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Alan

@akgerber.bsky.social

1.6K followers 1.4K following 1.6K posts

he/him literally just some guy— mostly shooting the shit about transportation/climate change/architecture/urban planning/economics/land use also computer stuff see also @[email protected] and @[email protected]

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Alan @akgerber.bsky.social · 1d

sent this note quick

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Alan @akgerber.bsky.social · 1d

I think I learned about it in some other book, maybe the Tom Vanderbilt Traffic one or Shoup

Alan @akgerber.bsky.social · 1d

Danielle Steele had 26 SF parking permits
www.latimes.com/archives/la-...

Novelist Spurs Passion Over Parking

Dispute: In crowded San Francisco, Danielle Steel has permits for 26 spaces. City considers limits.

www.latimes.com

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Alan @akgerber.bsky.social · 2d

wait don't real and inflation-adjusted mean the same thing

Alan @akgerber.bsky.social · 2d

I miss my 'permission to close this tab" button

Alan @akgerber.bsky.social · 2d

Some of us are instead play-acting what it would be like to call the shots in some unified metropolitan transportation and land use authority

Alan @akgerber.bsky.social · 2d

oh yeah also a lot of publicly owned golf courses in the park system, presumably mostly fertilized by The People

Alan @akgerber.bsky.social · 2d

apparently a lotta Milorganite goes onto golf courses and also they try to use lots of brewery waste rather than just humanure

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Alan @akgerber.bsky.social · 2d

also there's a great public park system with beer gardens and 4 year old kindergarten going back for a century and extensive classes for kids and adults from the public rec department and a great affordable vocational education system but that's all kinda boring

Alan @akgerber.bsky.social · 2d

I grew up in Milwaukee, what happens when socialists are in charge is that you buy your lawn fertilizer from the government which makes it out of your poop

Alex Baumhardt @alexbaumhardt.bsky.social · 4d

This was lazy reporting, and the Times would have done better for its audience exploring why so many Portlanders voted in DSA council. Article includes nothing from these voters. Describing Republicans in Portland as an “endangered species” is a choice.
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/04/u...

What Happens When Socialists Are in Charge? Portland Offers a Glimpse.

www.nytimes.com

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Alan @akgerber.bsky.social · 2d

The Sunbelt was largely built around the car, but most of the Northeast and Midwest and even substaintial parts of the West Coast were built around walking and trains and streetcars and was rebuilt to fit in cars (but still concentrates density along where transit is or was)

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Alan @akgerber.bsky.social · 2d

"Can walk to the shop" usually goes with "can take a bus/train downtown" which goes along with having a large proportion of the regional employment/amenities there rather than some exurban campus

(This is a big part of why Canada has much higher transit ridership in spite of being suburban too)

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Alan @akgerber.bsky.social · 2d

my parents' ranch house in a Midwestern suburb is a short walk to a coffeeshop & grocery store and will shortly have a protected bike lane connection to a major regional mall and there is no reason that should be unusual

it's also at the intersection of two bus routes that oughta be more frequent

Alan @akgerber.bsky.social · 2d

you can understand the reluctance to use TBMs when they'd be chewing through 17 archeological sites per km but I wish that would generate consensus for elevated rail and e/bike infrastructure instead

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Alan @akgerber.bsky.social · 3d

old man yells at ebikes

Alan @akgerber.bsky.social · 3d

Maaaaaaybe now that a walkable grocery store opened

Alan @akgerber.bsky.social · 3d

Unfortunately I'd have a hard time believing that anyone would buy anything at the price point they're building at in Westchester without parking for 1 car per adult

Alan @akgerber.bsky.social · 3d

i would much rather have this expensive hat that is thematically compatible with ai
thegoodshirts.com/products/eve...

Ever Since I Was Young I Wanted To Transform Unstructured Data Into Ac

We appreciate your patience. Our hats take typically around two weeks to reach their final destination.

thegoodshirts.com

Alan @akgerber.bsky.social · 3d

the tarrytown/sleepy hollow waterfront is at least getting built up at midrise density but the housing is still comically expensive enough to indicate that the density should be still-higher (and in buildings with pretty inefficient floorplans compared to mostly-single-stair brooklyn heights)

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Alan @akgerber.bsky.social · 4d

per 'The Box' a lot of it was that in the container era, the port's connections to the mainland mattered a lot more because it was so easy to take an intermodal container to a far-inland plant/warehouse/whatever

many of NYC's factories were sited near the port for the sake of avoiding transloading

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Alan @akgerber.bsky.social · 4d

looks like a railroad hotel

Alan @akgerber.bsky.social · 5d

Remember that guy who bought all those Budds lol

Alan @akgerber.bsky.social · 5d

both of which already have population concentrated along extant and former rail lines

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Alan @akgerber.bsky.social · 7d

otherwise people will move into constantly-circling self-driving RVs to take advantage of the only free urban real estate, the streets

Alan @akgerber.bsky.social · 7d

he lives in Prospect Heights, not Bushwick