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Reposted by Jay Blazek Crossley

Robert Cruickshank @robertcruickshank.com · 18h

Biden's domestic agenda was 100% correct. The problem was his inability to sell it, due to old age and lack of understanding of mass communications in the '20s. (Also, his foreign policy handed Trump the election.) Efforts to force Dems back into a '90s-'00s agenda are both wrong and unnecessary.

Freedom Of Speech painting by Rockwell: man in a workshirt and jacket stands and speaks in a crowd

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Jay Blazek Crossley @jaycrossley.bsky.social · 1d

So you’re telling me that Austin could paint some more rainbow crosswalks and then the Governor will halt the plan to waist $6-10 billion to allow for more traffic on I-35 through the heart of Austin?

Sounds like a good deal. Let’s do this!

ghostly gwen howerton @kissphoria.bsky.social · 1d

NEW: Barely a week after being repainted, the rainbow crosswalk in Montrose will be removed by Houston METRO, citing Greg Abbott and TXDOT's new directive. The crosswalk is a memorial to the LGBTQ+ community and to a fallen cyclist:

www.chron.com/culture/arti...

Houston’s rainbow crosswalk to be removed, citing Abbott’s order

The Montrose crosswalk is a memorial to a 21-year-old cyclist. It was recently repainted.

www.chron.com

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Jay Blazek Crossley @jaycrossley.bsky.social · 1d

And this kind of “distraction” makes streets safer.

When we are driving, if there is something interesting to look at like trees along the road, or people, or a crosswalk respecting human life, we tend to pay attention more and slow down.

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Jay Blazek Crossley @jaycrossley.bsky.social · 2d

People of Austin (in Travis or Williamson County - ie constituents of CTRMA)!

Please fill out this push poll that wants to justify roadway expansions by October 10, but argue for safety. Click on the map & add comments!

Stop sprawl subsidy! End freeway expansions!

wspengages.com/290Extension...

CTRMA 290 Extension Project

An environmental study for mobility improvements to US 290 including the possible extension of 290 Toll.

wspengages.com

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Jay Blazek Crossley @jaycrossley.bsky.social · 3d

This is the current story of my life.

Cyrus Hall @cyrushall.bsky.social · 3d

I am pretty convinced that the way we fund many things in the US is largely broken. Non-profits, affordable housing, transit projects, and numerous other social goods rely on deeply fragmented funding, where each funding source comes with its own strings. Funding is always on the edge.

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Reposted by Jay Blazek Crossley

Safe Streets Austin @safestreetsaustin.bsky.social · 10d

🚨 Final day to apply to the @SafeStreetsAustin Board!
Want to help shape a safer, more accessible Austin for all? This is your chance.

🕛 Apply by midnight: buff.ly/1hDMPA1
#SafeStreets #ATX #TransportationEquity #BoardRecruitment #LastCall

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Jay Blazek Crossley @jaycrossley.bsky.social · 14d

I wish advocates would stop using the phrase “people over cars.” It’s divisive & lacks empathy & I believe significantly sets progress back.

We want a system that is safe & comfortably for people. Some people are inside cars. Don’t demonize people. Work w/ people to make streets safe for all of us.

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Jay Blazek Crossley @jaycrossley.bsky.social · 15d

Thanks. Great to hear.

Reposted by Jay Blazek Crossley

Safe Streets Austin @safestreetsaustin.bsky.social · 15d

Join our first Happy Hour TODAY 6-8pm!

We'll be just off 2nd & Congress at Ellis Bar outdoor area (pictured). Come meet with us, hear the latest updates, and meet fellow supporters.

See you there!

RSVP: www.safestreetsaustin.org/upcoming-eve...

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Jay Blazek Crossley @jaycrossley.bsky.social · 15d

I'm currently reading The Black Jacobins by CLR James about the Haitian revolution. And there is so much there about freedom and building a good and just society and the exuberance of emancipation comes through in the text. But, the outrageous level of violence in those pages is just staggering.

Jay Blazek Crossley @jaycrossley.bsky.social · 15d

I believe that long days moving soil around with a shovel or driving a tractor around or building benches really can do a lot of good for most of us.

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Jay Blazek Crossley @jaycrossley.bsky.social · 15d

You were the one who alerted me to this here, but then I didn't keep up after this post (but I did leave that post open in a sea of other browser windows for a month!).

Do you know what happened with this? Did Vision Zero get cut at all? or any meaningful changes to transportation in the budget?

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Jay Blazek Crossley @jaycrossley.bsky.social · 26d

I could run if we move back to the farm, although the district almost kisses up to our house in Austin and we used to be in the district.

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Jay Blazek Crossley @jaycrossley.bsky.social · 27d

And now welcome to the 1st in a 4-part series with each step costing more of my Amtrak points.

I took the Northeast Regional (Train 94) from Newark, NJ, to New Haven, CT, with a coach ticket. I spent about half the time sitting at a table in the cafe car.

It was right on time at 2 hrs 20 minutes.

Arty photo looking across three rows of train tracks at a grey concrete wall with grey gravel in between the train tracks and the yellow edge of the platform with its tactile bumps at my feet just at the bottom of the photo.

Selfie in coach in an aisle seat on a regular speed Amtrak train.

Selfie sitting at a table in the cafe car of on a regular speed Amtrak train with me making a kinda funny expression mostly with my eye lashes.

Picture of the other people sitting in the cafe car on a regular speed Amtrak train with the cafe in the background and the guy working there preparing something for a guy standing in the aisle. The people sitting at tables: a guy on his laptop, a lady on her phone, a lady on her laptop, another lady where you can just see her back but I think on her laptop, and then you can just see the side of another guy who I think was on his phone.

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Jay Blazek Crossley @jaycrossley.bsky.social · 27d

I love people mover / airport shuttle style transit and wish for more places valuable enough in Texas to merit so much human activity that we need super frequent high capacity transit.

#ZoningIsDumb

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Jay Blazek Crossley @jaycrossley.bsky.social · 27d

When you land at Terminal A in Newark and want to get to the Amtrak station you have to walk out to a shuttle bus to the AirTrain.

This was explained repeatedly and very politely by the bus driver.

Shot looking forward on a packed bus. In this one you can see that people have luggage all over the bus.

People walking from the shuttle bus to the entrance to the up escalator to the AirTrain. There’s a sign that says “Transit to City” with an arrow pointing left among other directions.

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Jay Blazek Crossley @jaycrossley.bsky.social · 27d

Oh. Here’s the neat looking old stuff I flew over. I don’t know what river that is, but I think those are sunken boats you can see.

A shot from an airplane window looking down at a river where there seem to be two large and a handful of smaller boats sunk below the surface of the water, so you just see the outline of the old boat.

A shot from an airplane window looking down at what appears to be a decommissioned oil and gas storage area. There are three rows of circle footprints of giant old drums that must have held chemicals. This site is along a river that bends around the bottom of the photo.

A shot from an airplane window looking down at a river where there seems to be some old ruins in the bend in the river, like its old docks or piers of some kind that look like they’re just kind of very slowly sinking into the river.

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Jay Blazek Crossley @jaycrossley.bsky.social · 27d

I’m glad I can occasionally remember - even here in my late forties - how amazing and magical flying in an airplane is. It’s kind of rad you guys.

And an extraordinary privilege. I looked it up and each year only about ten percent of the humans on the planet ride in a plane at least once.

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Jay Blazek Crossley @jaycrossley.bsky.social · 27d

Unfortunately we did not get this bill passed so it’s still not the law in Texas (when you’re driving into a driveway) that you have to yield to pedestrians.

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Jay Blazek Crossley @jaycrossley.bsky.social · 27d

I flew over some sprawl and some land and some old stuff.

Shot from an airplane window looking down with agricultural fields of different things making different colors of geometric shapes on the ground. There are little puffy clouds too.

Shot from an airplane window looking down and there’s more agricultural fields making different colors of different geometric shapes, but there’s some kind of tight pocket of stuff in the middle that makes a neat pattern that almost looks like a little city in the countryside. There are also little fluffy clouds.

A shot from an airplane window looking down at more fields of different colors and different geometric shapes but this one has little fluffy clouds all around the edges like a picture frame and it’s neat to see the shadows of the clouds on the ground below them.

A shot from an airplane window looking down at a little sprawl housing subdivision that seems new and plopped down next to some woods and some fields and some older sprawl.

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Jay Blazek Crossley @jaycrossley.bsky.social · 28d

Sure, but I think it helps move us forward some and there’s of course lots of other good work and better representation in lots of other aspects of society — in spite of the recent racist backlash movement to make things boring again.

Jay Blazek Crossley @jaycrossley.bsky.social · 28d

I’ve never experienced this before. We’re boarding our flight and TSA is checking ids and bags before people get on the plane.

Shot at an airport gate from the boarding line showing a line in front of me at an improvised TSA checkpoint where they’re searching people’s bags.

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Jay Blazek Crossley @jaycrossley.bsky.social · 28d

Random thought in the airport:

My perception is that love of football has allowed a significant shift in American media normalizing black men talking on television, being seen as experts and valuing their takes.

It seems a really good thing that seems to have happened over the last decade or so.

Crappy shot of a couple airport TVs. There’s a man with a cool hat on the screen and the crawler has pictures of football players and various text about football.

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Jay Blazek Crossley @jaycrossley.bsky.social · 28d

America’s approach to gun violence policies is bad. Every senseless death from these policies is sad.

Jay Blazek Crossley @jaycrossley.bsky.social · 28d

Got the @yimbytown.bsky.social Mayor’s sashes I’d left at the old @farmandcity.bsky.social office (and the last remaining schwag from last year) and now I’m on the #20 headed to the airport.

A thing that’s important to me right now is that the a/c on this bus is working great. Thanks bus mechanics!

Shot of a guy walking onto a #20 bus as the door opens.

Picture of me holding a dozen little notepads that are branded “YIMBYtown 2024”

Shot of a blue sash that has gold letters that say MAYOR hanging off the side of a bookshelf.

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