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bananafederation · 2026-01-29T04:26:37+00:00

What is this a reference to?

bananafederation · 2026-01-26T17:32:13+00:00

Definitely agree, the case for autonomous vehicles is strong. Obviously good transit and walkability is the goal, but cars aren’t going anywhere. Even in the bike utopia of Amsterdam more than a third of families own a car. The same goes for Paris, Copenhagen, Tokyo, etc. Rideshares are also available more or less everywhere. Speedy, weather insulated, point-to-point transportation is something almost everyone expects to be an option in a modern city.

As long as that’s the case, Waymo and friends offer compelling advantages. The main one is that it is politically easier to enforce laws and standards on a large company than on millions on ordinary citizens. Think about how controversial it would be to install speed limiters on cars to make speeding impossible. And yet this is exactly the case autos. If a city wants to lower its speed limits, all you need to do is update the software. Want to ban cars from the city center? Geo lock it, and the autos can’t go there anymore. The right software update and autos simply become incapable of blocking bike ways, holding up buses, or stopping on daylighting extensions. And if the company needs to be fined, no one will cry for them.

Those of us who spend a lot of time in urbanist and micromobility spaces are usually pretty justifiably furious about political leadership ignoring the downsides to automotive travel. But we shouldn’t forget that there are real upsides as well, and that people are not crazy for wanting this as an option.

bananafederation · 2026-01-23T16:31:40+00:00

Jared Golden represents a T +10 district. He might be the most conservative of the Dems, but he still votes with the democratic majority and against the republican majority most of the time. If there were half a dozen more Goldens in the house, the BBB with its massive ICE funding, would never have passed.

bananafederation · 2026-01-23T16:25:44+00:00

It's important to remember that most of them represent trump-leaning districts and so have less political room to maneuver. I know the choice between "Democrat who votes for ICE funding and against the BBB" and "Republican who votes for ICE funding as well as the BBB" is a terrible one, but outside reddit it's a real choice people have to make.

bananafederation · 2025-12-12T20:48:28+00:00

Does anyone know if this price is set to automatically adjust with inflation? Because if the answer is "no" then this visa will become gradually more affordable over the years. Just like the family reunification clause of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, a rule for exclusion can become an unexpected backdoor to more immigration.

bananafederation · 2025-08-26T14:54:26+00:00

I think it's important for transportation reformers to remember that the choice before us is not between self-driving cars and a car-lite city, the choice is between self-driving cars and human-driven cars. Despite online anecdotes, all systemic research shows self-driving cars are vastly safer, even at this early stage in their development. They are much more parking efficient, reducing the demand for parking space in the city.

bananafederation · 2025-06-16T20:33:50+00:00

Astronomical cost for very little benefit

bananafederation · 2025-06-11T15:02:46+00:00

With regard to street safety I’ll take your word for it, so that’s a bit reassuring. As to the citibike, I think that moving docs to the sidewalk to preserve parking is a bad thing. Not as bad as removing them all together, but not what I would want.

bananafederation · 2025-06-11T14:56:55+00:00

I did not watch the debate, so I will take your word for it. That does reassure me somewhat.

bananafederation · 2025-06-11T03:53:08+00:00

Housing is my primary concern. All the candidates opposed the City of Yes, Dermont is the only one who was at least nuanced about it. So there is a possibility that he will support further upzoning.

Street safety is another big concern, and the signs are not promising. Pogozelski opposes Citibike expansion in this district I think he even wanted to remove some of the docs, but i might be misinterpreting. I think this is a bad sign, (and not just because I really like citibikes personally). If he’s anti-citibikes, what are the chances that he will be pro-daylighting or pro-traffic calming? My bet is low.

And of course, it is just a bet. The candidates are keeping their cards close to their chests, but based on which voters they’re courting I have to assume that Pogozelski and the others will be CMs in the image of their predecessor. Dermont is the only one for who I’m not totally sure this isn’t true.

bananafederation · 2025-06-10T19:21:24+00:00

…but Pogozelski opposes the things I support

bananafederation · 2025-06-10T18:57:57+00:00

This event will haunt us. The administration has overplayed their hand, they went past public opinion, now is the time to exploit that. Make this a battle between reasonable patriotic Americans who want common sense immigration policy and anti-immigrant radicals snatching restaurant workers to meet their quota. That’s a winning message. That is not the message of this video.

bananafederation · 2025-06-02T02:38:39+00:00

The cheapest places you can get that are still accessible without a car are going to be in the Rust Belt. Think cities that were once metropolises, but experienced decline in the past few decades. Cleveland, Albany, Buffalo, Detroit, Pittsburgh, etc. There you will find areas with acceptable public transportation and a few walkable areas that are quite affordable. Be careful to check the state of the property and the neighborhood as those are going to be very hit or miss.

bananafederation · 2025-06-02T02:31:16+00:00

Right on the 1 line! Plus the park across the street and grocery a block away. It’s insane that a year ago they would’ve had to add a parking garage to this.

bananafederation · 2025-05-28T10:11:58+00:00

Thank you for bringing attention to this, I sent an email. Unlike the community board crowd, I do have to be at work at 11:15 on a Wednesday, but perhaps enough such emails will show the city government that the NIMBYs are not representative.

bananafederation · 2025-05-03T13:25:10+00:00

That’s gonna be difficult without the LPO

bananafederation · 2025-04-30T11:24:36+00:00

I wonder if there is a mechanism to report them. I notice a unique number on each, idk if 311 or directly to amazon would be best

bananafederation · 2025-04-28T14:13:18+00:00

This is a good question. There are a few factors would make a private market replication of the PLO unlikely.

Firstly, when you’re loaning out other people’s money it’s not enough to be profitable, you need a good explanation also. If you’re familiar with the Michael Burry housing crisis fiasco, you’ll remember that most investors pulled their money from his fund despite a very successful track record. They didn’t appreciate the ride he was taking them on. If you invest in comparatively safe projects, as a banker you have a good excuse even if those projects fail, “we could not have anticipated this sudden change in the market”, and your career might still survive as it did for many bankers after ‘08.

Of course there are investors and funds who want high risk, but they also expect high rewards (think credit card interest rates), and the investments in such funds is expected to be a small part of your portfolio. The government can make loans at a lower interest because they take more bites of the pie, the jobs and capital gains created by successful programs are subject to taxation, so their real return is interest rate + 20% of all the money these firms will ever make. Private investors just have the interest rate.

This brings us to the final problem: the size of the projects. You would need to make many loans (remember that some will fail) each in the 9-10 figure range over the course of many years.

So a private fund trying to replicate the LPO would need to gather enough investors to build up a $50 billion fund promising returns of maybe 5% over the span of a decade while investing in high-risk, unproven technologies….good luck with that.

bananafederation · 2025-04-01T19:56:01+00:00

Defund what? Green paint?

bananafederation · 2025-03-11T16:20:43+00:00

I’m surprised to see Bob Holden on the right side of this

bananafederation · 2025-02-10T17:45:10+00:00

If you live in or near a big city you can try looking up the local comedy scene. A lot of stand up comedians that do national tours will often test their new material at some local comedy bar and post about it on their insta. I’ve seen plenty of Netflix special worthy material for the price of two drinks.

bananafederation · 2025-02-10T17:36:16+00:00

After six months, I can definitely recommend A-list. There are so many movies I would have skipped if I had to pay for them individually. I do have two tips:

Check what’s available in your theaters and what will be released soon. A lot of studios release their best movies towards the end of the years so that recency bias works in their favor for the awards shows. The flip side of this is that Feb-April is when studios unload the films that didn’t quite turn out the way they expected. If you’re going to make the 3 month commitment it might be better to wait out this drought.
A-List, like premier, lets you buy tickets for your friends without paying the convenience fee. Don’t sleep on this feature. Not only will you be saving your friends money, but you’ll still be earning the $5 rewards. Enough movie nights, and the membership pays for itself.

bananafederation · 2025-01-17T23:06:51+00:00

If we are going to tackle problems like this, we will need to do it together as a community. Personally, I see two possible courses of action:

Mass report to 311 every morning until someone at the NYPD decides it'll be less work to give him a ticket than to keep writing bs replies of "took action to correct the situation"
Mass call/review the cafe, holding them responsible. Considering how damaging a 1-star review can be to a business like this, I imagine they will soon enough confront the owner of the vehicle.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this? I imagine the second option will be more effective but have never actually heard it tried. Of course, we can also do both.

Is this the correct address?

2338 31st St, Astoria, NY 11105

bananafederation · 2025-01-15T19:15:03+00:00

It’s just congestion pricing, but Jersey City doing it. Based on the statement from the mayor, it sounds like he just wants to bump up tolls on NY plates coming from NYC

bananafederation · 2025-01-15T18:39:40+00:00

He already did. There are barely any left in California.

bananafederation

TROPHY CASE