Patrick Santana

"Rich guy living in multimillion dollar single family home arguing that new apartments are the the 'real' luxury housing, and thus shouldn't be built" is easily one of the most rage-inducing genres of public comment

A zoning commissioner in Woodbury CT urged the board to "speak for the rocks" and reject this application.

speak. for. the. rocks. 🤪🤯

Are Federal Transit Grants Hurting, Not Helping, Public Transportation? | Strong Towns Three case studies reveal how top-down funding creates rigidity, waste, and systems that cities cannot afford to fix or abandon.

This ridiculous new post by Strong Towns correctly identifies a problem - we build too many failing transit capital projects - and completely misses the mark with its proposed solutions - stopping federal funding for them and instead making projects small and phased.

Much DADU About Nothing » The Urbanist # Since the release of the Housing Affordability and Livability Agenda (HALA) Committee recommendations, there has been much speculation on what diversifying the single-family zones means, and if dupl...

it was dumb and petty AF and took way too long

and yes, it's hardly moving needle on units

but turns out it was foundational to making needed changes in seattle.

also best headline i've ever written?

www.theurbanist.org/2015/07/17/m...

The economic fallacy every planner struggles with. New clothes, new cars, new phones all cost more than used ones. But with housing, for some insane reason, planners demand the opposite or you won’t get upzones for more housing. Imagine what iPhones would cost if we couldn’t make new ones?

I hope this happens to protected bike lanes by 2050

Key quote from the great Lewis Mumford in 1955 — “Adding car lanes to deal with traffic congestion is like loosening your belt to cure obesity.”

It's a goal of mine to help make this the most famous, well-known and UNDERSTOOD quote about cities in history. Please share it as much as you can.

AB 1085 (Stefani) Signed into law, increasing penalties for the sale and use of license plate covers.

OUR FIRST SPONSORED BILL OF 2025 SIGNED INTO LAW
AB 1085 (catherinestefani.bsky.social ) increases the penalties on sellers of illegal license plate covers and further clarifies that tints/shades are also illegal

We face this challenge here in my CO town too. More trained police officers are a good investment, yet what we have is a huge expansion of ancillary stuff: PD public information officers, expensive Mobile Command Centers, duplicative SWAT teams, frequent & expensive vehicle replacement, etc. :-(

Anyone else remember when they said banning smoking at restaurants would kill the industry? That no one would dine out anymore?

Sometimes folks heavily invested in the status quo present inaccurate information to preserve it. The job of leaders is call b.s. and get the policy passed.

Thank you. Long overdue. But better late than never.

Just some creepy armed Mad Max guys trying to gain entry to Dodgers Stadium.

ICE says it wasn’t them. DHS says they were Border Patrol. But honestly who the hell knows? They’ve given permission for any psycho to put on a ski mask, point a gun, grab people & throw them into an unmarked vehicle.

There needs to be a “Don’t share nor sell my contact info” button on every donation screen. A single donation can put you on political campaign lists that circulate for years. Decades even.

Stolen Bikes Statistics UK bike theft statistics taken from various sources including the police, home office and surveys of bike theft victims.

In a UK study of bike theft, 25% of people whose bike is stolen give up cycling entirely, and 66% cycle less afterwards. Secure bike parking is hugely important for supporting people to choose cycling. #vc25 @cyclehoop.bsky.social

stolen-bikes.co.uk/statistics/

Beautifully put. Will it sway minds and hearts? I hope so.

Pretty. But how are they watered? Volunteer neighbors? Did they run irrigation lines to each planter? Planters dry out very quickly.

If we’re being honest, the biggest threat to urban livability isn’t density or height. It’s the noise, danger, pollution, and wasted space that comes from prioritizing cars above all other modes of transport.

Density is how the middle class outbids rich people for well/located urban land. When you outlaw that, you eventually displace everyone who isn’t rich. This is why San Francisco is so boring now.

Such excellent points rebutting the scare tactics used to block basic, incremental housing. She could speak the exact same script for Littleton CO. And probably many communities all over. The anti-housing scare tactics are so repetitive.

Who would have thought? Housing prices, like all other commodity prices, are responsive to supply and demand. Denver joins Austin and Minneapolis in giving a clear example of how “cost of housing” directly relates to availability.

Boulder may be on track to ditch parking minimums City Council may be inching towards eliminating parking minimums on developments

“The current system in which developers are mandated to build parking, is arbitrary. It’s based on no science … but we’re used to it... It’s bad governance; it’s bad policy.”

📍Boulder, CO
www.dailycamera.com/2025/04/15/b...

Fixing this mess after four years of the wrecking ball is gonna be fun

Seattle has a shockingly good bus system. The headways are impressively tight even on “lesser” routes. The coverage of its network puts places like Denver and San Diego to shame. Add light rail and it just gets better. Someone knows what they’re doing up in Metro.

SD city government knows how to disappoint. They’re insanely good at doing the wrong thing, explained with the flimsiest of pretexts.

“We shall build great cities and towns filled with shops, parks and a variety of housing types flexible enough to meet evolving needs and then, in a few hundred years, we will just stop allowing them.”

“Why would we stop allowing them sir?”

“Nobody knows.”

Today. And always.

People focus too much on the “Zero” in VisionZero. I try to focus on “vision.” VZ is aspirational and always has been. It’s not a computer program. It’s not a formula. VZ is a harm reduction approach applied to infrastructure design. Getting 30% reduction in harm is a win.

There needs to be a word for when a state DOT converts a shoulder to a travel lane (“sure, we’re adding capacity, but it’s free!”), waits, and then builds a new shoulder (“we’re not widening the freeway; we’re just making it safer!”), rinse and repeat.

President Zelenskyy has been one of the greatest leaders of our time, guiding Ukraine through the darkest period of its recent history, rising up to Russia’s unwarranted aggression, being an inspiration to the Ukrainian people and ensuring that Ukraine’s voice is heard on the world stage.