The residents of Pacific Palisades are a case study in nimbyism.
The Palisades “is probably going to be much more exclusive”
“A future where every car entering or exiting the Palisades would be tracked and unfamiliar ones followed by a drone"
“Low-income housing mandates would destroy property values”
“In Mr Caruso's vision... affordable housing will be limited... although state laws mandate it.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/04/realestate/la-fires-pacific-palisades-rebuilding.html?unlocked_article_code=1.uk4.qjN3.rcQDyN_35xL9&smid=url-share
=> More informations about this toot | View the thread
Today's needed comic relief:
Ardent preservationist decamps to suburbs in 1999 from "1891 Richardsonian Romanesque townhouse." Buys "cottage" on 1/3 acre lot in 100-year-old town.
Tears down cottage & builds 6-br 5-bath 5890-sq-ft self-designed house. Takes "bionic approach to home design" that merges art nouveau, Arts and Crafts and Queen Anne Victorian architecture. Later picked to chair county Historic Preservation Commission.
House now on sale for $3.2M.
https://wapo.st/42v1uJD
=> More informations about this toot | View the thread
Baltimore Transportation Dept is running a survey of driver-pedestrian near-misses to use alongside crash reports in planning safety improvements. https://www.thebaltimorebanner.com/community/transportation/baltimore-interactive-map-near-crash-intersections-XYB4ZO4MTZEJ5MVJIDUW4EJ6DU/?schk=YES&rchk=YES&mc_cid=64e9727c8d
=> More informations about this toot | View the thread
Endemic scientific fraud in research on Alzheimer's disease. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/24/opinion/alzheimers-fraud-cure.html?unlocked_article_code=1.sE4.QPfA.UXTkBUv3_X7l&smid=url-share
Like what Joe Cortright & I found in traffic modeling -- except that the agencies that fund Alzheimer's research, while reluctant to look for fraud, punish it when others clearly document it. While the funders of traffic modeling are in pure cover-up mode. https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/highway-robbery/
=> More informations about this toot | View the thread
Example: In the 1980s, USDOE was looking at possible disposal sites for high-level waste in SE Utah & a site for low-level waste in Carlsbad, New Mexico. Enviros & pols in Santa Fe fought the Carlsbad site; those in Salt Lake fought the SE Utah sites.
Santa Fe is closer to the SE Utah sites than it is to Carlsbad. Yet no one in Santa Fe cared in the least about the Utah sites. 2/2
Epilogue: Once the Carlsbad site opened in 1999, Santa Fe pols lost interest in it.
=> More informations about this toot | View the thread
New Jersey's reaction to NY congestion pricing has turned into a pure test of home-state political strength, divorced from the merits of the issue. Like rooting for the local sports team.
It's like what you see in fights over siting nuclear waste facilities. 1/2
=> More informations about this toot | View the thread
Machine learning can and often does work when it's focused on a narrowly defined area of knowledge, especially with discrete and measurable inputs and outputs.
US certainly has people and organizations who do that well. No doubt China does too.
The problem is that the bubble-seeking US financial system incentivizes firms to pretend to create an artifical general intelligence via LLMs.
=> More informations about this toot | View the thread
Important point in this article: LA firefighting was hamstrung by lack of central government -- "and none of this is accidental." Los Angeles County contains 88 cities, many with their own firefighters & police.
What it misses - A large part of the cause for this nimbyism. Many of these municipalities were set up to create local control of zoning. (Others to avoid LA City real estate taxes.)
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/19/us/wildfires-los-angeles-governance.html?unlocked_article_code=1.qU4.XmQl.QWELBl5otb4X&smid=url-share
=> More informations about this toot | View the thread
The way congestion pricing seems to be working out in Manhattan, I think it may increase parking prices. Opposite what I, Matt Bruenig, the EA, and others expected.
Model: 2 types of drivers: (1) high value-of-time & (2) low VOT (eg, thru drivers from LI to NJ). Paid parkers, already paying ~$40 to drive to Manhattan, are predominantly Type 1.
Congestion pricing drives mostly Type 2 off the roads (what we see on Canal St). Time cost of driving falls. More Type 1 folks want to enter zone.
=> More informations about this toot | View the thread
Really good to see a zoning board deny a variance to a developer because the building is too small.
This would be unimaginable just a few years ago.
h/t @cityplanning.bsky.social
https://www.startribune.com/st-paul-zoning-board-challenges-developer-to-make-former-ford-plant-complex-denser/601202606
=> More informations about this toot | View the thread
USDOT says it! Widening highways & building new ones does not reduce traffic congestion.
New USDOT report says that the "best practice" for traffic modeling is to assume that, in a city or suburb, the amount of traffic on an area's highways increases in exact proportion to an increase in lane-miles of highway.
Report was issued one week ago without fanfare by the USDOT climate office.
https://www.transportation.gov/sites/dot.gov/files/2024-12/Improved%20Travel%20Demand%20Modeling%20-%20Climate%20Strategies%20that%20Work.pdf
=> More informations about this toot | View the thread
Waymo (aka Google) admits that it trains its robotaxis to break the law. When WaPo reporter finds robotaxis fail to stop for pedestrians in marked crosswalk 70% of the time, Waymo says it follows "social norms" rather than laws.
Expert explains: When robotaxis obey law, they don't go fast enough to compete successfully with Uber, so Google execs ordered engineers to ignore laws.
https://wapo.st/3ZZDifm
=> More informations about this toot | View the thread
Fairfax suupervisors chair Jeff McKay says the quiet part out loud.
The reason Virginia wants toll lanes on the American Legion Bridge so badly is to move jobs from Maryland to Virginia.
The toll lanes will indeed relieve congestion on the bridge for the CEO. From his home in Potomac, he'll have an easy drive to Tysons. And his employees, who live farther from the bridge, will get stuck with high tolls plus giant traffic jams where the toll lanes end.
https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/transportation/why-a-va-official-believes-md-doesnt-want-to-fix-beltway-traffic/3791365/?amp=1
=> More informations about this toot | View the thread
@MontgomeryCountyMDDOT
=> More informations about this toot | View the thread
With freezing rain in forecast, contractors come to spread salt. Use bike lane as parking lot. Spread salt on sidewalk & side road, but not on bike lane.
=> More informations about this toot | View the thread
Important column! Defending Biden's legacy is vital to battling against a sharp rightward turn in economic policy. One close election should not be misinterpreted as a mandate for Democrats to abandon pro-worker and pro-union approaches and return to the centrist politics of Carter, Clinton & Obama.
https://wapo.st/3P3q8ZD
=> More informations about this toot | View the thread
“There’s a lot more egregious driving than we anticipated,” say Baltimore County Police after new school bus traffic cameras issue 7400 citations in 40 days.
Driver impunity is so baked into the system that police don't even notice what's going on around them.
https://www.thebaltimorebanner.com/community/local-news/school-bus-cameras-baltimore-county-KSHGUS3EGZB5ZOEMA3EAMWJ5MU/?schk=YES&rchk=YES&mc_cid=e3b10ad68e
=> More informations about this toot | View the thread
Trump transition team wants to end requirement that automated-driving crashes must be reported to the government.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/exclusive-trump-transition-recommends-scrapping-110934569.html
=> More informations about this toot | View the thread
Auto insurance is a big factor in inflation.
Good story, but reported with a severe case of windshield perspective.
53% rise in premiums in 3 years attributed first to rising new car prices. But new cars are only a fraction of the cars on the road, and if their prices went up 53% the direct effect on inflation would dwarf the insurance effect.
"New technologies have made vehicles safer" - but new designs have made them less safe if you're not behind the windshield.
https://wapo.st/3VC4i3m
=> More informations about this toot | View the thread
If speed limits were based on safety, SUVs and trucks with high front ends would be required to go 5 mph slower than the posted speed limit. https://usa.streetsblog.org/2024/12/10/even-at-slower-speeds-suvs-and-pickups-are-a-big-problem-for-pedestrians
=> More informations about this toot | View the thread
=> This profile without reblog | Go to BenRossTransit@mastodon.social account This content has been proxied by September (3851b).Proxy Information
text/gemini