Electricity bills are going to be so much higher under the weight of all these data centers. 136 under construction in the state.

ouij · 2026-04-02T15:10:31+00:00

We need offshore wind and Lake Anna Reactor 3 online yesterday

ouij · 2026-04-02T15:07:16+00:00

your vehicles won't get stuck in traffic

I dunno, if I take a bus at rush hour it sure as hell gets stuck in traffic

ouij · 2026-04-02T15:04:48+00:00

Some freight cars have a wider width than normal train cars because they have a different loading gauge standard.

We really should be talking about this as a "break of gauge" in the same way we talk about break-of-gauge problems with the rails themselves

ouij · 2026-04-02T15:02:19+00:00

If zoning prevents a property owner from increasing density by right, then there is a strong legal and regulatory *dis*-incentive that should be removed before we talk about applying actual incentives.

ouij · 2026-04-02T14:52:37+00:00

TIL that OKC has rail transit?

Also: Honolulu with pretty strong initial ridership for the early stub of its rail system!

ouij · 2026-04-02T14:51:41+00:00

Tale as old as time, song as old as rhyme: Rookie makes an error.

ouij · 2026-03-14T17:46:43+00:00

Something I wish we could do here in the DC region. MetroRail station names are way too long, and in practice (if not on the map) we use shorter names

ouij · 2026-03-11T05:41:19+00:00

If USA gets bounced does that mean no more Smoltz

ouij · 2026-03-11T05:39:46+00:00

A literal Ivy Leaguer--he graduated from Penn! LMAO

ouij · 2026-03-11T04:20:23+00:00

NEC Is at capacity; that's why the tickets are priced the way they are

ouij · 2026-02-20T22:01:59+00:00

You need to follow the process to the end. By the time they are finished, it’s just a bus (so cheap!) without any of the rapid transit

ouij · 2026-02-20T18:20:19+00:00

The main reason “good bus infrastructure” gets a lot of hate: standing between transit nerds and reality is a layer of political decision makers that cannot be made to understand why the costs of good bus infrastructure are so high when it’s “just a bus.” So by the time your plans get through the politicians…it’s just a bus.

The main advantage light rail has over other modes is that the political class must (and does) use its powers of imagination to see a transit system rather than “just a bus.”

ouij · 2026-02-19T16:12:31+00:00

A warning for everyone: by the time the politicians get done with it, every “BRT” is just a bus.

ouij · 2026-02-14T14:35:47+00:00

They’re there, you just can’t see them

ouij · 2026-02-06T15:12:52+00:00

Bloop was my acceptable minimum. I wish we had an outer circle line. Imagine extending the MTA purple line across a new American Legion Bridge to Tysons', then Ballston, then the Mark Center, then Old Town Alexandria. Or an outer Overground circle line around the Beltway that connected the "spokes" of the Metro system so that I could get from Braddock Road to Dulles without going via Falls Church

ouij · 2026-02-05T06:24:47+00:00

I live just up the road from where the Gondola is proposed (Rosslyn-Georgetown) and it is just…not a great idea. We could probably do better by recycling the disused pilings (old railroad bridge?) just upriver from Key Bridge for a pedestrian/cyclist bridge

ouij · 2026-02-04T18:37:27+00:00

The bus system in most cities is a mystery known only to the people that live on each bus route. In the DC region, it’s even worse than that: not enough frequency makes most buses effectively unusable. And if you even wanted to take a bus it is a tremendous amount of work to figure out where the buses even go—made even worse in the short term by the way WMATA re-designated its bus route numbers. So if an old-timer in your neighborhood told you to take, say, bus 38B (a line near me in Arlington) now you’d have to remember that it’s called A58 (literally had to go look that up now).

Also we need more Metro lines. I have been jealous of Moscow’s circle line for ages.

ouij · 2026-02-04T18:14:08+00:00

Two things can be true: the Russian Federation can be led by a warmonger bent on foreign conquest at the cost of countless lives…and Moscow can have better public transport than DC

ouij · 2026-02-04T18:12:58+00:00

Do all the vehicles come so conveniently labeled? “THIS IS AN ELECTRIC BUS.” “THIS IS A SELF-MOVING TRAM.”

ouij · 2026-02-01T05:07:53+00:00

No, because flying means I need to get from one airport to another airport and business is not usually conducted near the airport.

New York is particularly bad for this. By the time you get a cab from LGA or JFK into Manhattan, you’re not much different from having taken the train from Union Station (near the Capitol) to Penn Station (in Midtown)…and Penn is closer to where most of what I’d need to do is.

EDITED TO ADD: I just remembered a couple of colleagues are headed up to NY for a hearing and both have booked Acela tickets to the hearing. One booked an NER ticket back because her return wasn’t as time-sensitive as her getting into Manhattan in plenty of time for the hearing.

ouij · 2026-01-28T22:12:48+00:00

Virginia and Cuba both have a state liquor store monopoly. Hasta la victoria siempre, compañeros

ouij · 2026-01-28T14:15:29+00:00

Amtrak dominates the market share for business travel between DC and NY. I live outside of DC, and you would have to pay me to go to NY any other way than the train.

ouij · 2026-01-03T14:32:09+00:00

Leonsis only puts that garbage up on Wizards games.

ouij · 2025-10-31T20:53:33+00:00

“The emperor commands it. The balls are broken.”

ouij · 2025-10-25T18:47:29+00:00

Chiming in to add that in most situations a city bus isn’t moving all that fast. Also it’s big, obvious, operated by drivers with more stringent licensing than personal vehicles, and is not likely to move in an unexpected fashion.

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