urbanism
A place to talk about urban design, transit, and all things cities
@miawintam
Portland’s 1978 bus network (TriMet)
You can see that there’s very few crosstown routes. This kind of radial network design was very typical of American transit agencies prior to the 1970s
3 replies
1 recast
18 reactions
@miawintam
Micromobility is very important, but Citibike is just too damn expensive.
NYC’s Citi Bike system is the most expensive bike share program in the US, by a lot.
Citi Bike is the only US bike share system with no government subsidy. All the others have at least some public funding.
https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2025/11/19/citi-bike-rinses-riders-compared-to-bike-share-in-other-cities-report
2 replies
0 recast
12 reactions
@miawintam
“Traffic jams are a problem that is not meant to be solved but managed—one possible approach to the challenge of distributing aggregate benefits and costs among individuals. The jam is a feature of traffic, not a bug—less a failure than the janky avoidance of failure, a necessary compromise, the sufficient but “dumb” management of high throughput. What is traffic, after all, but a multitude of cars on the road, each driver pursuing their own self-interest, using transportation infrastructure for its intended purpose? You aren’t stuck in traffic. You are traffic.”
- Drew Austin, “Protocols Don’t Build Pyramids,” from the Summer of Protocols, Protocol Reader
0 reply
0 recast
9 reactions
@miawintam
This is the book that started it all for me!!! I read this 5 years ago and it helped me decide to go to urban planning grad school.
It put words into what I’d felt for so long, growing up in a suburb. the design of our built environment shapes our quality of our life every single day. And that when that design is centered around cars, it robs us of everyday quality of life in small ways. Those small losses add up to big ones.
It was cool to read this as a design-oriented person because the book outlines tangible changes to the urban fabric, steps to materially improve pedestrian life and enjoyment
5 replies
3 recasts
28 reactions
3 replies
0 recast
13 reactions
@miawintam
It’s a huge bummer that the three ballot proposals (prop 2, 3, and 4) on the NYC general election about affordable housing are incredibly misleading and work to take decision making power away from communities
They claim to speed up affordable housing projects and simplify their review process. But all three erode council/public oversight in favor of unilateral moves by the mayor. Whether the mayor does good or bad with it, it threatens separation of powers and public accountability.
https://www.whatsonmyballot.nyc/
0 reply
0 recast
3 reactions
@miawintam
We need more flexible reuse of public amenities that adapts our to our changing needs for each season
We must get more creative with the public space and infrastructure that we already have. How can we maximize what our communities are getting out of the stuff we’ve already invested in?
Amazing article from Urban Omnibus!
https://urbanomnibus.net/2025/10/swimming-ahead/?fbclid=PAZnRzaANnsUlleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABpyC0DFzR8BGvwe9bu2A3NLnqTdvdl0FK86gAmLBhgc9XsWwFeBfqPIGjLzoD_aem_tg071kezBGSfAhoVYqBXkg
3 replies
1 recast
9 reactions
@miawintam
I descended into the Chambers St subway station this morning and heard a resounding hum (was it an a minor chord?) coming from the walls.
I walked down the platform and the noise got louder. I was drawn to it like hypnosis, or something. I found myself standing in front of a silver metal kiosk, enveloped in the warmth and vibrations of the sound. It was too deep and beautiful of a harmony to be just a mechanical hum.
I realized that I had stumbled upon the “Chambers Hum” sound installation by composer Emmett Palaima, part of the MTA ‘s Vacant Unit Activation program.
From the website:
“Perhaps the answer lies in attunement: the hum is omnipresent, it permeates all things, both the external world and our own bodies. The universe is a musical scale, a system of vibrations, and in the hum we perceive a lower order harmonic of this great structure. Those who are attuned can perceive the hum, and attunement comes from a lack of distraction. In the solitude of the desert, in a state of sublime peace and boredom, the universal order reveals itself. The meaning of this experience is obscure, but the phenomenon is clear.
In the words of Franz Kafka:
‘You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet, still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.’”
https://emmettpalaima.com/CHAMBERS-HUM
4 replies
2 recasts
16 reactions