When you ask voters to approve taxes for public transit, what you mostly get is a map of residential density. Here's the latest from Spokane, WA where the measure narrowly leads at the moment.

"For the first time ever, more people are employed by remodeling companies than by single-family and multifamily developers combined." (h/t @josephpolitano.bsky.social) www.theargumentmag.com/p/americas-e...

The Kelsey (disability-forward housing developer) is leading the Elevator Reform Coalition. If you belong to a YIMBY/AARP/AIA/NAHB group, or are just interested, RSVP for the kick-off (9/16, 1 pm ET) here: form.jotform.com/262106622196... ...general group here: form.jotform.com/262085033647...

People imagine that when we’re talking about cutting the number of stops in half, you’re making people walk twice as long. But in fact you’re really making them walk like 20% longer because they already had a significant walk to the street with the bus, down to the subway transfer platform, etc.

I didn’t draw this well, but this is why I think North American insistence on 1/8-mi. bus stop spacing vs. Europe’s 1/4-mi. is misguided. Average distance *to the line* is already so long that you’ve already lost people with big mobility issues before they’ve even gotten to the street with the bus.

Stephen Jacob Smith@stephenjacobsmith.com · 9h ago

This logic runs in the opposite direction – if there’s substantial lateral walking anyway, then the number of people for whom the marginal 100-200m is a dealbreaker is much smaller. If a line ran in front of everybody’s doorstep, then you’d gain a lot of riders with close stop spacing, because the…

Talking about false friends. In Québec's francophone university system: Professeur adjoint = assistant prof. Prof. associé = adjunct prof. (sort of) Prof. agrégé = associate prof.

Okay DailyCal, lets play a game. Why would a merchant's sales drop 50% between May and June just several blocks from UC Berkeley? A) New housing construction scares away customers. B) Burned buildings attract customers. C) More than half the population South of Campus is gone for the summer.

I don’t know who will win in Michigan but I promise I will use either result to get cheap political hits in on politicans I don’t like, that’s the regime promise

"As part of the partnership, Patel has brought officials from China's Ministry of Public Security, or MPS, to multiple FBI facilities in the United States to share ​intelligence and investigative information."

EXCLUSIVE: Under Patel, FBI forges unprecedented law enforcement ties with China, Russia

FBI Director Kash Patel says he has forged new law enforcement partnerships with China and Russia, two longtime U.S. rivals, over the past year in hopes of gaining allies in combating transnational cr...

reuters.com

SB 79 has been in effect for a month now, so I wrote my take on how implementation is going. Pretty well, I think! But there are some important tests coming for HCD @cayimby.bsky.social cayimby.org/blog/sb-79-o...

SB 79, One Month In: Taking Stock of California YIMBY’s Signature Bill

SB 79, California YIMBY’s signature legislation that legalized apartment buildings near transit stops throughout California, went into effect on July 1, 2026. Under the law’s provisions, jurisdictions...

cayimby.org

Honestly, it's fairly straightforward. Ideological zealot who is convinced that she has the solution to save Japan and is isolated from more reality-based sources of information. open.substack.com/pub/observin...

The lady's not for turning

Taking Takaichi seriously on fiscal policy

open.substack.com

Final Toronto thought. This is a completely insane way to run a Tram system. What is wrong with the city, why don’t they even seem to care about the streetcars

The trib used to have enough self respect not to opine about details of nyc.

Chicago Tribune@chicagotribune.com · yesterday

Editorial: New York’s democratic socialists put the squeeze on thousands of property owners

How did Queens’ population grow 14% in the 90s?

Great examples of the perils of engaging in too much price discrimination on busy routes. We’ve got overloaded slow trains with people trading up to an hour each way to save money.

The Guardian@theguardian.com · yesterday

A rail nightmare: what it’s like on England’s busiest commuter-only train

Starting next week pools are gonna be closed on weekdays in Sac while temps are still in the 100s. One may think “Huh maybe we should raise the tickets above $3-5$ so we can keep the pools open” But user fees are inequitable. So in the spirit of ensuring equal access the pool will be inaccessible.

Four Latin American cities, same density: 15,000 inhab/km2. Guess the cities.

www.thelirrtoday.com/2020/05/rail...

LIRR access to Long Island's job centers

I made a point in yesterday's piece about the MTA abandoning plans to reactivate former stations at Elmhurst and Republic that I wanted to ...

thelirrtoday.com

US data center construction reached another new record high in official data released today, exceeding a pace of $68B/yr (and this only includes data center facilities, not the expensive computers within) Spending is up 46% over the last year and 392% since ChatGPT's launch

Some Personal News + an ask: I’m going out to work the harvest at a winery in OR! My dogsitter fell through, now I need someone who wants to stay in my house & take care of the sweetest dog. Ideally Gabe could stay here, but I can also bring him to anyone who lives within a day’s drive of DC.

Love drone footage of new builds in exurban Texas, gives me a very particular kind of dread to look at that is hard to replicate with other photos.

Germany should get its own house in order before it lectures poorer countries with greener grids about the problems with nuclear power. All of these countries (France, Hungary, and Romania) have less polluting electrical generation than you do.

Grüne im Bundestag@gruene-bundestag.de · 2d ago

Reihenweise Atomkraftwerke in Staaten wir Ungarn, Rumänien und Frankreich gehen wegen der Hitzewelle und niedriger Wasserstände in den Flüssen in die Knie. In Ungarn löst das gerade eine riesige Energiekrise mit explodierenden Strompreisen und Engpässen aus.

Does your subway/metro station have stairs and escalators side by side, like below? Or something else. Especially interested in stations built after 2000. Pictures encouraged.

I made a thing that calculates hypothetical railway timetables in QGIS cartoview.blogspot.com/2026/08/the-...

Wild how far this has gone as a memed policy

Protect Bridgeport Bicyclists@stevevance.net · 3d ago

Alexi Giannoulias talks about adopting #singlestair and pre-approved housing designs

Which city's highway trench would work best for rail service?

Really underrated how there's been incredibly limited productivity increases in large parts of the garment industry for ~70+ years, and we haven't noticed it because starting a shirt factory in a poor country is really really easy.

Louis@louisevans.bsky.social · 3d ago

Me buying Baumol’s goods: Haha fuck yeah!!! Yes!! Me buying Baumol’s services: Well this fucking sucks. What the fuck.

“West End attendances are now 15% above prepandemic levels, while Broadway’s total audience has ticked down slightly…Staging a show in NYC now costs three to five times what it does in London…In New York, if you want someone to turn on a light switch, it’s a four-hour minimum call at double time.”

London’s West End Is Booming, and Upstaging Broadway

As theaters everywhere contend with rising costs, the British stage is thriving, luring American audiences and producers.

wsj.com