Bryan Culbertson 🥄

Caltrans is closing the Bay Trail on the Richmond bridge because they think 5 crashes a year need a breakdown lane, but completely disregard the 5 people a day who use the bridge after 8pm 😡

Yep, crashes have been down and travel times have been better on average since the bike lane was installed

Meanwhile in North Carolina, a mother and father have been charged with felonies for letting their kids walk 10 minutes away from their apartment. But Piedmonter here will probably get his license back instead of being forced to take the 33 bus for life for his crime.

Why you might not know that 2024 was America's safest year since the 1960s An overwhelming majority of Americans, 64 percent, believe that crime increased across the country in 2024, according to a Gallup survey conducted late last year.

1. This week, the FBI released its comprehensive crime report for 2024, which revealed that both VIOLENT CRIME and PROPERTY CRIME reached their LOWEST LEVELS SINCE THE 1960s

This a massive story. But you might not have heard about it, even if you follow the news closely.

Here's why.

We now stand at the precipice. We have a choice. We can continue to move forward, most likely sacrificing democracy and individual freedom to technocratic perfection, or we can choose to reassert our control over capitalism and corporations by renewing our faith in the wisdom of the general will.

mRNA tech is some of the coolest, most powerful, most promising scifi shit humans are currently doing. They are being investigated to help with cancers, autoimmune diseases, M.S., stroke recovery, heart disease, diabetes, arthritis, and high cholesterol.

The East Bay just got some good, and much-needed, transit news OPINION: “Good news is in short supply. But on Sunday, AC Transit is launching its new Realign bus network — and that’s something to celebrate,” Evan Tschuy writes.

I wrote an op ed for the Chronicle about how important AC Transit's new redwoods service is, with the agency taking a bet on transit as a way of life, not just a commuting tool:

www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/open...

You are the one who compared AI to a person. I hope you realize how ridiculous of a comparison that was now.

If any one person consistently lied to you while insisting they were correct as much as AI then you would stop listening to them

The public comments for Thursday’s meeting & vote on Richmond-San Rafael Bridge trail access have been posted, & I’m tearing up reading all your amazing testimonials. 🥹

So many powerful stories. The support comments outweigh the trail opposition many times over.

www.bcdc.ca.gov/wp-content/u...

If I have to explain to you why it's a bad idea to use a machine that makes shit up 15-80% of the time AND destroys the environment AND contributes to rising fascism and genocide AND puts brilliant skillful creatives out of work by stealing their work, then we're already speaking different languages

As end-of-empire scenarios go it is so much more dignified to get your capital city sacked by the Visigoths than to have a bunch of illiterate rich people in their 70s doing it through a series of incomprehensible tantrums because their brains were defeated by their phones.

Not fleeing: New report shows more wealthy residents in Mass., 2 years into 'millionaire's tax' Despite previous concerns, Massachusetts' "millionaire's tax" hasn't seemed to deter high-earners from continuing to live here, according to a new study from the Institute for Policy Studies.

1. The extra marginal tax rate will affect millionaires' daily lives almost not at all, which is why in reality none of them would leave the state.

2. When you have this much money, your accountant/financial folks are already making you as tax efficient as possible.

www.wbur.org/news/2025/04...

Nothing helped me understand how much energy a car uses like having solar on my roof. On a good day my house generates enough for my house + a comparable house -- or my house + my car going 200 miles.

200 miles in an EV = an entire hot summer day of AC, hot water, dishwasher, dryer, etc.

As a tourist in London, I did greatly enjoy riding the double decker buses.

I was surprised that boarding and alighting worked so well considering. Descending the stair going right to the middle door helped with flow.

Look, I'm a total idiot when it comes to coding, but I'll stand by my conviction that a mid-level bureaucrat who can keep a complex social safety net program in a massive country humming along has a greater claim to the title of "genius" than a prep school kid who made a marketable iPhone app at 19.

The confederates are so funny. The rest of us are out here being normal, and they’re like “remember that time we came in second place in a war?”

I made a programmable @caltrain.com bike tag using an e-ink display. It does not need a battery, drawing just enough power from the NFC antenna to refresh the display, and then requiring no power to maintain the screen afterwards. It’s perfect for occasional trips.

It's no longer a question of if authoritarianism comes to America; now it's just a question of how bad it gets, and how long it lasts.

It's here. We can get rid of it if we fight together.

I of course boarded in the front from then on, but these strict boarding rules makes transit worse, especially on crowded buses, just to collect a small extra amount of fares

Not even close to worth it

This was very annoying

I boarded in the back after sprinting to catch the bus and tapped on the rear payment device

The bus driver refused to move until I squeezed through the crowd and tapped again at the front. Technically tap twice (off-on) because Amsterdam has distance fares for local buses 🫩

For AC Transit, they have committed to certain BRT standards like off-vehicle payment when they built the BRT and brought the vehicles

It would cost more than the expected increase in fare recovery to retrofit the vehicles

It is not that the operators want to be fare cops per-se, but some operators want the ability to refuse service to someone who is harassing them and fare payment can be used that way

There has to be better solutions though

Parking fee evasion rates are way higher than transit fare evasion rates

It is commonly accepted by drivers to not pay for parking if you are there for less than 30m, and you can park for free if you leave before enforcement tickets you

Imagine if those flexible rules applied to transit riders

The moral panic of the anglosphere over bus fare evasion and proof-of-payment is quite something.

Especially when you think that we do accept another mobility-related widespread PoP system: on-street parking, which is entirely charged via a proof-of-payment + inspector system.

Once again, my fellow nerds, I am begging you to remember that giving into bullies only guarantees they'll be back.

You've got to punch Biff Tannen in the face, McFly, or he'll rule over you forever.

"We made a tremendously shitty fare payment system, instead of fixing it or making fares free, please pay us, a private equity defense contactor, to build a citywide mass surveillance system."

I wonder how much Cubic paid the museum to install their propaganda?

UK Transportation Museum display with 3 different payment styles: 1. Cash: 10.4 passengers/min 2. Tap2pay: 34.2 passengers/min 3. Facial recognition: 59.4 passengers/min

Cubic has an installation at the UK Transportation Museum pitching to kids how facial recognition and surveillance will speed up payment processing 🤮

I have a better idea! Get rid of all transit barriers! Don't pay Cubic more to solve problems they themselves created.

Yeah, many culprits to blame for the loss of East Bay local rail