Chris A

It's underreported how Compass Rail in New England and Virginia's passenger rail (and to a lesser extent Empire Corridor) have been leveraging latent NEC ridership to build meaningful secondary networks. PA has a similar spread of major secondary cities but has done literally zero in that time

Pa. lawmakers and Gov. Josh Shapiro have approved a $50.1 billion state budget, officially ending monthslong impasse Pennsylvania lawmakers formally approved the 2025-26 fiscal year budget, ending the impasse that had for months stalled payments to counties, schools, and nonprofits.

Harrisburg has, once again, failed to fund public transit. Agencies like SEPTA are forced to raid their capital funds to run daily service.

This is akin to burning pieces of your house in the fireplace to keep warm.

Boy howdy, if Mamdani believes that natural resources should be for the benefit of all -- and I agree with him! -- then he ought to also believe that the value of land, a natural resource, should be redistributed to all New Yorkers via a Land Value Tax!

Congratulations Joi! So happy for you and the good people of Media Borough

Joi Washington will become the first woman and person of color to serve as Media mayor Washington garnered 77% of the vote in Media on Tuesday, beating out Kevin Kellog, a Republican who unsuccessfully ran for mayor in 2021.

www.inquirer.com/politics/pen...

The Jimmy Kimmel firing, Colbert's show, what's happening at WaPo, CBS... legacy journalism is slowly but surely coming under state control.

It is more important now than ever before that we support the independent journalists out there doing the work not beholden to a fascist's bidding.

These people run the government. The McCarthy era is back.

Prime weather tonight for open windows and a warm blanket ☺️

Latest addition to a very nice protected bike lane in West Philly. Planters!

I saw two parents teaching their little kid to ride a bike in new protected bike lane on 47th street in West Philly. Big thank you to @councilmemberjg.bsky.social for making the project possible!

You know what other 19th century (sort of) socialist also ran for mayor in New York City?

It’s a good day. My neighbor landlord finally turned off the bright ass daylight white security lights that were pointed up into people’s windows.

One of the arguments I often see conservatives make is that public transit should be privatized.

That might work, but only if roads, highways, and parking were privatized as well!

In Japan many transit companies are private but so are expressways and so is parking.

Op-Ed: We want to fund SEPTA -- the question is how By State Sen. Joe Picozzi (R-5th dist.)

Joe Picozzi published an Op-Ed that makes it very difficult to believe he's operating in good faith about transit funding.

He pretends Democrats have not proposed new revenue, but it was Republicans who shot down a 'skill games' tax and marijuana legalization.

southphillyreview.com/2025/08/19/o...

"There was a process that occurred and many people felt they were left out from the decision process," Van Doorn said."... I thought that was really unfair. It's not just the nine plaintiffs who are involved. There are hundreds and hundreds of people behind us who are supporting not having the city ordinance as it's drafted."

Van Doorn said that, after Circuit Court judge Claude Worrell granted the plaintiffs a summary judgement in the case, due to the city's outside counsel missing a filing deadline, the plaintiffs attempted to negotiate with the city. "We thought, at this time, it would be best to sit down with the city," Van Doorn told Schilling. "We never had any intention of blowing up the whole zoning (ordinance). We just had some certain issues with how it was processed."

Van Doorn, 71, said the plaintiffs asked for the city to conduct a Virginia Department of Transportation impact study, something it believed was required before the new ordinance was adopted in 2024. They also asked that residential zones revert to residential-agricultural zoning. Van Doorn opposes converting those zones to high density zones. He said the city, the next day, said no. Now, Worrell will hear the city's defense in regards to the failure to do the VDOT study on Monday. The plaintiffs will have a chance to respond Wednesday. Van Doorn said he expects a final ruling in the case on Friday.

The NIMBY three step: “I participated in the public process and did not get my way” becomes “I was left out of the decision making process” and then turns into “I deserve the power to overturn the result of the public process and impose my will on the majority by lawsuit.”

He comes off much better than I ever would have expected in those interviews!

Republicans love to complain about public transit in the US but when you ask them to fund improvements that agencies and riders have demanded for years they're like nah.

Their complaints have little to do with the problems created by decades underfunding and are just about who uses transit systems

this fuckin rocks my congressman is doing a Good

YouTube video by Climate Town Joe Rogan Doesn't Understand Graphs

This latest video from @climatetown.bsky.social has me wondering how anyone can take Joe Rogan seriously. His belief system is like an amalgamation of Facebook replies from people who haven't read anything since 11th grade.
youtu.be/r1bMJekCiBw

No, blame government. We figured out why grade crossings were bad for busy RR lines more than a century ago. We’ve eliminated the vast majority of them along busy passenger lines.

Yet, FL and the Feds don’t think investment is warranted here.

2028 US presidential race guesses. Reply with yours

D (win)
Alexandria Ocasio Cortez
Pete Buttigieg, VP

R (lose)
Ted Cruz
Melania Trump (widowed), VP

City of Philadelphia Announces Implementation of New Traffic Pattern on 47th Street to Begin Monday, August 11 | Department of Streets Temporary day time road closures and the new traffic pattern will be in effect immediately as blocks are completed and reopened.

Sliver of good news in a world of bad:

Starting Monday in Philly a driving lane becomes a protected bike lane. Good things happen in Philadelphia!

Thank you @councilmemberjg.bsky.social for supporting safe streets!

www.phila.gov/2025-08-08-i...

I know this is a joke but the new pasta shape nakamia is qwurn zamins stroke

Sorry to add to the ~transplant discourse~ but this is all ultimately about the housing shortage

Young, well-educated, mostly well-off people are aware they’re beating somebody at Housing Musical Chairs and feel bad. But we could just build enough housing that it’s not zero-sum!

I would eat that

It’s a golden age for Cassandras.

Turkey’s Erdogan Fires Statistics Chief After Record Inflation The president of the Turkish statistical institute, Sait Dincer, was removed from office and replaced by Erhan Cetinkaya, who had been deputy president of Turkey’s Banking Regulation and Supervision A...

um. www.wsj.com/world/middle...

a sarcastic Bernie Sanders: "Why not? When you get bad news, fire the guy who delivered the news. I think that's sensible policy."

so if we're keeping track. last week a drive recklessly sped down spruce, flipped their car. earlier this week a driver drove their SUV into an Indego station. and, just today, a driver flipped their car over in a bike lane on 22nd.