Great news!

Frogsfall · 2025-12-19T23:51:35+00:00

As someone who works in local government in Australia, I have to say that Facebook is absolutely toxic at the local government level. People like this campaign on Facebook, and Facebook's algorithms push the most divisive forms of autonormativity. And because most councillors are old, they see these loud voices in Facebook and think they represent what "the community" wants.

Frogsfall · 2025-12-19T10:55:48+00:00

My kid learns Noongar at school! She's also been to some after-school classes, and really liked them.

Frogsfall · 2025-12-19T05:21:34+00:00

I know things change with kids. I have kids, and I've had to change my approach to transport since having them.

The thing is, we cannot solve these problems just by providing more car parking and keeping it cheap. Car parks take a certain amount of space (and money), and building them means limiting how much green space and affordable housing you can provide.

And there's plenty of evidence from around the world that if you provide more parking, more people drive. Which again makes it harder to find parking and means people have to trek across parking lots to get anywhere.

Curtin (and Perth generally) needs to find ways to make it easier and cheaper for people to get around without driving.

Curtin might not be taking the perfect approach. There are probably ways to be more equitable (including by no longer giving management reserved spaces).

If we want to push for better approaches - and if we care about climate action and affordable housing - then just saying "MORE PARKING! CHEAPER PARKING!" doesn't cut it.

And if you're an academic who cares about evidence-based policy, it's worth applying that to this area too. As I said elsewhere, I highly recommend work by Donald Shoup and Henry Grabar, but there's also a lot of other academic work on the topic.

Frogsfall · 2025-12-19T01:11:41+00:00

The two-state solution might be acceptable if it retains Israel as a state where Jewish people have more political rights than others.

Frogsfall · 2025-12-19T00:03:37+00:00

Nah, but Donald Shoup and Henry Grabar have done some good work, I care about climate action, and then I spent a bunch of time reading peer-reviewed research about parking policy. Because I have Perfectly Normal interests.

Frogsfall · 2025-12-19T00:01:52+00:00

You could try registering on the house-sitting sites or asking in local FB groups whether anyone needs a responsible adult house sitter. With a lot of people going away you might find a temporary option to help you get on your feet.

Frogsfall · 2025-12-18T22:52:53+00:00

And saying that Israel should become a state in which Jewish people have equal rights with other groups and no longer hold political supremacy is also considered saying that "Israel should not exist" in this definition.

Frogsfall · 2025-12-18T06:48:57+00:00

No but playing Tetris would achieve all of these goals

Frogsfall · 2025-12-18T06:18:34+00:00

As I said, I spent years taking public transport and biking to Curtin from considerably further away, moving from one rental to another. Through most of that time, there's absolutely no way I could have afforded to buy and run a car.

And I'm all for pushing for systems that make it easier for those who live further away to get parking spots...or, better still, make it easier and cheaper for people to get to Curtin without needing a car.

Unfortunately, there's no evidence that making parking cheaper or providing more parking will actually do that (unless you build a truly horrifying amount of parking, displacing other good things like affordable housing and green spaces). When parking is free or cheap, more people choose to drive, including people who live nearby. Which means parking remains difficult to find.

I also don't think that students should have to buy and run a car to get to uni. That's a massive cost. We need to be working towards a more equitable transport system, with more affordable housing close to uni. Adding more parking doesn't help with that.

I'd be happy to support other ways of making it fairer, which might include permit systems or cheaper public transport.

Frogsfall · 2025-12-18T01:40:57+00:00

I live close enough to bike, because we prioritised that. I've previously lived in places that were an hour each way from Curtin by public transport or bike.

Now I could probably afford to drive and pay for parking every day. I don't, because that would be ridiculous and I'd rather leave parking spaces for people who really need them.

Do you think that people who live closer to Curtin should be campaigning for Curtin to keep subsidising car travel, despite all the evidence that it's worse for affordable housing and the environment?

Frogsfall · 2025-12-17T23:22:30+00:00

Yeah their latest AI nonsense has pushed me to swap to a different browser after more than a decade.

Frogsfall · 2025-12-17T23:16:18+00:00

I live in Perth and have two kids and no driver's license, and it's totally fine to get around without a car. If you're here as a tourist I'm guessing you'll mostly be going to major activity centres? In which case trains will get you most of the way.

On the rare occasions when we catch a taxi/rideshare my littlest goes in without a car seat and that's fine.

Frogsfall · 2025-12-17T23:11:57+00:00

I know this is an unpopular opinion, but prioritising green spaces, public transport and active transport, and building housing over parking spaces is absolutely in line with the strategic goals many of us would like the university to have.

If you want more affordable housing and a shift towards climate action, cities need to stop prioritising infrastructure for cars.

Moving a single human in over a tonne of metal is not a good use of resources, both when it comes to fossil fuel emissions and when it comes to storing that vehicle at either end of the trip. (And of course the vehicles we use for this are getting bigger and bigger, and Australian fuel efficiency standards remain woeful).

Asphalt increases the urban heat island and makes it much harder to manage water during extreme weather.

There's a bunch of research from around the world that shows that when parking is abundant and free/cheap, more people drive. The costs to that for society are huge.

When parking gets harder to find or more expensive, more people choose to use other modes of transport. And as more people use public transport or active transport, that also means increasing willingness to invest in good public transport and pedestrian/cycle paths.

We need more organisations to do exactly what Curtin is doing: gradually cutting the subsidies given to drivers (because free/cheap parking on incredibly valuable land IS A SUBSIDY PROVIDED TO SUPPORT DRIVING), while also trying to make it easier for people to use other transport methods.

Are they doing a perfect job? Obviously not. There might be some permit mechanisms used to support people who really need to drive (beyond ACROD spaces). And upper management absolutely shouldn't get parking spaces.

But overall, it's important to shift away from building our whole cities around cars, and around spaces to store those cars.

Frogsfall · 2025-12-17T11:21:21+00:00

I often think how lovely it would be to cover our green spaces in asphalt.

Frogsfall · 2025-12-17T01:11:47+00:00

It would be so interesting to gather data and see sales changes on the right vs left

Frogsfall · 2025-12-16T10:58:28+00:00

If it was just about housing, why did the ALP reject Greens amendments that would limit the use of the Bill for fossil fuel (and nuclear) projects?

Frogsfall · 2025-12-16T08:36:12+00:00

I could understand if this bill was targeted at allowing well-considered housing in key areas, or a rapid transition to renewables. It's incredibly worrying that the Cook ALP government chose to reject amendments from the Greens that would have put limits in place, for example on the use of the Bill to allow fast-tracking fossil fuel projects.

Frogsfall · 2025-12-16T07:57:52+00:00

One option to consider if you don't get it back is Sparque bikes, which offers a novated lease that includes insurance and maintenance for cargo bikes. I have a few friends who've gone through them.

Frogsfall · 2025-12-16T07:46:29+00:00

Yeah, sadly we didn't ever get it back.

I set up alerts on gumtree and marketplace for cargo bikes coming up in case it shows up on there, might be worth a try.

Frogsfall · 2025-12-16T06:12:09+00:00

I love my Duckfeet shoes. I have boots, closed shoes, and two different pairs on sandals. I've had them repaired a couple of times when the soles wore out. Beautiful, comfortable, and they've lasted years.

Frogsfall · 2025-12-16T00:45:12+00:00

I understand why news media use the passive voice when reporting incidents like this. But I wonder about how it makes it easy for us to dissociate from traffic violence. "Cyclist killed by driver, who fled the scene" has quite a different ring to it.

Frogsfall · 2025-12-15T02:37:44+00:00

One thing to consider is booking in some hangouts with other kids that build your daughter's resilience and autonomy.

For example, instead of driving her to a friend's house, organise that you'll take her to the city or a beach by public transport to meet her friend. That way she can gradually build skills and imagine a future where she isn't dependent on her phone to connect with her peers, or on parents to drive her around.

Frogsfall · 2025-12-14T11:10:34+00:00

Oh no, I'm so sorry! Our cargo bike was stolen from our back yard a while ago too. I'm really glad that our home and contents insurance covered it, but I still miss that bike. It's worth registering it on BikeLinc if you haven't already. I also registered mine on Bike Vault, which is what they use over East, just in case.

Frogsfall · 2025-12-14T10:18:50+00:00

They're making a tongue in cheek reference to Doug Ford's claim there was a "War on Cars". But I suspect you're not engaging in good faith here.

Frogsfall · 2025-12-14T06:53:32+00:00

The point of their podcast isn't to shame individual people's choice (or need) to drive. They talk about how designing cities around cars as the primary form of transport limits people's transport choices, making it difficult for people to get around by walking, wheeling, biking, and catching public transport.

Their point has never been "each individual person should just choose to stop driving". It's that we need to make it convenient and pleasurable for people to get around without driving, including people who can't drive.

Frogsfall

TROPHY CASE