Affordable housing developer, urbanist, and occasional @ggwash contributor. Personal account and all views are my own.
Washington, DC
Joined February 2012
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Brian Goggin retweeted
it’s absurd how often this “X is not sufficient to solve a problem, therefore i do not support X” logic gets invoked in arguments.
it’s a politics of evasion — most people are happy to support “partial” solutions (there are few silver bullets!), it’s just a matter of which.
we can improve public transit, implement congestion pricing, AND support safer technologies like autonomous vehicles.
i commend @charlesallen for his leadership here, and i’m disappointed in the mayor & the council’s decision.
"We are not Phoenix or Los Angeles, our residents get around on foot, on bike, on bus, on metro proudly," says @Janeese4DC.
"We have narrow streets in our neighborhoods, not wide boulevards. We are the center of First Amendment activity. We need to be ready for every potential situation and make sure that AVs do not make the situations worse."
"I know that many of our residents want to see AVs deployed as soon as possible to make our streets safer, but AVs alone will not end car-related violence and traffic deaths. Reduce congestion, better public transit, high-quality street design, and improved infrastructure are all needed parts of the equation. And with the district's unique security concerns from motorcades to parades to mass actions, we cannot afford to rush the process of deployment and make our streets even less safe."
JLG says she cannot vote to advance this bill today.
Brian Goggin retweeted
BAAJA’s opponents are just throwing stuff at the wall now
NEPA affects everything the gov does (~200k actions per year, only 0-5 for detention facilities)
Opposing BAAJA because of this tiny effect is like opposing repealing Trump’s tariffs because that would make metal for detention centers cheaper
The far greater affect of NEPA reform is faster gov action, more vital infrastructure, and disproportionate benefits for clean energy
Brian Goggin retweeted
We need climate action now, not in 2029! I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. We can't wait years to build transmission lines!!!!
Brian Goggin retweeted
Imagine a historian in 2035 writing a political history of the 2020s, and he points out that every election, the out-of-power party won a cost-of-living election and then used their mandate to ignore or exacerbate affordability only to be destroyed in the next election, where voters again said “to be clear, I don’t want whatever bullshit you’re up to, I just want life to feel more affordable,” and then, once again, the winning politicians prioritized everything except affordability, and this story repeated itself over and over again.
One of my strongest held political opinions right now is: Democrats should do everything they can to avoid that history being written.
Brian Goggin retweeted
congestion pricing’s environmental review process took over two years and was 4,000 pages
and you know what the craziest part is? that was with an accelerated environmental review process! other transit projects take even longer!
Brian Goggin retweeted
This is the best reason to pass BAAJA: we can’t possibly decarbonize by the 2040s years if building a single electric transmission line takes 20 years
Brian Goggin retweeted
The average federal environmental review process for public transit takes 5.7 years. To build something that's good for the environment!
Time to pass BAAJA now so we can build the infrastructure we need for both the climate crisis and for affordability
The big sleeper story here is its impact on transit, I'd even go so far as to say it may be more important than energy for affordability b/c transit is far more integral to housing.
Trains are the linear infrastructure that have been ground to a halt. Talk to the folks who had to do the NEPA with ARRA funds back in the day. So many decade+ processes that ultimately get choked out by that last single point of failure.
I remember @wang_seaver at Duke fought an admirable campaign to save the light rail, which would have connected a great rivalry by rail, enabling non-car access between Durham and Chapel Hill. Do you have any idea how amazing that would have been?
What's forgotten (beyond the truly vile behavior of President Price and Duke) is that process took 4 extra years thanks to NEPA. I'll never forgive Price, but those 4 years mattered and ultimately this was a project that ran out of time.
Brian Goggin retweeted
Pass BAAJA now.
As the Senate takes up a landmark permitting overhaul next week, what can history teach us about making interstate power lines easier to build?
Yale's @ZLiscow and UC Berkeley's @_josephshapiro in @washingtonpost: washingtonpost.com/opinions/…
Brian Goggin retweeted
BAAJA is:
- Good for jobs
- Good for reducing emissions
- Good for affordability
- Good for building faster
teapawt.net/employamerica/status/2…
Brian Goggin retweeted
If Dems reject a great permitting bill now in the hope of a better one later, they’re pushing back the date they can deliver clean energy and lower costs for their voters.
Brian Goggin retweeted
Dems shouldn't wait on permitting. BAAJA is a good bill, and the filibuster and veto don't go away in January. But the real reason is 2029: as @ppavnr & I argued in @WSJ, reform takes years to implement, and we need to hit the ground running, especially on energy affordability.
Brian Goggin retweeted
One of the most concerning trends in politics. Red states are desperately trying to speed run recreating the California housing market.
“I’m old. I’ve paid my home off,” said Ray Warner, a 72-year-old Akron resident. “Why would I pay property tax?”
Across the country, homeowners are asking the same question and revolting against property taxes at a scale not seen in a half century.
politico.com/news/magazine/2…
Brian Goggin retweeted
Of the various Uber & Lyft drivers working in DC only 200 are actual residents of the city, while hundreds of thousand of people would benefit from more competition in the taxi marketplace.
capitalcommonsense.com/p/our…
Brian Goggin retweeted
While I support Waymo for safety, I wanted to dig deeper on the claim that Waymo will put "countless workers at risk."
The number of District residents who are full-time ride share drivers—by JLG's own admission—is 200.
capitalcommonsense.com/p/our…
Brian Goggin retweeted
We gonna pair this with increased towing & booting or is it just another giveaway to entitle illegal driving?
Councilmember @RobertWhite_DC said this morning he wants to HALVE parking fines in D.C. (Will propose as an amendment to @BrianneKNadeau's strategic parking enforcement bill. But @ChmnMendelson says it isn't germane.)
White: “Inflation is kicking our butts at the grocery store.”
Brian Goggin retweeted
Oh, look. Another building that needs a massive taxpayer bailout because of the government-wide failure to address rent nonpayment and make it easier to manage housing. It's crazy to make taxpayers bail out these buildings when not much has been done to fix these issues.
Interesting: @CMWendellFelder has a bill to give a $1.6 million property tax break to the Park 7 building on Minnesota Avenue NE, in exchange for an equivalent amount of renovations and assurances that the building's units will remain affordable. lims.dccouncil.gov/Legislati…
Brian Goggin retweeted
Cutting parking fines as an anti-inflation policy is one of the dumbest ideas I've ever heard but it's in keeping with the Council left bloc's relentless prioritization of the interests of people who break rules over the interests of people who follow them.
Councilmember @RobertWhite_DC said this morning he wants to HALVE parking fines in D.C. (Will propose as an amendment to @BrianneKNadeau's strategic parking enforcement bill. But @ChmnMendelson says it isn't germane.)
White: “Inflation is kicking our butts at the grocery store.”
Brian Goggin retweeted
"The future is going to have very few intermedaries [sic] between consumers and the last mile of labor." Well, other than the planning entitlements desk, the plan checker, and the inspector, all of whom are implementing boutique local codes using esoteric interpretations.
I spent the weekend using AI to explore renovation ideas for a property. Each concept generated was basically construction-ready, since I fed it land & soil surveys (and generated everything else off Zillow and satellite photos).
The future is going to have very few intermedaries between consumers and the last mile of labor.
And more broadly: consumers will be spending a lot more on custom projects to get precisely what they want, since the reasons they've been cost prohibitive (design and engineering) will no longer matter.
Essentially, a lot more things are going to be custom-fabricated—electronics, clothing, home fixtures. The next era of consumer tech is going to make everyone a hobbyist and builder.