I think the core problem is that you have a million times more faith in NY becoming Madrid than the average voter.
It's good to have long term plans, but if you can't deliver in the short term as well then you don't stay in power for long.
Mamdani knows that.
It's good to have long term plans, but if you can't deliver in the short term as well then you don't stay in power for long.
Mamdani knows that.
January 30, 2026 at 4:49 PM
I think the core problem is that you have a million times more faith in NY becoming Madrid than the average voter.
It's good to have long term plans, but if you can't deliver in the short term as well then you don't stay in power for long.
Mamdani knows that.
It's good to have long term plans, but if you can't deliver in the short term as well then you don't stay in power for long.
Mamdani knows that.
You don't get Madrid from curious people and optimists.
You get Madrid from a bureaucracy and regulatory system that has been designed to make construction planning and execution fast and efficient. It's hard nose politics and planning. Not hopes and dreams.
You get Madrid from a bureaucracy and regulatory system that has been designed to make construction planning and execution fast and efficient. It's hard nose politics and planning. Not hopes and dreams.
January 30, 2026 at 4:29 PM
You don't get Madrid from curious people and optimists.
You get Madrid from a bureaucracy and regulatory system that has been designed to make construction planning and execution fast and efficient. It's hard nose politics and planning. Not hopes and dreams.
You get Madrid from a bureaucracy and regulatory system that has been designed to make construction planning and execution fast and efficient. It's hard nose politics and planning. Not hopes and dreams.
The MTA can do whatever it wants and I've never said otherwise. You're the one who boiled it down to a binary choice between the fast and free bus plan and the subway.
January 30, 2026 at 4:26 PM
The MTA can do whatever it wants and I've never said otherwise. You're the one who boiled it down to a binary choice between the fast and free bus plan and the subway.
Have you told them about Madrid yet? Maybe that will get things going.
January 30, 2026 at 4:20 PM
Have you told them about Madrid yet? Maybe that will get things going.
With intense distrust. We've all seen these projects last decades, balloon in costs, and get mired in politics.
People have faith that that the MTA can turn off fair boxes, they do not have faith that it can double the subway system any time soon.
People have faith that that the MTA can turn off fair boxes, they do not have faith that it can double the subway system any time soon.
January 30, 2026 at 4:19 PM
With intense distrust. We've all seen these projects last decades, balloon in costs, and get mired in politics.
People have faith that that the MTA can turn off fair boxes, they do not have faith that it can double the subway system any time soon.
People have faith that that the MTA can turn off fair boxes, they do not have faith that it can double the subway system any time soon.
If you want to prove yourself right, get Second Ave built in our lifetimes or Queenslink. Maybe then people will be less skeptical.
January 30, 2026 at 4:17 PM
If you want to prove yourself right, get Second Ave built in our lifetimes or Queenslink. Maybe then people will be less skeptical.
And I'm saying that if you sit next to someone on a bus stuck in traffic and start talking about Madrid and shoving spreadsheets in their face, you will get told where to shove it.
We need to do things that make people believe that the city works today.
We need to do things that make people believe that the city works today.
January 30, 2026 at 4:16 PM
And I'm saying that if you sit next to someone on a bus stuck in traffic and start talking about Madrid and shoving spreadsheets in their face, you will get told where to shove it.
We need to do things that make people believe that the city works today.
We need to do things that make people believe that the city works today.
But you're saying in addition. You're saying instead and that's not a great plan for an administration trying to improve people's lives with tangible results in a reasonable amount of time.
January 30, 2026 at 3:55 PM
But you're saying in addition. You're saying instead and that's not a great plan for an administration trying to improve people's lives with tangible results in a reasonable amount of time.
The gamble is reforming the transit development process. New York is in the US and has no special qualities that make it easier to reform than the average US city.
If you said that we should encourage Chinese or EU style development in addition to short term projects, I'd back it 100%.
If you said that we should encourage Chinese or EU style development in addition to short term projects, I'd back it 100%.
January 30, 2026 at 3:53 PM
The gamble is reforming the transit development process. New York is in the US and has no special qualities that make it easier to reform than the average US city.
If you said that we should encourage Chinese or EU style development in addition to short term projects, I'd back it 100%.
If you said that we should encourage Chinese or EU style development in addition to short term projects, I'd back it 100%.
Adding an assumption that the US will magically reform its transit construction process isn't making me like the idea more.
If the game here is choosing between an immediate benefit for a huge number of people vs an expensive gamble that historically has never payed off, I know my pick.
If the game here is choosing between an immediate benefit for a huge number of people vs an expensive gamble that historically has never payed off, I know my pick.
January 30, 2026 at 3:39 PM
Adding an assumption that the US will magically reform its transit construction process isn't making me like the idea more.
If the game here is choosing between an immediate benefit for a huge number of people vs an expensive gamble that historically has never payed off, I know my pick.
If the game here is choosing between an immediate benefit for a huge number of people vs an expensive gamble that historically has never payed off, I know my pick.
Making buses free and expanding bus lanes will make people's lives better and encourage people to use transit today.
Dumping that money into studies and plans for projects with 40 year timelines and which will likely get canned by the next admin (if they get to the approval stage at all) won't.
Dumping that money into studies and plans for projects with 40 year timelines and which will likely get canned by the next admin (if they get to the approval stage at all) won't.
January 30, 2026 at 2:34 PM
Making buses free and expanding bus lanes will make people's lives better and encourage people to use transit today.
Dumping that money into studies and plans for projects with 40 year timelines and which will likely get canned by the next admin (if they get to the approval stage at all) won't.
Dumping that money into studies and plans for projects with 40 year timelines and which will likely get canned by the next admin (if they get to the approval stage at all) won't.
They feel entitled to do that to *cars* these days.
I recently witnessed a person crossing the street nearly getting killed when I stopped - at a stop sign - to let them finish crossing the road and the car behind me gunned it into the parking lane to get around me.
I recently witnessed a person crossing the street nearly getting killed when I stopped - at a stop sign - to let them finish crossing the road and the car behind me gunned it into the parking lane to get around me.
January 27, 2026 at 7:20 PM
They feel entitled to do that to *cars* these days.
I recently witnessed a person crossing the street nearly getting killed when I stopped - at a stop sign - to let them finish crossing the road and the car behind me gunned it into the parking lane to get around me.
I recently witnessed a person crossing the street nearly getting killed when I stopped - at a stop sign - to let them finish crossing the road and the car behind me gunned it into the parking lane to get around me.
Read it less as telling the dems not to talk about kitchen table issues and more as telling them to read the room before they speak.
January 20, 2026 at 6:19 PM
Read it less as telling the dems not to talk about kitchen table issues and more as telling them to read the room before they speak.
Being one step behind the zeitgeist isn't really a good thing.
Also, when the dems all align to talk about something disconnected from the one thing that the general public is upset about, it makes it look like they are telling people to stop talking about that thing.
Also, when the dems all align to talk about something disconnected from the one thing that the general public is upset about, it makes it look like they are telling people to stop talking about that thing.
January 20, 2026 at 6:18 PM
Being one step behind the zeitgeist isn't really a good thing.
Also, when the dems all align to talk about something disconnected from the one thing that the general public is upset about, it makes it look like they are telling people to stop talking about that thing.
Also, when the dems all align to talk about something disconnected from the one thing that the general public is upset about, it makes it look like they are telling people to stop talking about that thing.
Reposted
Scott Adams is the Dave Sim of Jim Davises.
January 2, 2026 at 12:08 AM
Scott Adams is the Dave Sim of Jim Davises.
Also, some people hate they essay because they think you hate bike lanes?
You really flipped over a rock with this one.
You really flipped over a rock with this one.
December 19, 2025 at 2:17 PM
Also, some people hate they essay because they think you hate bike lanes?
You really flipped over a rock with this one.
You really flipped over a rock with this one.
One thing the discourse around your essay made me realize is that even people who made fun of Biden saying "nothing will fundamentally change" get really upset when they hear someone suggesting that something should fundamentally change.
December 19, 2025 at 2:16 PM
One thing the discourse around your essay made me realize is that even people who made fun of Biden saying "nothing will fundamentally change" get really upset when they hear someone suggesting that something should fundamentally change.
The main thing AI has proven to me is that, whether it can or can't make edits like that, it doesn't matter. Most people will either not notice or not care.
Piggies love slop.
Piggies love slop.
December 9, 2025 at 3:21 PM
The main thing AI has proven to me is that, whether it can or can't make edits like that, it doesn't matter. Most people will either not notice or not care.
Piggies love slop.
Piggies love slop.
Dividing 15,000 by 24 has to factor into it.
December 3, 2025 at 8:31 PM
Dividing 15,000 by 24 has to factor into it.
I don't see why you think that the intent matters here. I've never accused the designer of being antisocial. I've said that people perceive the rack that way.
If you put something out in public you have to deal with the fact that other humans are going to interact on their own.
If you put something out in public you have to deal with the fact that other humans are going to interact on their own.
November 28, 2025 at 6:40 AM
I don't see why you think that the intent matters here. I've never accused the designer of being antisocial. I've said that people perceive the rack that way.
If you put something out in public you have to deal with the fact that other humans are going to interact on their own.
If you put something out in public you have to deal with the fact that other humans are going to interact on their own.
I'm talking about how people receive it, not what its intent was.
If you put something like this out in that part of town in a city with our constant heated homelessness politics, then - sadly! - many people will read it contrary to the artists intent.
If you put something like this out in that part of town in a city with our constant heated homelessness politics, then - sadly! - many people will read it contrary to the artists intent.
November 28, 2025 at 4:27 AM
I'm talking about how people receive it, not what its intent was.
If you put something like this out in that part of town in a city with our constant heated homelessness politics, then - sadly! - many people will read it contrary to the artists intent.
If you put something like this out in that part of town in a city with our constant heated homelessness politics, then - sadly! - many people will read it contrary to the artists intent.
I don't like the idea that the person who made the feels bad about it's reception, but that's the risk one runs when putting something in front of the public.
Practical things have to *work* even if that means being critical to well meaning artists.
Practical things have to *work* even if that means being critical to well meaning artists.
November 28, 2025 at 4:23 AM
I don't like the idea that the person who made the feels bad about it's reception, but that's the risk one runs when putting something in front of the public.
Practical things have to *work* even if that means being critical to well meaning artists.
Practical things have to *work* even if that means being critical to well meaning artists.
I get you don't like the idea of people getting upset about hostile architecture, but it's out there in the world and people use that idea to interpret objects.
Maybe if it worked better as a bike rack people wouldn't try to impose "bench" on it.
Maybe if it worked better as a bike rack people wouldn't try to impose "bench" on it.
November 28, 2025 at 4:03 AM
I get you don't like the idea of people getting upset about hostile architecture, but it's out there in the world and people use that idea to interpret objects.
Maybe if it worked better as a bike rack people wouldn't try to impose "bench" on it.
Maybe if it worked better as a bike rack people wouldn't try to impose "bench" on it.
Ok, so let's set aside the fact that it's a garbage bike rack and hit the other side.
Regardless of what you or the artist intend it to be, it looks like a bench. It just does.
And the bench it looks like mirrors ones meant to restrict how people sit on it.
Regardless of what you or the artist intend it to be, it looks like a bench. It just does.
And the bench it looks like mirrors ones meant to restrict how people sit on it.
November 28, 2025 at 4:02 AM
Ok, so let's set aside the fact that it's a garbage bike rack and hit the other side.
Regardless of what you or the artist intend it to be, it looks like a bench. It just does.
And the bench it looks like mirrors ones meant to restrict how people sit on it.
Regardless of what you or the artist intend it to be, it looks like a bench. It just does.
And the bench it looks like mirrors ones meant to restrict how people sit on it.