I like GGWash, but there are no takes or analysis here at all about the actual draft plan document, a thing that will actually matter for the future of the site.

Greater Greater Washington@ggwash.org · 2d ago

“It’s okay to admit that a football stadium can’t support a lively urban district, because if it could, another city would have figured it out by now.”

3245 West Congress Parkway

Cannot adequately describe how off putting the “better things aren’t possible” attitude is.

Neil Flanagan 🧱🗃️@jgbollard.bsky.social · 4d ago

This is it boys, the platonic "New York can never get better" piece www.archpaper.com/2026/07/litt...

Here's my list of "urbanist" museums.

post your worst transportation take: I actually love the mobile lounges at Dulles.

The cost problem is real, but I’m also curious how much of this is driven by the CIG process and requirements to show financial stability…

Ryan Packer@typewriteralley.bsky.social · 5d ago

Sound Transit: "If the region does not secure additional savings or financial capacity and must wait for existing revenues to accumulate, Link service to Smith Cove, Interbay, and Market Street could be delayed until around 2060." www.soundtransit.org/blog/platfor...

A few somewhat connected thoughts on the whole Dulles thing, and specifically who pays. Nobody wants to go on the record to clarify where the money is coming from: www.ffxnow.com/2026/07/31/d...

Dulles partners mostly mum on details of how $22.5B expansion plan will be funded | FFXnow

Specifics remain vague on how the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA) plans to fund the $22.5 billion proposed Dulles International Airport expansion plan announced July 29 at the White ...

ffxnow.com

The greatest thread in the history of the National Mall, locked by a moderator after 12,239 pages of esoteric debate

Neil Flanagan 🧱🗃️@jgbollard.bsky.social · 5d ago

One of the more esoteric debates in the history of the National Mall is whether the McMillan Plan's Monument Grounds complex was cancelled due to the risks its weight posed to the precarious foundations of the Washington Monument, or whether it was mostly about cost allocation during the New Deal.

In other local DC-area airport development news… MWAA published a draft EA for the terminal 1 redevelopment, which is really a consolidation of everything into one terminal… www.mwaa.com/notice-avail...

City Cast DC with a very deeply reported and thorough piece about streateries. My take - There needed to be fees and actual regulations about these and there were bound to be growing pains, which is happening now dc.citycast.fm/business-dev...

See Where Streateries Survive in D.C. – And Why So Many Disappeared · City Cast DC

Restaurants resisted. The city government dug in. What if everyone was right?

dc.citycast.fm

It’s literally the backyard dream setup… bottom of the 9th, down by three… two outs, two strikes…

MLB@mlbbot.bsky.social · 6d ago

KODY CLEMENS ULTIMATE GRAND SLAM!

I appreciate these guys for picking a name for their hedge fund that’s generating great headlines.

George Pearkes@peark.es · 6d ago

From a peak of more than $40bn per other reporting so they have beat Archegos by a factor of three on the all-time trading losses rankins. *SITUATIONAL AWARENESS ASSETS SAID TO FALL TO $10 BILLION

Given the inconsistencies between the various renderings, worth noting this is mostly a vibes-based design. MWAA has an active RFQ for the “IAD Revitalization Program, Package A” www.mwaa.com/contracting-...

Edward Russell@byerussell.com · last wk.

Check out the plan to revitalize Dulles Airport. While Trump is championing it, it is very much United's plan for the airport. What do you think?

Ngl i keep seeing this blamed on AI companies but this is just copyright law regarding scanning in action

Dr. Jeroen W.P. Wijnendaele@drdragases.bsky.social · last wk.

No longer content with pillaging intellectual work and dismembering our environment (already critically weakened), AI companies are now hellbent on destroying books galore including rare editions. Shut down these nefarious enterprises already.

“In recent months, Mr. Trump hosted charrettes, calling in executives from development and finance companies to the Oval Office to make pitches, and he hounded his advisers by phone with suggestions, according to sources familiar with the conversations.” www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-d...

How Trump drafted upcoming renovations for Washington Dulles, a "terrible airport"

President Trump asked for 3D models of the renovation proposals as he personally tweaked ideas to overhaul Dulles International Airport that are scheduled to be unveiled on Wednesday.

cbsnews.com

I missed this news last week: not sure what kind of public-private partnership could actually work here, since the feds already sold off the air rights decades ago… www.enr.com/articles/633...

USDOT Scraps Approved Washington Union Station Expansion Plan

Federal officials are replacing years of planning with a public-private strategy, even as key questions about scope, financing and environmental approvals remain unanswered.

enr.com

Having worked through fiscal cliffs at three different agencies in my career (thankfully all where the agencies averted catastrophe), just going through the act of creating service cut plans is incredibly demoralizing for staff Even if you don’t ultimately cut service, it sticks with you

Jarrett Walker@humantransit.bsky.social · last wk.

This year our firm is working on several transit plans that involve cutting service. So I know we’ll again get framed as service cut advocates. That’s not how it works. We work with the client’s financial situation. Advocate transit funding, so we don’t have to do this. We want more transit too

The idea of a template for this kind of email is anything but new; but it does show a complete lack of proofreading and checking the outputs.

Theo@theopriestley.net · last wk.

Fucking hell as if receiving automated rejection letters for jobs wasn't bad enough.

Did the Denver fire marshal really ban EV charging in underground garages? I would think that a policy with such profound design implications would be announced more widely than in a Reddit post, but knowing how the fire service communicates, maybe not www.thecooldown.com/green-tech/d...

Denver EV owners can park underground, but a fire marshal ban stops them from charging

A fire marshal and HOA in Denver are preventing people from charging their EVs while they're parked underground.

thecooldown.com

For the next "ways in which things have gotten worse intergenerationally" post, this looks like a much better stat to use than housing prices. It needs to be at 1 for everyone to be happy. It was at 0.95 in 2000, and is at 0.86 now.

Ryan Moulton@moultano.bsky.social · 2w ago

I'm actually astonished at how clean this graph looks as a diagnostic for our housing ills. Note how close it is to 1 at the start. Houses per single adult or married couple.

This is all true, but I have a pedantic point: there’s a difference between “affordable housing” and “Affordable Housing.” Proper noun Affordable Housing is affordable because it is subsidized. This bit of verbal framing was meant to de-stigmatize those programs… but adds confusion today.

David Roberts@volts.wtf · 2w ago

It's wild to me how many people do not understand this. "Luxury housing" is not some ontologically separate category from the rest of the housing market. Nor is "affordable housing." It's all one big fluid market & when you build more, everyone moves up & frees up the bottom end.

Listened to the whole segment; it’s a good discussion but the framing is still bad since it starts from a false binary (e.g. the “dangerous distraction” thing)

David Zipper@davidzipper.bsky.social · 2w ago

​I'll get some flak for this, but IMO the Abundance transit stuff is a dangerous distraction. Portland, the Bay Area, Miami etc face draconian service cuts that would drive away riders— for good. If that happens "I don't really care how much a [new] bus costs because you'll have nobody riding it."

Man, I love MLS.

Dan Weiner@danweiner.bsky.social · 2w ago

Rocco Rios Novo with the howler of all howlers MLS IS BACK FOLKS.

Saul Bass also redesigned LA's RTD logo in 1980. “I viewed it as a personal project. Los Angeles is my home. We all know that #publictransportation is one of the major issues that confronts society generally—and Los Angeles in particular," #SaulBass. RTD mug via @metrolosangeles.bsky.social store:

Michael Warburton@michaelwarburton.bsky.social · 2w ago

Just some of the iconic corporate logos designed by the legendary SAUL BASS

Kansas City remains committed to stadiums in distant locations with massive amounts of surface parking, I see

NFL News Poster@nflnewsposter.bsky.social · 2w ago

[Schefter] The Kansas City Chiefs have released the first renderings for their stadium that is set to open in 2031. twitter.com/AdamSchefter...

He needs to get in touch with Luke Fickell and get this printed on a vest

Logan Hard@loganhard.bsky.social · 2w ago

Oh no. He’s got an acronym? Harbaugh is cooked.

I hadn’t considered the crayon implications of LLMs

Nilo@nilo.bsky.social · 2w ago

Guy next to me on the metro is asking chat GPT how to expand the system 😂

I love transit advocate crayon drawings. But @infrastructureweak.bsky.social's work on Geary is next level, synthesizing 91 years of subway planning thinking. Great thinking on stations and analysis supporting automated light metro.

Infrastructure Weak@infrastructureweak.bsky.social · 2w ago

I've just published this article, Part 1 of 4 about the choices that will enable San Francisco to finally build a Geary metro. medium.com/@infrastruct...

One thing to note: neither of these stadiums were built in dense neighborhoods. They were built on what was then the fringe of the city, where it was easier to assemble large parcels of land. The city then grew around the stadiums.

Sam@very-simple.com · 2w ago

II know this is supposed to be a dig at MetLife but I’d much rather have a stadium that is only used for its intended purpose less than 30 days a year sitting in an otherwise uninhabitable swamp and not in the middle of my already inhabited NYC neighborhood.