Adrian Pietrzak
@zoningwonk.bsky.social
PhD student at Princeton studying urban politics and how to make our cities fairer and more affordable. He/him 🏳️🌈 apietrzak.org
A big reason for this is that buses stop way too often in North America, so each stop doesn’t have enough riders to justify the expense of a shelter (on top of that, the excessive stopping slows trips, which further depresses ridership generally)
Mac the squirrel :)@macsquirelera.bsky.social · 5d agoAfter living in Europe for a while, it really is appalling how few bus shelters there are in the US or Canada. Most stops are just a pole, how sad
The last NextGen Acela I was on was 1.5 hours late (because doors wouldn't close in Boston - 2 Regionals passed) and I had to walk 4 cars back to find a bathroom that worked (and the sink still had no running water). Needless to say, I only book Regionals now.
Jason Rabinowitz@airlineflyer.net · 2w agoNearly a year since Amtrak launched NextGen Acela. Have any of the #PaxEx issues improved or been resolved? Nope! The gap fillers now don’t deploy. The exterior door displays are either off or entirely wrong. The interior displays still show generic stuff. Still no self-service cafe car checkout.
Speaking of property taxes, I feel compelled to show you this Silicon Valley house that has a market value of $4,313,755, and an annual property tax bill of $2,551 - an effective rate of 0.06%
CNBC@cnbc.com · 2w agoProperty taxes are poised for major midterm elections ballot battles across many U.S. states
US homeownership rate is conventionally described as being ~ 65%. But that measure fails to take into account the large number of adults living in homes where *other* adults actually own the homes. People like young adults, elderly, friends. Once you account for that, the rate declines to… 53%.
New homeownership measure puts people first | Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis
An alternative way of calculating the homeownership rate tells us how many individuals own their homes—something the most commonly used metric fails to track
minneapolisfed.org
Can you pay NIMBYs to say yes to housing? Rogé Karma covers my ongoing work with Glaeser, Gyourko & Davis in The Atlantic. Most people have a price — it rises with proximity, project scale, and suburbia. And cash beats parks funding, though local legislators prefer the reverse. Gift link below.
A Perfectly Crude Solution to America’s Housing Shortage
If you can’t beat the NIMBYs, pay ’em.
theatlantic.com
Crazy to think the bad AQI day we're having today in NYC was just "normal" for summer in the 80s-90s. (Note that 2001-5 overlap across the two plots). Data via www.epa.gov/outdoor-air-...
I don’t think people really understand how bad the OMB proposed rule is going to be for state and local govt. We’re talking about putting a full third of state budgets under the explicit control of Russ Vought. (1/2) www.bondbuyer.com/news/cities-...
Cities, states warn of credit impact from proposed federal grant rule
Discretionary termination of grants allowed under the rule would pose a particular risk, issuer advocates said.
bondbuyer.com
The Washington Ave Connector is a beautiful thing to see done. Philadelphia be positive a better city is happening!
Yet another societal benefit of congestion pricing: Better emergency care New paper credits NYC's congestion pricing program for a 5-6 percent reduction in emergency response travel time. www.nber.org/system/files...
I would reverse Bill de Blasio and the hotel union’s ban on new hotels in New York City
Brendan Dawe@dawe.bsky.social · last mo.We talk a lot about residential land use but what’s one big non-residential change that you would make to your city’s planning policies?
This Danville, VA city council candidate made a very dramatic video about sidewalks and public safety, and I love it and him. Worrying about a possible milkshake duck situation, I looked at his FB page, but he seems ok. Juneteenth celebrations, community outreach, Methodists. A solid old gent.
1633 Valencia cut SF affordable housing costs ~50% via four levers: (1) reused permitted plans from a prior project (2) design-build so construction started earlier (3) prefab components (4) flexible private capital upfront www.sfchronicle.com/realestate/a...
Damn, those bulb-outs suck. I don’t understand why DOTs build them on streets with unprotected bike lanes. Isn’t it obvious that they’re going to be protected one day and the bulb-outs will just get in the way?
Mark Sussman@mark-sussman.bsky.social · 2mo agoThe last segment of protected bike lanes on 17th St NE in #bikeDC is almost complete. Once a very dangerous street through Hill East, 17th St NE/SE is part of over 2 miles on continuous protected lanes!
Did Iran hire the same lawyers that tried to defend Obamacare's individual mandate in court
Carl Quintanilla@carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 2mo ago“.. The net effect — paying for passage through the vital waterway for global energy supplies, which was not required before the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran — could .. set a dangerous precedent for shipping in international waters ..” @nytimes.com www.nytimes.com/2026/06/15/w...
The problems of transit in the U.S. make a lot more sense when you consider that most politicians - even in the most transit rich state (!) - consider transit to be either (a) a jobs program or (b) a welfare program (or both)
Stephen Jacob Smith@stephenjacobsmith.com · 2mo agoI appreciate @agounardes.bsky.social standing strong as the ONLY Dem in the entire New York State legislature to do the right thing and vote against enshrining operational inefficiency on the NYC Subway by banning OPTO expansion. If this bill becomes law, it’ll make IBX significantly less useful
A new @pewresearch.org study finds that infill housing near jobs, stores, and transit costs governments ~$21,000 less per home to serve, cuts long term infrastructure maintenance costs in half, and generates 13% more in annual property tax revenue per acre than sprawl.
I appreciate @agounardes.bsky.social standing strong as the ONLY Dem in the entire New York State legislature to do the right thing and vote against enshrining operational inefficiency on the NYC Subway by banning OPTO expansion. If this bill becomes law, it’ll make IBX significantly less useful
Subway staffing: State Senate and Assembly pass transit union-backed bill to make two-person crews permanent | amNewYork
The state Senate and Assembly this week passed a measure that would require the MTA to maintain two-person train crews on every subway line that currently has
amny.com
This discourse is crazy because a *majority* of New Yorkers are not from NYC! Nearly 40% are immigrants! Moving to NYC is kinda NYC's whole thing!
Sam@samd.bsky.social · 2mo agogatekeeping who can and cannot be a “real New Yorker” is some absolute loser behavior and goes against the very ethos of New York City. and the cherry on top is that JLo lives in LA now
The city proposed pairing protected bike lanes with loading zones on every block to avoid traffic, but that didn't stop dissent and lawsuits because everything is about parking. Priority of society hill NIMBYs is: parking > loading zones > (big gap) if cyclists live or die
CBS Philadelphia@cbsphiladelphia.bsky.social · 2mo agoA newly installed protected bike lane is generating both praise and criticism from residents, cyclists and drivers in Society Hill and Old City. https://www.cbsnews.com/philadelphia/news/new-bike-lane-old-city-residents/
Sad to see CBS3 stoop down to both sidesism on bike lanes, but lack of loading spaces has nothing to do with the bike lane! Only in Philly do we let drivers get away with usurping travel lanes for as long as they like
CBS Philadelphia@cbsphiladelphia.bsky.social · 2mo agoA newly installed protected bike lane is generating both praise and criticism from residents, cyclists and drivers in Society Hill and Old City. https://www.cbsnews.com/philadelphia/news/new-bike-lane-old-city-residents/
My guess is that if anything this hurts the GOP in the long run because voters can't have their cake (vote their nationalist, white identity) and eat it too (get the liberal economic polices they also want, like minimum wage)
Taniel@taniel.bsky.social · 2mo agoThis hasn’t gotten a lot of attention, but the nationwide GOP effort to chip away at ballot measures continues this Tuesday in ND.
This is the wrong decision for transit in New York. Existing rights-of-way that travel through dense, under-served neighborhoods do not grow on trees, and it's a massive own goal for any city to not take advantage of them. No plan does this better than @queenslink.org.
Streetsblog NYC@nyc.streetsblog.org · 2mo agoMayor Mamdani is going full speed ahead with plans to build the QueensWay park over abandoned train tracks in Central Queens, after his administration decisively told advocates for bringing transit to the right of way that he won’t change course.
MBTA is a great case of why speed =/= ridership. The green lines CRAWL through downtown and yet they have more than double the ridership at a third of the track miles compared to zippy SEPTA trolleys
It is so gd slow to go through western Connecticut on Amtrak I get surprised by this every single time They should just stop serving the Connecticut stops on the NER until Connecticut agrees to fix the track issues
just saw the amtrak bag policy actually enforced for the first time. employee didn’t let a couple down the stairs with a big luggage and asked them to check it in 3 minutes before departure
Looks like Eric Adams really delivered on housing production with City of Yes newyorkyimby.com/2026/05/new-...
New York YIMBY’s 2026 First-Quarter Construction Report Tallies a Dramatic Increase in Development - New York YIMBY
YIMBY has revealed its report on construction permit filing activity for the first quarter of 2026 across the five boroughs.
newyorkyimby.com