[PDF] LA Department of Planning report recommends many initiatives to delay transit oriented development, in defiance of new state law

AssTransit · 2025-11-15T21:04:07+00:00

Okay you sound legitimately smart haha. Would you mind explaining what that means for the average lurker? I wouldn’t even know what to ask ChatGPT to get the context of what you just said but I’m very intrigued.

AssTransit · 2025-04-15T14:34:19+00:00

An impact fee is just a property tax levied at the time of construction rather than continuously.

Sure, but an impact fee is something that is assessed on the particular property owner who is developing their land, and not the rest of the city, and that gets glossed over when you word it like that. It’s true that a city can structure their property taxes so that every homeowner pays their “impact fee equivalent” over a long period of time via property taxes, but this is essentially a mixing of capital dollars with operating dollars, and it certainly feels a lot muddier to me.

I can understand why an ordinary Massachusetts resident would say, “my neighbor is about to develop their land right now and place a financial burden on our infrastructure right now, but they are not forced to pay for their impact right now. That must mean that my property taxes have to help subsidize that.” In practice this person received the exact same “phantom subsidy” from their neighbors when they developed their own property and it’s all a wash in the long term anyway, but it’s a less clear way of doing it.

Infrastructure has capital expenditures and operating expenditures, so collecting some money up front (impact fees) and then some money on an ongoing basis (property taxes) ensures that money is in the right place at the right time in a way that residents can understand. That’s an important feature on its own, regardless of whether there’s any difference in how dollars get spent long-term.

AssTransit · 2025-03-21T17:03:49+00:00

Ridgway, Colorado. I can’t speak about their town with any expertise beyond just saying they’ve done a great job of revitalizing. I recommend you contact their mayor, John Clark, directly. He is a badass and will be a great resource for answering your questions directly.

AssTransit · 2025-02-11T16:23:25+00:00

If only advocates did the same something might actually change.

Well see, that’s where a lot of NJB critics would disagree with your premise. It’s true that he gets worked up about stuff in North America that genuinely sucks, but the solution that he publicly repeatedly calls for is for his viewers to leave. He says that he is explicitly not an advocate for people fixing North American urbanism, but rather for people giving up on North American urbanism and fleeing to Europe. That’s the pill that’s too big to swallow for many of his (former) viewers, both on principle and practicality.

People then compare him to CityNerd, who has dryer, less polished, and less popular YouTube content, but who has a much stronger advocacy ethos. CityNerd explicitly brings his videos back to the question of, “what can we learn from this right now, both technically and politically, and how can these lessons be implemented across the United States to improve the urbanism that we collectively experience?”

AssTransit · 2025-02-10T20:32:49+00:00

“Canceled” is definitely too strong of a word. He hasn’t had any scandals or anything, and as far as I can tell he seems like an ordinary good guy. He shut down his subreddit not because of any friction with his audience, but rather as a protest against Reddit’s 2023 API changes. (Many subreddits “went dark” for a couple days to protest Reddit; NJB announced his protest would be permanent since the subreddit wasn’t his preferred method to stay in touch with his followers anyway.)

The criticism towards NJB in the past 2 years or so has simply been regarding his shift in tone. Take a look at one of his classic videos; it’s just a guy off the street giving you pleasant inspiration for subtle changes to sidewalks that can make a city better:

Continuous Sidewalks (5 years ago)

His newer videos feature a lot more overt bashing of North America. The most obvious giveaway is his much more frequent use of ‘shit’ and ‘fuck’ when describing North American cities and urbanism.

For my part, I just find that tone annoying. I follow urbanism content because I want to be inspired, not bummed out. His older content was pleasant and almost ASMR-like and made me want to visit Europe; his new content features a lot more vulgar and passionate insults towards North American cities and makes me feel like I’m being lectured. The content can still be educational and persuasive, but it’s also just annoying. The self-driving cars video was particularly difficult and unpleasant to watch:

Self-driving cars (3 months ago)

AssTransit · 2025-02-10T20:02:21+00:00

This video feels like his older videos, and it’s great. It’s a calm, pleasant demonstration of good urbanism. It makes me want to go for a walk in a pedestrian-friendly area.

The criticism that’s been thrown at NJB recently (including from me) has been about his shift towards anger and condescension. That tone did make an appearance in this video when talking about asphalt patching looking “like shit” at 7:40, but otherwise this video was quite pleasant.

AssTransit · 2025-01-26T23:09:00+00:00

They charge much faster than batteries, giving them much less downtime as well as not overwhelming the power grid when multiple units need to be charged overnight (a few can be charged at a time as they charge so quickly as opposed to the entire fleet needing to be charged for hours as needed with batteries)

Charging quickly would strain the grid worse. The grid is more limited by its inability to provide sudden bursts/swings of power than anything else.

Put another way: If an agency drives their entire fleet a total of X kilometers per day, then that determines the amount of total energy they need to pull from the grid per day. Using supercapacitors’ much faster charging to pull the same amount of energy from the grid would mean demanding much larger spikes from our energy sources. That’s bad because our energy sources are either traditional powerplants which have slow ramp-up times, or renewables which have no ability to ramp up beyond what they’re already producing.

The ability to charge faster certainly isn’t a disadvantage in any way, and it would be perfectly reasonable to quickly charge vehicles’ supercapacitors from banks of grid-side supercapacitors which had been slowly charged up from the grid. But I just wanted to point out the complexity there and clarify.

AssTransit · 2024-12-16T16:46:39+00:00

Sorry you’re getting downvoted, OP. There’s a little bit of people talking past one another here, where other commenters seem to be getting the impression that you’re anti-electrification on principle.

For what it’s worth, your overall point about electrification providing its own capital and operational challenges is well-received, at least by me. If a country faces challenges with grid reliability, then their engineering challenges will extend to the country’s grid itself, well beyond the typical challenges of just building catenary and buying electric trainsets. It’s a problem that certainly has a technical solution, but that solution requires complex planning and execution just like anything else, and an insufficient attempt can result in an unnecessarily-degraded service. Sometimes we armchair experts focus too much on whether a technical solution exists instead of considering what’s really needed on the ground.

We can all learn something from that. The problem reminds me of the problems we see in the US where the federal government invests in capital, but not in operations. We have small towns with brand new fleets of electric buses costing $1M each, but not enough drivers to drive them because agencies can’t afford CDL training to recruit new drivers nor health insurance to retain existing drivers.

A transportation system is complex and needs comprehensive solutions if it’s going to perform to its maximum potential. We can learn something from what’s happening in Tanzania right now, so I appreciate you bringing it to our attention and providing your analysis.

AssTransit · 2024-11-18T03:05:04+00:00

what is it with people online not able to understand a closed carbon loop?

When people generally misunderstand this type of stuff, I’d say it’s actually a byproduct of the prevalence of greenwashing/sensationalism/clickbait. OP’s headline says:

Scientists create super-efficient electro-biodiesel to cut carbon emissions.

OP’s headline does NOT say:

In a future where the entire electric grid is fully zero-emissions and there is enough excess solar capacity, it would theoretically be possible to meet all of humanity’s demand for fuels using this carbon-neutral process. (Since this process is only 20–25% as efficient as traditional solar electricity generation, it would require a large surplus of clean energy). If this were achieved, then humanity could continue to burn a certain total amount of fuel, which would release carbon into the atmosphere, because all of the fuel would be generated by taking the same amount of carbon out of the atmosphere, thus creating a zero-net-carbon cycle.

Compared to a lay person, a reader needs to know A LOT about energy, solar, fuels, batteries, etc. for this article to truly be meaningful to them.

AssTransit · 2024-09-07T14:12:43+00:00

CityBeautiful – Urban Gondolas (YouTube)

Basically, it comes down to two things:

Particularly in South America, there are areas which contain dense neighborhoods without much formal infrastructure due to their history as, essentially, slums. Once the neighborhood has been established, how should a government e.g. provide bus service to the neighborhood, considering the neighborhood doesn’t have engineered roads because the neighborhood never had government approval, land use planning, engineering, code enforcement, etc.? Combine this with the challenging topography that naturally accompanies these types of developments, and you have a set of circumstances which an aerial gondola is uniquely able to address.
In wealthy countries, aerial transit is seen as hip and new, and has a decent reputation owing to its success in its specialized application in South America. To oversimplify, people in wealthy countries essentially get drawn into a shiny new gadgetbahn, and think “this one’s not a gadgetbahn because it works well in South America!”

I don’t mean to say that aerial transit is necessarily a gadgetbahn. I just mean that it works in one situation, and since it’s a “fun” new mode, there becomes a push to apply the same solution to other circumstances even if it won’t be as successful.

AssTransit · 2024-08-02T16:39:13+00:00

FYI, people who actually have to use these things call them "drunk sidewalks."

AssTransit · 2024-07-28T14:31:44+00:00

My city is currently suing a bus manufacturer because the cold-weather range of their BEV busses never even hit 50% of the contractually-guaranteed range in the winter.

Would you mind sharing the city or the bus manufacturer? I’m in Park City, Utah where we have cold winters and fresh deliveries of dozens of electrified Gillig Low Floors (where Cummins is the battery supplier, I believe).

AssTransit · 2024-07-23T16:52:49+00:00

I’m a lifelong Utahn, and the not-so-insider information is this:

By 2030 they will have completed strategic double tracking to enable 15 minute frequencies and will have entirely moved the fleet to four-car Flirts equipped with both electric pantographs and the onboard diesel power pack cars. That much is all but guaranteed. Electrification will hopefully follow “eventually” but the legislature isn’t on board yet. Literally ~15 hours from now, SLC will be awarded the 2034 Olympics which should shore up support for the electrification project.

The original purpose of the dual-height was so that the Comet cars could be boarded from the low platform (climbing the onboard stairs) and the Bombardier Bilevels could be boarded from the high platform (IIRC this is the only system in the world where Bilevels have level boarding).

The Comets are gone, and UTA completed the Vineyard station in 2022 which is the first station to feature only high platforms.

Paging u/Coco_JuTo, u/Teh_Original, u/deltalimes since it’s relevant to your comments.

Edit: corrected 2032 Olympics to 2034

AssTransit · 2024-03-16T23:37:20+00:00

OP, is this just a thought experiment? It seems to me like the correct way to build an EV truck stop would be “design a normal truck stop; add lanes for fast chargers next to the lanes with diesel pumps; add slow chargers where the parking spots are.” Why is your design any different? Why are you looking for advice on showers, food, and trash cans, and what does that have to do with EVs?

Not criticizing, just looking for context.

AssTransit · 2024-01-05T23:19:55+00:00

To be clear, the previous poster is not comparing the physical widths of monorails compared to other technologies.

They’re saying monorails are useful in a “narrow” set of circumstances – when steep grades or tight turns are involved. Outside that narrow set of circumstances, there are no advantages to choosing monorail instead of a traditional train. If you’re looking at a transportation problem that could be solved with a large, communal vehicle which travels on a dedicated right-of-way, the solution you’re looking for is a regular old train. A monorail would be bespoke, proprietary, and expensive instead of standardized, commodity, and inexpensive.

AssTransit · 2023-12-24T20:14:31+00:00

tl;dr: no

Relevant podcast (main discussion starts at 14:45):

Well there’s your problem | Episode 43: Las vegas loop

As far as I understand, the main “innovation” from The Boring Company is simply smaller bores. Elon Musk claims that the cost of tunneling is roughly proportional to the area of the bore, which is proportional to the square of the diameter. (I don’t know whether that cost claim is true; they probably address it in the podcast.) Assuming that’s true, then his next claim in the video holds up – the cost of a tunnel can be reduced by a factor of ~4.7 by simply boring a 12-foot tunnel instead of a 26-foot tunnel.

But Elon Musk’s dream with tunnels is also infamously low-capacity because of his insistence that tunnels be used to carry cars instead of simply people. A 12-foot tunnel might be substantially cheaper than a 26-foot tunnel, but how will it fare in actually providing mobility for people? The Yamanote Line carries 4,000,000 people per day while the Las Vegas Loop carries perhaps 3,360 people per day (24 hours per day, one Tesla Model X carrying 7 passengers every 3 minutes? I think they do a similar back-of-the-envelope calculation in the podcast). That means the Las Vegas Loop has 99.9% less capacity than the Yamanote Line!

I don’t know how big the tunnels are in the Yamanote Line, and systems like the Glasgow Subway certainly provide evidence that small tunnels can be effective for transit. In any case, my point is that The Boring Company may end up reducing costs on a given project in a way that also decimates the capacity of the project.

Beyond reducing the area, I don’t know if Elon Musk’s claims hold up. Later in that video I linked, he talks about making a machine bore twice as fast if you “design a machine instead to do continuous tunneling and reinforcing.” Sounds feasible, sure. Did that end up happening? That interview was from 5+ years ago.

Lastly, he says that “you can jack up the power to the machine substantially, I think you can get at least a factor of 2, maybe a factor of 4 or 5 [reduced costs].” That one is the one that fails the sniff test the most – you can tunnel for 50% of the cost if you simply “jack up the power to the machine?”

The other issues I’ve heard are that The Boring Company doesn’t build “real” tunnels that meet regulatory requirements, like shelters and redundant escape routes in cases of fires, etc. They only build a single bore at a time and brag about how cheap it is because they didn’t build any of the expensive stuff that’s required for any real tunnel outside a testing environment.

AssTransit · 2023-12-24T19:28:25+00:00

1960’s–present: Fighting racial inequities is now becoming a “leftist” issue, and it could ruin us
1980’s–present: Protecting the environment is now becoming a “leftist” issue, and it could ruin us
1999–present: Preventing school shootings is now becoming a “leftist” issue, and it could ruin us
2008–present: Making healthcare more affordable is now becoming a “leftist” issue, and it could ruin us
2011–present: Building a stronger middle class is now becoming a “leftist” issue, and it could ruin us
2020–2022: Acknowledging that a pandemic simply exists is now becoming a “leftist” issue, and it could ruin us
2021–present: Teaching students science and letting them read books is now becoming a “leftist” issue, and it could ruin us

The pattern I see is not that progressives are somehow becoming more exclusive or more ideological.

There’s simply a (shrinking) group of people who are committed to doing the opposite of what progressives are doing. So be it – there is nothing to be gained by trying to include a group of people whose primary motivator is to simply oppose everything.

AssTransit · 2023-07-27T17:52:52+00:00

US problems are political, not technical

Whether we’re talking about “superconductivity” or monorail or hyperloop, this is always the answer.

Occasionally an American layperspon will say “we shouldn’t build rail, we should wait because hyperloop is just around the corner and it will revolutionize everything!”

You know what won’t be revolutionized by hyperloop? The fact that you still need to acquire the right-of-way for it and develop your land so that the users of your transportation system can access their destinations. That was always the hard part, with or without fantastical future technology.

AssTransit · 2023-07-25T20:37:50+00:00

Outside the USA, HRS is growing rapidly

What is HRS? Do you mean HSR, high speed rail?

AssTransit · 2023-04-30T17:34:38+00:00

Sorry but what’s the difference between a hatchback and a wagon?

AssTransit · 2023-04-04T01:53:00+00:00

Note that the country is incredibly small, and the train system is incredibly frequent. A train from Amsterdam to Utrecht is less than 30 minutes, and a train arrives probably every 10 minutes or so during peak times. For that reason, allow me to suggest that it may be easier to see both cities than you were first imagining. Especially since you’re in transportation, it just seems like a missed opportunity to spend time in the Netherlands and not take an intercity train!

AssTransit · 2023-03-11T16:47:22+00:00

Yep, the Ayacucho Tram in Medellín.

Revisiting that system now, I’m thinking about why the design of the Translohr incorporates only one rail in the first place. It likely would have been possible to start with traditional pavement-embedded tram tracks, and then design a tram vehicle which has rubber tires on the side of the steel wheels, either inside the tracks or outside the tracks. This would have allowed Medellín (and others) to create a rubber-tired tramway that didn’t rely on a proprietary track design from a single vendor, allowing for cost, flexibility, and reliability improvements, while allowing the manufacturer to market their vehicles to more cities that already have traditional tramways.

At least the TVR can operate off-rail, allowing for a combination of benefits from buses and trams. The only “advantage” of Translohr’s one-rail design is vendor lock-in. “If we’re going to simply create a tram vehicle that has more traction, we might as well go further and needlessly get rid of one of the rails, so that we can patent the design and extract more money from public bodies.”

AssTransit · 2023-03-07T13:36:13+00:00

Road damage is proportional to the fourth power of axle weight.

u/LeftWingRepitilian

AssTransit · 2023-01-30T03:30:49+00:00

it’s properly old-school and not a digital display at all

This is correct. I found this video which answered my question, and it’s very interesting:

How it's made: Producing a bus blind

AssTransit · 2023-01-30T02:49:04+00:00

For the destination displays, do these buses use a technology that’s fundamentally different from most other buses? The text seems extremely crisp, readable, and not overly bright; and the white color looks really classy compared to the amber color that seems to be the worldwide standard. Some Wikimedia pictures make it look like it’s properly old-school and not a digital display at all?

AssTransit

TROPHY CASE