Will Greene

Seoul demolished a six-lane elevated highway running through downtown in 2003. Engineers had predicted gridlock. They were wrong. Travel times across the city dropped. When every driver picks the same fastest route, removing it forces them to spread out. The rest of the city moves better. In January 2006, Stockholm started charging drivers a small fee to enter the center at rush hour. Within a few weeks, 100,000 fewer car trips happened downtown each day. People shifted to trains, off-peak times, working from home, or skipping the trip. Congestion on the main roads fell 30 to 50 percent. Air pollution dropped, and childhood asthma attacks fell along with it. American economists confirmed the link in a 2018 study. Singapore went earlier and harder. Their road toll system started in 1998, and the price changes every 30 minutes based on how fast traffic is moving. If a road gets too crowded, the fee goes up. If it's flowing fine, the fee drops. On day one, average rush hour speeds jumped from 35 to 55 kilometers per hour. Tokyo bet on trains. Tokyo Metro moves 6.8 million riders a day. 99.8 percent of those trains arrive on time. On Japan's main bullet train route, the average delay is 1.6 minutes per trip across a full year. Copenhagen rebuilt its streets for bikes. Almost half of all trips to work or school happen by bike. Bikes outnumber cars five to one. One bridge in the city center handles 40,000 cyclists a day. Hong Kong took the most extreme path. 90 percent of daily commutes happen on public transit, the highest share in the world. Cars handle just 10 percent. The whole city is built around trains, buses, and minibuses. The joke maps onto the answer. Every city that solved rush hour put fewer people on the road at the same time. They staggered work hours. They charged people to drive at peak times. They built alternatives that beat driving. In a few cases, they ripped out the roads. The 5pm crush is a design failure. Cities that decided to fix it, fixed it.

Happy Tax Day, New York. We’re taxing the rich.

Two words: Energy Code

We could build complete life cycle neighborhoods again, but we will need some concessions from the fire departments

People over parking lots. There isn't enough housing being built in Illinois. Our BUILD Plan is working to fix that.

I don't think the people in Waymo will ever ride it again.

On the one hand, California identifies as the most progressive state. On the other hand, it has created an untaxed , hereditary landed gentry that it costs seven figures to buy into on most of the state.