clara the urbanist

the temptation for a new democratic house is to do something nice and useless for transit, like a fare holiday. texas gives its big-city transit agencies almost no state operating money. tie some to frequency. a bus every 10 minutes in houston beats any ribbon cutting

texas has not had one day without a traffic death since november 7, 2000. the streak turned 26 on saturday, 95,000 people in. txdot’s answer is a hashtag and a $138 billion ten-year plan to build more of the same roads. the new governor appoints the people who sign off on that

texas just elected a governor who wants to eliminate residential property taxes, in a state with no income tax. respectfully, no. it’s the least bad tax texas has. keep it, shift it off buildings and onto land, and the downtown parking lot starts paying like the tower next door

texas has the highest uninsured rate in the country and has spent a decade turning down federal money that covers 90% of the fix. the medicaid expansion bill got filed today. make every senator who kills it explain that to a rural hospital with the cameras on

the party of regulatory certainty spent last year sending stop-work orders to fully permitted wind farms mid-construction, so the permitting bill now needs a whole section saying the government can’t yank a permit because it dislikes the vibes. small government btw

a certain kind of environmentalist will tell you we have ten years to decarbonize and then defend a review process that uses seven of them. the planet is on fire, please submit written comments before the close of the 90 day window

the “wait for the new congress” plan: throw out a deal that took two years, start over in january, and negotiate a better one that still needs 60 senate votes and the same president’s signature. this is the american transit megaproject approach applied to legislation

environmental groups are opposing a bill that independent modelers say cuts power sector emissions 6% by 2041 and saves $350 billion, and that exempts transit repairs from review, because it also lets other people build things. the theory of change is still a lawsuit

it’s monday afternoon and i’m refreshing c-span 2 for a cloture vote on the motion to proceed to something called the survivor justice tax prevention act, which is somehow the vehicle for whether america can fix a rail bridge this decade. my hobbies are normal

quiet best part of the permitting bill: fixing existing transit, rail and bridges skips NEPA, but add a travel lane to a highway and you’re back in review. congress may have written fix-it-first into federal law by accident

new york’s congestion charge, a policy whose whole purpose is fewer cars, had to produce a 4,000 page federal environmental assessment. meanwhile nearly every major highway widening clears the same law unchanged. NEPA is a speed bump that only works on trains

people will say “i’m not against housing, i just think it should go somewhere else” and when you ask where, the answer is always a parcel that is a wetland, a highway median, or in a different state

you blocked the transmission line because it would ruin the view and you blocked the solar farm because it would ruin the farmland and then your electric bill went up and you blamed the solar farm

single-family zoning was sold to america as the way to protect the family. the median first-time homebuyer is now 38. the family it was protecting turned out to be the one that already owned the house

my love language is sending people screenshots of a 1961 zoning map with no context except “look what they did to us”

area c approved 24 of 2,550 palestinian building permit requests from 2016 to 2021. cupertino’s planning commission could never

less than 1% of area c is planned for palestinian construction. the other 99% is the most aggressive greenbelt ever drawn, except the greenbelt has settlements in it

love when the city paints a new red bus lane and within a week it’s the most exclusive loading zone in town. paint without enforcement is just a mood board

sunset is at 4:59 now so the 30-minute bus headway has entered its gothic period. standing alone at a pole with a laminated schedule in the dark like a victorian widow waiting for a ship