Aaron Naparstek

I can’t believe it - after years of advocacy, exclusionary zoning has ended in Cambridge.

We just passed the single most comprehensive rezoning in the US—legalizing multifamily housing up to 6 stories citywide in a Paris style

Here’s the details 🧵

Just re-listened to this episode of @thewaroncars.bsky.social where @naparstek.bsky.social spoke with @jbouie.bsky.social. So good!

The started by talking about ebikes, but also touched on housing and transportation policies.

He commuted from where to where? Which neighborhoods?

Episode prep.

Dodge CEO Tim Kuniskis tries to sell electric muscle cars the ghosts of the Dodge Brothers.

Just dropped a bonus episode for our Patreon subscribers! "Dodge's 'Deeply Weird' Pitch for Electric Muscle Cars" with Ed Niedermeyer @niedermeyer.io. Enlist today!
www.patreon.com/posts/bonus-...

I'm reading this book right now and it's great! @mnolangray.bsky.social and I will be interviewing Megan on the @metroabundance.bsky.social podcast about her book next week.

And a new sponsor joins us for this episode: Sheyd Bags. Discover the perfect blend of style and functionality with Sheyd's innovative double bike pannier backpacks. www.sheydbags.com/waroncars

this is very timely & a good listen

looking forward to listening to this

Beverly Hills Incident Linocut Print - Etsy This Wood & Linocut Prints item by flitandmagpie has 6 favorites from Etsy shoppers. Ships from Glendale, CA. Listed on Mar 29, 2024

For the curious: the Cybertruck Beverly Hills crash linocut print that I mentioned during the latest @thewaroncars.bsky.social episode was made by @magpie.tips, and can be purchased right here

I love that just as I started listening to this, I passed a Cybertruck on the back of a tow truck. Just perfect timing.

Wow!

Chart showing count of days after start of the year till first full flowing day of the Cherry Blossom in Kyoto Japan, since 812. Up till 1900 it varied between 90 and 120. Since 1900 a decline to now an average of 95, with earliest moment in 2023 (March 24th) For 2024 it's April 5th.

Today full bloom was reported for the cherry blossom in Kyoto. We updated the graph starting already in the year 820.
datagraver.com/kyoto-full-f...

All hail the mighty state; Texans, you can defeat TXDOT.

Listened to this podcast on the drive in today; loved it.

1) getting TXDOT to consider taking out a freeway in Dallas was surreal;
2) I’ll always be a sucker for a Rochester story

in some sense the origin story of my city as it currently exists is a freeway revolt, the first successful one in the US. that people are still having to fight these fights sixty years later is so f'in' grim.

You may have thought we had learned some lessons about building mega highways through communities back in the 20th century, but...Megan Kimble's fantastic new book sheds light on the mistakes we are still making, and the fight to stop them.

Book cover for CITY LIMITS: Infrastructure, Inequality, and the Future of America's Highways. Aerial view of highway overpasses and exchanges.

New episode! "The Texas Freeway Fight with Megan Kimble." In her new book, Kimble tells the stories of the communities in the path of TxDOT’s bulldozers and the brave Texans fighting to save their homes, neighborhoods, and cities from a seemingly implacable foe.

thewaroncars.org/2024/04/02/1...

My most controversial opinion is that touchscreens have no place in car operation.

Ha ha just kidding, it's that any product that kills 40,000 people a year through regular usage in the US alone (not even counting pollution) is bad actually.

Man with goatee in winter jacket on snowy street wearing yellow hat.

Our friend, Councilor Michael Janz wearing a The War on Cars “toque” on CTV Edmonton is the best thing we’ve seen. That’s some real political courage right there.

Ariel view of an intersection, with areas of the street organically plowed by cars and snowy areas revealing the areas cars don't need. The snow creates new boundaries for the curb, a "sneckdown" if you will. Text is overlayed on the image that imagines what the new areas could be, like a bike lane, public plaza, pedestrian refuge

"Sneckdown" has been added to the Urbanism+ feed.

You're up Wikipedia:

"A sneckdown (or snowy neckdown) is a temporary curb extension caused by snowfall, where snow has built up in the road but not been flattened by traffic, effectively reshaping the curb."

Term courtesy of @naparstek.bsky.social

New episode! Just like cigarette advertising, let's ban SUV ads...

...and then let's ban SUVs.

Just like the Constitution says: major issues of federal policy are to be decided by the whims of Republican judicial appointees, who can at any point pretend some wholly-moot case is a proper vehicle for overturning precedent and reconfiguring how the entire government functions.

The Future of Transportation Has Arrived With Your Pad Thai | The War on Cars Get more from The War on Cars on Patreon

This was excellent from @thewaroncars.bsky.social . Just really eye-opening. Episode is free (I’m a Patreon subscriber and its totally worth it but you don’t need to be for this one)

www.patreon.com/posts/future...

Good point

A cost-effective, tough, scaleable, inadvertently-eco-friendly, urban car commuting alternative is in use today: the “delivery guy electric bike.”

Shawon and Baruch Herzfeld standing in front of PopWheels headquarters last May.

NEW EPISODE: The Future of Transportation Has Arrived With Your Pad Thai.

What if there is a high-tech urban mobility revolution happening right under our noses, but we can’t see it because the people who are delivering it to our city are mostly invisible to us?

thewaroncars.org/2024/01/16/t...

A banger of an episode produced and reported by my co-host @naparstek.bsky.social. Take a listen!

This episode, reported and produced by @naparstek.bsky.social, is so much fun. A real love letter to the endless ingenuity and generosity of New York City...that dreamy old concrete jungle.

How is what Ken Paxton has done to to Kate Cox not a top, if not the top story in our country right now?