans inclusionary zoning UNLESS Portland-area govts create a pay-for to compensate builders for being forced to provide affordable units. NIMBY local governments won't be able to use IZ to block new housing supply.

Great piece of legislation passed the Oregon Senate. SB 1521 bans inclusionary zoning UNLESS Portland-area govts create a pay-for to compensate builders for being forced to provide affordable units. NIMBY local governments won't be able to use IZ to block new housing supply.

This is like the tenth research group using a totally new dataset to reach this same conclusion: building new market-rate housing helps low-income tenants. "These findings demonstrate that housing supply expansions benefit lower-income households through moving chains"

Jim Gleeson@geographyjim.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Another new paper on housebuilding and vacancy chains, this time with data on every Swiss resident & housing unit! An interesting context given Switzerland's high immigration, very large rented sector and strong tenancy rent controls... frederickluser.github.io/files/Moving...

The gall of developers erecting out-of-scale apartment buildings that violate the neighborhood character of single family homes. (Duncan Ave, Jersey City)