People love blaming parking minimums as to why the US doesn't build like this.

It's more complicated.

The lot couldn't be utilized corner-to-corner due to setbacks.

The project wouldn't pencil due to space lost for the large elevator, dual stairwells, and wide hallway to meet building codes.

I keep going back to this slide shown to the Sound Transit board this month, showing how "capacity building" means consulting firms, more consulting firms, and more subcontractors.

take out the marquam and you can unwind the entire east side waterfront freeway. such a huge part of our post-freeway future

Oregon's community colleges are a great example of government quietly working well, without any headlines.

They're modern facilities funded by stable property tax district revenue that teach ~200k students/yr, creating new tradesmen across the state and providing opportunity for the working class.

Another example of "plug and play" low-cost electrification not allowed in most of the US:

Instead of installing Level 2 home EV chargers which take up to 4 hours of electrician time to install and may necessitate electrical panel upgrades, meter-socket adapters can be installed in 20 minutes.

In America, residential solar costs $10K-$50K.

In Europe, plug & play solar kits are sold for a few hundred dollars, DIY installed & plugged directly into wall outlets, defraying home energy use without export.

No IX agreement or professional install needed.

But plug & play is illegal in the US.

A recent report showed that the destruction of just one USAID program, the anti-AIDS PEPFAR initiative, would lead to the deaths of one million people *every year* www.vox.com/future-perfe...

The Sightline Institute documented this in 2017, comparing 1970 data to 2010 data.

Many entirely single family zoned neighborhoods in Seattle lost population even as Seattle's population grew, as kids left the nest and only the aging parents remained.

www.sightline.org/2017/05/04/s...

There's a monument in Portland to a tree planting happening without an Environmental Impact Statement, design review, or public comment taking place.

What flexposts say: "We could use steel bollards but a bollard might scratch a car and that would be a tragedy. So, we're going to use these instead — things literally designed to be run over — because protecting even one car from a scratch is worth thousands of pedestrian deaths every year."

The reason leaded gas was phased out so rapidly was because the US mandated auto air pollution cuts, forcing the mass adoption of catalytic converters.

Lead breaks catalytic converters, forcing cars with them to only buy unleaded gas.

NAAQS criteria pollutant rules unintentionally phased out lead.

Sankey diagrams showing the electricity inputs needed to power a light-duty vehicle.

Bluntly, non-BEVs won't take off.

1.53 joules are needed to give a battery-electric EV 1 joule of power.

Hydrogen? 4.5

Synthfuels? 9.2

Synthfuel with direct air capture? 11.85.

www.cell.com/joule/abstra...

PROBLEM: State capacity has diminished; the government just provides insurance and facilitates transfer payments instead of solving real problems; voters are angry and confused

R SOLUTION: Get rid of the remaining state capacity

D SOLUTION: More transfer payments

Along the same vein, American transit agencies should learn from their East Asian peers and function as land developers, buying land adjacent to upcoming transit stops and using the funds from developing said land to finance transit expansion through value capture.

This project -- a simple 5-mile extension of an elevated line along an existing right of way -- is now twice as expensive as it was a few years ago.

In Copenhagen they build 25 miles *underground* for the same price.

Why should we pay 5x - 10x?

It is hard for physical scientists to understand the drive to remove CO2 from a gas that is 0.04% CO2, when there are many power-plant flue gasses available that are over 10% CO2.

Shows the importance of socio-political factors. It is not all physical science and least-cost engineering.