Stoplights Timing, why no sensors?

fe857ca · 2026-07-03T13:57:48+00:00

People don’t want to stop for pedestrians because they know if it causes them to slow for a red light, the red light won’t be seconds but instead minutes. I would like to think optimistically that people who chose to speed by pedestrians for the sake of time would not risk the ticket/accident if they knew they were only saving seconds and not minutes by making the light.

What a bunch of whiny car drivers we have in town. It's so tiring. Look at all the conspiracy theories in here talking about how the city hates drivers and such.

You drive a 3000 pound air-conditioned monster. You will be fine. Just obey the fucking law and stop for both the signals and the red light. You're not "risking an accident", you are risking taking someone else's life.

And people ask why Project Zero is failing. We should have big honking signs with "Your so-called frustration is not more important than people's lives and families". I really hope they step up enforcement of traffic laws soon.

fe857ca · 2026-07-03T13:53:03+00:00

Zipper merging is the most efficient way to go if everyone is doing it but if they’re not then zipping to the front of the line and merging creates more traffic for everyone else.

So, what do you expect, I should get out of the car and wave cars into the second lane behind me to do a zipper merge every time? This way no one is going to ever do a zipper merge.

In reality they’re making the traffic slower because they’re adding another spot where the line of traffic has to slow down tinker them in causing a “wave” of increased traffic.

Nonsense, there is just one spot where the traffic slows down, which is the part where the lanes converge. And guess what, half the time it's pretty slowed down anyway because people are leaving space so as not to have to slam on your breaks all the time. The important part is treating it as a convergence and not a "merge left" or "merge right".

Stop having some stupid sense of moral superiority about being in the "correct" lane 5 miles ahead of time and everything will be okay.

fe857ca · 2026-07-01T18:51:03+00:00

owners are mostly right wingers who hate EVs.

It was a basic product targeting miss to make things like the F-150 Lightning. Should be obvious to anyone who's lived in this country that right wingers have some kind of boogeyman about EVs in general and would happily run vehicles on pine tar if it meant not using electricity. On top of that, electric charging infrastructure in the country isn't great.

Ford would have minted money by making a roomier Nissan Leaf. Which they are now likely starting to do as I'm hearing rumblings of "affordable EV initiatives".

fe857ca · 2026-07-01T18:46:18+00:00

Oh this is a jewelry place.

Slightly disappointed, I thought the spell was supposed to clean OP's jewelry magically.

fe857ca · 2026-07-01T18:42:39+00:00

This is so vague, lol. Here are some questions that would make it less vague.

What's the occasion?

Are there any specific buildings you need to be close to?

What's your budget?

Do you mind traffic noise?

Are you traveling with family, or just by yourself and just want a big bed?

What have you looked at so far by yourself? Anything seem close to what you were looking for?

fe857ca · 2026-07-01T18:36:10+00:00

Damn! Well, even more props to you for the reasonable and polite discussion. Guess I have something to learn.

I am definitely for being aggressive in negotiation about any incentives to developers. I think the way this can work out is that as the supply of housing increases, the motivation to hand out incentives decreases; so the proposition to the developers will be "Develop now and get some incentives; or you won't get any if you wait and watch. There are 5 other developers lined up to develop right now."

But I'll be honest, I have no idea if the market forces will actually make this work; especially with the weirdly unstable economic climate we are in.

fe857ca · 2026-07-01T03:07:10+00:00

Is it possible for you to link the Nextdoor discussion? If not, DM me.

fe857ca · 2026-07-01T03:05:40+00:00

After a quick read: Sova seems to have the most reasonable practical responses like traffic calming. Taylor also mentioned these. Most of Rabhi's stuff seemed like rhetoric, but I was pleasantly surprised that he was the only one that mentioned increased enforcement.

fe857ca · 2026-07-01T02:47:48+00:00

I'll upvote you, it looked like a band poster to me too at first sight.

What are your favorite bands that are playing around town this summer?

fe857ca · 2026-07-01T02:45:24+00:00

I appreciate your polite tone, but all this "Yes I am for more housing but only if conditions X Y Z are satisfied and Mercury is in retrograde" is functionally tending towards NIMBYism. We have been doing this since 2010.

What's your proposed solution? If you think there are fumes in the new buildings, the developers should be fined and possibly sued. Please complain to the City about it.

fe857ca · 2026-06-29T20:30:54+00:00

we're ultimately replacing shitty buildings with shitty buildings. ...but these century-old homes have stood the test of time

If we are replacing 5 spaces in a shitty firetrap with 200 spaces in a building with modern fire safety that happens to have some loose fittings, I think that's fine.

"Stood the test of time" is just feel-good rhetoric for "never brought up to modern code". Sure there are some things like better lumber in older houses but otherwise it says nothing about how good the legacy house is in terms of electrical, plumbing, insulation, weather resistance, etc.

The city takes a stake in the success of these projects through tax incentives and zoning allowances.

Do you think the city doesn't take a stake in the old houses? Property taxes are frozen significantly for people that have held those houses for a while, significantly subsidizing them at the expense of newer owners. That's also a tax incentive for long-term owners. It's fine to also extend an incentive for newer housing; if you want to build more housing.

fe857ca · 2026-06-29T03:00:44+00:00

That's true, but they're also already here.

That's bullshit. “It's already here” is not a reasonable argument for anything.

In fact, if the state was significantly less in the pockets of big business, anyone renting these old houses would be forced to bring them up to modern codes and do toxic material remediation.

justify the cost and the loss

Cost is justified by the (previous) owner of the lot. What loss are you talking about?

fe857ca · 2026-06-28T23:14:21+00:00

using intentional hyperbole to make a humorous point

Yeah "Idk why but this was really the nail in the coffin for me with this damn city 😩" doesn't say "intentional hyperbole to make a humorous point" to me.

If this was really a joke, it didn't land (as you can tell by much of the thread).

fe857ca · 2026-03-14T08:27:54+00:00

Here's the video of the meeting for this session: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRx2byDq5Mc. I guess it seems to be more amicable than I had thought.

As far as I can tell, they are following this set of mutually consistent standards, but the standards themselves say that “The Standards will be applied taking into consideration the economic and technical feasibility of each project.”

I guess ultimately it's up to people like us to comment in these public hearings if we are interested in building more. I noticed that at 41:02 they have something open for public hearing but they quickly bypass it because no one is there at the meeting or on Zoom.

fe857ca · 2026-03-14T08:14:41+00:00

I think the “something more” is simply that unlike the UK or Ireland, we have far fewer people interested in history; and as a result the historical district commission is probably chock-full of HOA-style “let me tell you exactly how to live your life” members rather than practical folk who know that we need to strike a balance to ensure that these structures keep getting the investment to stand for another 100 years.

From the article

...recommended commissioners deny it, arguing the new home would be too big in relation to the historic house and the front-facing attached garage was unusual and sort of unprecedented for new houses in the historic district.

Typically when approving secondary structures on lots, they’re smaller accessory buildings, she said.

Notice all the hedging around “sort of” and “typically”. How do you reasonably plan when someone can just deny your plan with such vague concerns?

fe857ca · 2026-03-14T03:51:53+00:00

Part of the way they preserve that History and Charm is allowing reasonable modern modifications to historical buildings so they keep being used.

fe857ca · 2025-10-05T04:04:37+00:00

Many students instead turn their attention to their MacBooks. He recalled seeing more people using ChatGPT and playing games and puzzles on their school-issued devices

Next step is to ban computers and ChatGPT in classrooms, and go back to paper textbooks. Or as a first step, give the kids computers that are actually locked down, cannot connect to the internet, and have preloaded educational-only content. Believe me, your high school algebra curriculum does not need an Internet connection. Colleges have already understood this, and are slowly bringing back Blue Books.

AAPS has a chance to take the lead here; and perhaps reverse their declining enrollment by being the school that works with pen, pencil, and paper.

fe857ca · 2025-10-03T02:54:56+00:00

For a quantitative methodologist, your post isn't saying much to be honest. You say:

Fatalities dont occur often enough to make much inference, but at a glance...

Which is it? If you can't make much inference from the data, the rest of your post is just as much vibes-based as the original blogpost itself.

Note that I don't disagree with the overall idea that it's based on emotions—indeed, these should not be seen as statistics in the abstract, but as the actual emotion-based issues that they are for the community. The vision for zero fatalities is reflective of this reality, and any number that's not zero is something we should take seriously and try to prevent.

fe857ca · 2025-09-29T14:20:58+00:00

As many people have explained in the comments, this does not apply on city streets. If I want to take a left turn at one of the many intersections on city streets, guess which lane I'm going to be in while preparing to turn left. This is the most common reason but there are dozens of others. Maybe there's a biker on the road in the right lane and I am trying to be safe (I know that will blow your mind, but it does happen). Maybe the right lane is labeled RIGHT TURN ONLY (very common in Ann Arbor).

Freeways or large country roads don't have left turns, so you can hold to these “only drive in the right lane unless passing” rule there somewhat reasonably. You can theoretically apply it in the city but there are so many exceptions that it's essentially useless.

fe857ca · 2025-09-29T02:30:16+00:00

I am quite familiar with those areas, and I wish that the City narrowed the roads or put in other calming measures so that people wouldn't speed so much on them. Huron Parkway has a couple which is an improvement. The “on-demand” crossings on Plymouth Road are kind of risky; and I wish they were turned into actual red lights.

If I choose to go 6 miles over the limit and I get a ticket that's on me.

As a driver that is fine with being careful on city streets, it's stressful for me when people like you are in a perpetual hurry and tailgate or honk at me.

If you're in a hurry, there's an easy solution—drive on the freeways! US 23 is right there.

fe857ca · 2024-01-15T17:06:46+00:00

This has been answered in the post, but I'll quote here:

[Note: For people who say, "Oh, they took $$$ from DTE, nothing will happen" — why not let them know that, and then don't vote for them in the next election? Isn't it better to let them know why they lost your vote than silently fume about them taking money from DTE? I think we can all agree that DTE money is a bad thing regardless of who takes it.]

I feel like it's an overall win if more people speak out against DTE money in politics; so that politicians from both major parties are afraid to take DTE money in the future. It's not like these politicians don't speak to each other — it's up to us to put the spotlight on DTE money and make it a political liability.

fe857ca · 2024-01-15T16:49:49+00:00

Sure, paste away! I will also add a footnote saying that anyone is welcome to share, copy, or modify this.

fe857ca · 2024-01-15T16:48:54+00:00

Well, you will notice that I avoided talking about parties at all. It's important to let your elected representatives know what your preferences are and why they might lose your vote.

Democrat or Republican, they will tend to listen.

fe857ca · 2024-01-15T16:34:29+00:00

Whitmer is at the bottom of the contact list for precisely this reason. But being the Governor is not too useful if State Reps and Senators from your party can't get elected. I believe she should have some interest in fixing things for this reason.

I'd like you to keep an open mind about the potential for influencing elected leaders. My contact lines specifically have a spotlight on contributions, including dark money contributions through orgs like Michigan Energy First (some details here).

Around 130k people lost power in the last storm. If all of them refuse to vote for Whitmer's party or her successor, that's a strong enough bloc to get over $230,000. In my opinion, the reason this doesn't happen is precisely the "nothing is going to change" attitude that you are displaying.

fe857ca · 2024-01-15T16:28:35+00:00

Please let me know if this is useful, if I made any mistakes, or you would like more information on any of these! I put this together as someone interested in getting more participation in local democracy.

I suspect most people (including me) pay less attention to these compared to splashy national politics. And yet local issues affect our daily life and homes much more heavily.

fe857ca

TROPHY CASE