PE. Civil Dengineer, Transportation and Housing Policy. Comments my own. Not speaking for any employer/board. Public sources only
Joined January 2022
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Yes on 7. Let’s do for Massachusetts’s grandchildren what the Greatest Generation did for the Boomers by bringing back market affordable housing.
Safe Systems Civil Engineer retweeted
Great discussion. We don’t have a crime problem, we have a violence problem where arguments end much more often in a gun death because we have so many here. youtu.be/927xZzAstfk?is=qErV…
Safe Systems Civil Engineer retweeted
Walking distance for bike parking in Amsterdam.
lokaleregelgeving.overheid.n…
Safe Systems Civil Engineer retweeted
It would bring compact mixed use density which is the basic building block for all of it because public opinion would naturally to support it. We want lower cost market housing not lucky ducky lotteries.
Safe Systems Civil Engineer retweeted
Who will write the book that tells the history of how zoning has killed hundreds of thousands and taken billions from Americans pockets for inflated scarcity driven housing costs since the 70s.
How much American death, household expense, and lost opportunity can be traced to the decisions about what we are allowed to build and where, and choosing to zone low exposure arterials into high exposure death traps?
Planning actually created the corporate commercial sameness we see on arterial roads across America that now requires billions upon billions in retrofits passed to the taxpayer.
It’s popular to blame “car brained” civil and traffic engineers responding to 100 years of planning board questions that rarely mentioned people walking and biking. The blame is pretty misguided when you understand where most of the deaths happen and why. #ericdumbaugh @Boenau @JessieSingerNYC #angieschmidt @waroncars
It would bring compact mixed use density which is the basic building block for all of it because public opinion would naturally to support it. We want lower cost market housing not lucky ducky lotteries.
Safe Systems Civil Engineer retweeted
Interesting observation that I hadn’t really thought about:
The pace of improvement in street design is greater than in land use policy.
Who will write the book that tells the history of how zoning has killed hundreds of thousands and taken billions from Americans pockets for inflated scarcity driven housing costs since the 70s.
How much American death, household expense, and lost opportunity can be traced to the decisions about what we are allowed to build and where, and choosing to zone low exposure arterials into high exposure death traps?
Planning actually created the corporate commercial sameness we see on arterial roads across America that now requires billions upon billions in retrofits passed to the taxpayer.
It’s popular to blame “car brained” civil and traffic engineers responding to 100 years of planning board questions that rarely mentioned people walking and biking. The blame is pretty misguided when you understand where most of the deaths happen and why. #ericdumbaugh @Boenau @JessieSingerNYC #angieschmidt @waroncars
Safe Systems Civil Engineer retweeted
Safe AAA convenient low exposure bike networks with great parking and destinations a safe short walk away should be the gold standard
Safe Systems Civil Engineer retweeted
INCLUSIONARY ZONING IS BAD TOO!
☝️This☝️ is the overwhelming opinion of reasonable people today.
The phrase itself is oxymoronic.
All zoning is exclusionary.
Always has been.
Always will be.
Exclusionary zoning is bad.
But "inclusionary zoning," rather than being the opposite of bad exclusionary zoning, is just the same old exclusionary barriers to multifamily housing given a new name.
Just say no!
open.substack.com/pub/capita…
Safe Systems Civil Engineer retweeted
"A California appeals court ruled that homeowners can seek damages when a city breaches the mandatory 60-day ADU permit deadline. The decision could extend to other ministerial housing laws..."
Safe Systems Civil Engineer retweeted
Across the country, people will claim "roundabouts will be dangerous because people don't understand them."
The truth is that roundabouts have an incredible success rate, both in lowering speeds and reducing severe crashes.
Carmel, IN is our country's roundabout capital. They replaced 120 stop lights with roundabouts and this happened:
🚨 90% drop in fatal crashes
🚨 40% drop in total crashes
🚨 $21.6 million saved in long-term maintenance
(That doesn't even include the enormous financial savings of preventing crashes.)
Safe Systems Civil Engineer retweeted
In 1929 there was one car for every 5 Americans. Zoning Enabling help from the federal government in 1924 guided states and localities on how to pass zoning rules for all municipalities that led to restricting most new construction to single family homes on larger and larger lots, both lowering density greatly for all new construction and distorting a the free market that previously existed across the country. Zoning was enacted country wide. These new laws effectively mandated the automobile without any help or even lobbying from the auto industry and also helped to kill off privately run passenger trains and street cars which had already peaked in 1919 but fell by 60% from that peak by 1940.
By 1970 there was 1 car for every 2.3 people. Today it’s nearly 1 car for every American and we driver per capita 50% more than rest of world. Our waistlines show this clearly. Hook, line, and sinker by law we bought this mostly bad planning advice. We can change if we want to.
