Sean Dooher
@dooher.bsky.social
34 followers 470 following 42 posts
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dooher.bsky.social
On the other hand, I saw Katie Wilson walking with her baby the other day on my run and I found it actually very heartening to see that the potential mayor experiences the city in the same way I do (not through a car windshield).
dooher.bsky.social
Lots of sharp corners, narrow widths for the turns that make it hard to navigate with cargo bikes/trailers.

My main complaint is we spent $X million on this over-engineered intersection and you still get dumped into a unprotected bike lane. For that price, we won't see wider deployment in the city.
dooher.bsky.social
I noticed this coming back after a week away. Lots of lane markings don't line up/are different widths, sidewalks use wildly different materials on the same block, etc.

I think SDOT has a noticeable lack of attention to detail and it makes a lot of the city look shabby even for brand new infra.
dooher.bsky.social
Probably just for good will / to earn a future customer. I'm more likely to go to REI now that I know they'll do this for me in a pinch.
dooher.bsky.social
Yep! They're regulated as 50cc motorcycles/mopeds over there so you need a (moped) license to ride them and they need plates and mirrors.

Makes sense tbh as they're capable of pretty much the same speed as a Honda Super Cub.
dooher.bsky.social
This isn't for theft prevention, this is long(er) term parking so that the police don't take your bike away if you illegally park it.

Street space is very constrained in Tokyo and they're usually pretty strict about where you can leave your bike for more than a quick stop.
dooher.bsky.social
Unfortunately, Google is moving out of those offices starting this month and will be completely gone sometime next year.

Hopefully the next tenants are better stewards (or the land-owner really).
dooher.bsky.social
Yeah things like this are great for visitors. I remember it being so hard to get a CharlieCard when I was visiting Boston and I ended up having to board the streetcar without paying 😬
dooher.bsky.social
They actually just started this as a pilot a month or two ago! Full roll out for the rest of the transit agencies is expected before the end of the year hopefully (it’s ~2 years behind schedule).
dooher.bsky.social
The light timing sucks, so I usually exit the bike lane a block early here and then just turn left on either the crosswalk signal or the normal signal, but definitely not a good all-ages and abilities option.

The switchover to the other side of the street at Melrose and Pike is also really bad.
dooher.bsky.social
That’s actually very disappointing. Next to a train station is the perfect place for a hotel to be.

I guess there’s nothing stopping cities from allowing hotels there anyways, but I have a feeling most are going to do the absolute bare minimum to comply with the law.
dooher.bsky.social
Yeah I had like a $2 balance on a card and when I called to see if I could transfer it to my main card, they said there was a $5 fee.

After a brief pause, they asked if I wanted to proceed with the transfer.
dooher.bsky.social
I've always liked this one in Issaquah: maps.app.goo.gl/s5KeyKhvx6fH...
dooher.bsky.social
It's actually even worse than that "could help with bus reliability" vs "would cause severe traffic congestion".

Improvements for bus riders are whimsical and imaginary, but negative impacts to car drivers is concrete and guaranteed.
dooher.bsky.social
I think need to look at BART to see what a heavily branched system looks like with only a single downtown rail tunnel.

A theoretical best of 10-15 minutes frequencies (4 branches, 24 trains an hour/one train every 2.5min). Add in unreliability, that drops to 15-20min frequencies. Unacceptable imo
dooher.bsky.social
But the operators are usually incomprehensible over the speakers. It’s definitely a lot better with the new trains than it used to be, but I still struggle to understand them most of the time.
dooher.bsky.social
Wait, I'm actually sad. I haven't been there in a bit since I moved out of Berkeley. I loved the vibes of that location with the wood floor.
dooher.bsky.social
I think it’s because there’s already the existing Capitol Corridor with long term plans to electrify (at 110mph) and have direct service to SF via a new transbay tube.

If that was the main route for HSR, then they’d skip out on Stockton and Modesto and Sac -> LA/Central Valley would be very slow.
dooher.bsky.social
It's actually the largest parking garage in the country! So obviously it's an important historical site and needs to be protected at all costs.
dooher.bsky.social
Yeah, I mean this just seems like the normal corporate trend of blandifying their branding to meet the 'millennial beige' aesthetic (see McDonalds, Petco, MSNBC, etc).
dooher.bsky.social
I think we should just have something like they do in Vancouver where they just use normal traffic signals, but a flashing green indicates that it'll stay green, but that'll it'll change as soon as a pedestrian hits the button. Much clearer than the HAWK signal imo
dooher.bsky.social
Muni and King Country Metro in Seattle are also free for youth. I haven't seen anything specific about the impact on ridership, but that'd also be something interesting to look into!
dooher.bsky.social
I pointed out a “Do Not Enter” sign to a driver yesterday and they just responded by shouting insults against neurodivergent folks. Also very classy.
dooher.bsky.social
In addition to that, with shuttles every 20 minutes, that adds at least 10 minutes of wait on average (likely higher as in my experience this kind of shuttle never runs on time + load/unload delay). Adding a mandatory ~15 minutes of delay for bikers, then I'd expect demand to greatly drop as well.
dooher.bsky.social
Seattle cop slide? 👀