Daniel Herriges

Congrats to Denver for eliminating parking mandates citywide! Council passed the measure by a 9 to 3 vote last night.

Every time I talk to suburban parents about living in the city, they ask, “But how are the schools?”

The thing is, I’m a former public school teacher who taught in an “urban” school with under-resourced and under-served students. I loved it. I loved my students. I loved my colleagues. 1/4

Red Tape Isn’t the Only Reason America Can’t Build The failure to deploy rural broadband has become synonymous with excessive bureaucracy. The real story is more complicated.

While I bleed YIMBY/abundancy-colors, it is also extremely important for folks to remember that the red tape story is often oversimplified.

Good governance is good governance--less and more governance are much lazier proxies for this.

www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

The worst thing about Florida summers when I lived there wasn't the daytime heat—it was the lack of any sort of reprieve overnight. I'd step outside at midnight and it'd still be hot, not warm.

Or get up at 6 to go for a jog because that was the *least* unpleasant time to attempt to exercise.

"Avoid facade elements that mimic neighbors" is a straight-up insane rule to have in your city's design standards.

Tennessee now has *five* cities that have adopted their statewide model single stair code! This is the same approach we used at #txlege & soon any city in Texas can adopt our new statewide single stair model code locally. Want to learn more? Reach out to @texansforhousing.bsky.social

Meanwhile, the fact that American cheese is what it is just feels fitting. 🤷‍♂️ Even though hundreds of excellent cheeses are made in America.

“Even God Cannot Hear Us Here”: What I Witnessed Inside an ICE Women’s Prison Tufts University doctoral student Rümeysa Öztürk opens up about her 45 days in a South Louisiana processing facility—and the generous and compassionate women she met.

Rümeysa Öztürk, the Tufts PhD student abducted on the street by plainclothes officers—simply for having penned an op-ed—has written about her time in an ICE prison.

The country I was raised to believe I lived in is better than this. We must be. This must stop.

www.vanityfair.com/news/story/r...

A hugely underdiscussed effect of the creeping fascism of ICE is that debt collectors and landlords are filing more cases against immigrants, even when they're inflated or outright falsified, because they know immigrants are too fearful of deportation to show up to court to fight them.

(The problem with using per mile as a measure of risk is that motorists take longer trips—a regular bike commuter probably is accomplishing their needs while traveling far fewer total miles.)

Yes, fair.

I looked up bicycle as well. While there are various estimates, seems like it's between car and motorcycle, maybe about 9x car.

2 big caveats there: 1) lifetime per capita rates would be more meaningful than per mile, and 2) of course, the actual reason bicycling is dangerous is cars.

"Conflation of control and safety" is a really good way to put it.

People are uncomfortable in situations where—mostly due to lack of familiarity rather than objective risk—they feel like they can't predict what is going to happen.

Most fear of cities / fear of transit is simply that.

Part of transit advocacy has to be talking about ways to address it.

After spending a day in Minneapolis with a friend who has lived most of her life in rural areas, she commented that she was struck by how comfortable / unguarded I was in the city.

I'm not particularly street-smart, nor were we anywhere sketchy that day—it's really just a matter of familiarity.

It's important to have good, non-shaming answers to that. Transit needs to feel safe, and I think the answer is a complex combination of design cues, critical mass of people (eyes on the street—or in this case the bus and the bus stop), social norms, enforcement, and simply education / familiarity.

"What if there's a person on the bus who makes me uncomfortable?" is absolutely high on the list of reasons not to ride the bus for many people I know—relatives, friends, people I like, people who are liberal and not particularly prejudiced and who live in cities where bus service is adequate.

Not to hand it to Duffy, who plays into tired tropes about cities and lies about what the conditions on the subway really are.

But it IS true that the ambiguity of situations people may encounter on transit—the sense something may happen that is out of your control—*does* deter riders.

Make drivers more aware of their actual vulnerability.

And make the alternatives feel less vulnerable. Right now, to the median person, existing around strangers in public feels more dangerous than it actually is, while driving a car feels less dangerous than it actually is.

The illusion of control is just that, an illusion, but psychologically it looms large.

This is why the paradoxically best way to make driving safer is to make drivers feel *less* safe. Constrict the right of way, or add some situational ambiguity (roundabout / shared space vs. traffic signal).

Driving is objectively the most dangerous means of travel, but psychologically, drivers don't *feel* vulnerable.

I've asked people with a phobia of flying, which is much safer than driving, and it always comes down to the fact that they're not in control of the vehicle. In their own car, they are.

2025 in State-Level Parking Reform: Lessons Learned · Zoom · Luma 2025 has seen the strongest state-level parking reform efforts to date, with bills significantly rolling back costly parking mandates signed into law in…

Major parking reforms passed this year in WA, MT, CT (sadly vetoed), ME, and (signed into law *today*) NH!

And a full repeal of parking mandates passed the NC house (has yet to be taken up by the senate).

Come to our panel and hear from leading advocates how they're getting it done! lu.ma/kjwx2aga

Young Leaders Deliver Housing Wins, Advocates Call for Investments to Match CONCORD, NH – – 603 Forward and New Hampshire Youth Movement celebrate the signing of three major housing bills – HB 631, HB 577, and SB 284 – into law as a step toward easing the state’s worsening housing shortage. These new laws modernize local zoning policies by enabling more homes near jobs and transit, reforming outdated parking requirements, and expanding the ability to build accessory dwelling units (ADUs) across the state. These policy changes will help propel New Hampshire into the future and begin to address an issue affecting every single Granite Stater. While these changes lay important groundwork for long-term progress, both organizations emphasize that zoning reform alone won’t solve the crisis. Without real investment from the state, too many working families, young people, and seniors will continue to be priced out of their communities.

Add New Hampshire to the (increasingly long) list of states taking major action on housing this year! The governor just signed:
- Single-stair up to 4 stories
- Cap parking mandates @ 1/home
- ADU expansion
- Residential in commercial zones
- Legalizing roommates

www.603forward.org/press/housin...

✅ HUGE WIN: Today, Chicago City Council voted unanimously via voice vote to eliminate parking minimums adjacent to CTA and Metra rail and bus lines!

This is a victory for more affordable transit oriented development and safer streets citywide!

🚨 BREAKING

Chicago city council has passed sweeping parking reform to eliminate parking requirements around transit!

Thank you @aldermanlaspata.bsky.social for sponsoring this legislation!

@abundanthousingil.bsky.social @parkingreform.org @betterstreetschicago.org

In all seriousness, I visit Como Park here in my St. Paul nbhd almost every day. Not only is it safe, even idyllic, but seeing all the immigrant / refugee families with their kids at the playground and the zoo fills me with immense civic pride.

Something this fascist ghoul could never understand.

I mean, on the one hand this is an absurd lie, and it drives me *insane* knowing how many people will gladly believe it.

Then again, maybe the guy's just speaking his truth. I mean, if Stephen Miller, specifically, attempted to visit a Minneapolis park, I highly doubt he could do so in peace.

Minneapolis has not only one of the best urban park systems in the country, but one of the best in the entire world. Open to and enjoyed by people in every corner of the city from every walk of life.

Take specific note that Stephen Miller fears and hates that which is *best* about America.

Many gov't programs at times become means to other ends, but this especially rears its head w/ transit because decisions are often made by people who never use it.

I don't think it's hyperbole to say it sometimes literally doesn't occur to those setting transit policy that transit should be useful.

Excellent thread.

The point of transit is to get people to places. Too often we treat it as a means to some other end, or even as a symbol to be wielded in larger abstract fights over who government serves or who the city is "for."

We forget that it's a thing that is meant, foremost, to be used.

Phenomenal. Congrats!