It was hard. It was uncomfortable. I cried in front of several coworkers and my department head. But, you know what? I'm here, and not everyone can say that. I am here TO cry and grieve and hope for a better future. I owe it to 15-year-old Roy and 25-year-old Karmin, who should still be here too.

This just isn't true, sorry. I work in city planning for a city where it JUST became legal this summer to build anything other than 1 single-family home on a parcel in about 70% of the city. And this is extremely common throughout the country, as any experienced planner would tell you.

I ranted about this the other day. I take the 271 home from downtown Bellevue and just sitting on the Montlake lid thing trying to get onto Montlake Blvd in the HOV lane takes longer than the rest of the trip. It's actually added time to the bus commute...

The issue is always too many damn cars 😭 like, I would rather people carpool than drive alone obviously, but even better would be getting those people on the bus and therefore out of the bus's way, which more bus-only infrastructure would do. Bus supremacy babey

Last tweet and I'm tired of being reasonable. What if there was a train on 520. Or 520 was a train track. This is, of course, in addition to the long-awaited 2-line across the I-90 bridge. Here me out

The 520 HOV lanes are also only for 3+ passengers, instead of the usual 2. Again, I don't disagree with the incentivization of carpooling, but are those carpoolers going places already well-served by transit? What about further incentive to ride buses that have fewer delays?

Reread this and I'm thinking about it again because that's just who I am. It actually really Wouldn't be much more expensive to make the HOV exit coming off 520 onto Montlake a bus-only exit. It can't be more than signs and paint; there's no real infrastructure to change, right?

I'm wondering if they can't time the signals to allow the HOV lane/light to go first to avoid the backup. It also should have been buses only, not HOV, but that ship is more expensive to steer back in. And we SHOULD be incentivizing carpooling, but not at the expense of bus commuters.

I keep re-re-reading what I've typed, thinking I must be confusing the situation or missing something. I think I can safely say at this point that it's not me, which is honestly a scarier outcome...

You expected an intelligent and thoughtful response out of MattY. Way too much to ask tbh

And these are educated, intelligent, otherwise thoughtful people. I just wonder what draws people to it. The temporary peace of turning off your brain for a moment? Feeling like you're creating something without having to actually pick up a paintbrush?

Like, people are using AI to do a simple internet search, like the ones we've done without AI for decades now. Or generate a fake photo of something of which there are numerous real photos to choose from. I can actually see the societal brainrot happening in real time...