Dates are set for the special election to fill Somerville’s soon-to-be-vacant City Council seats

I was lucky to be at this event. Amy gave a great talk. I don't quite know what it should look like, but I'm convinced we need state-wide reform to remove historic harms that are still being perpepuated today.

I'm really proud of Somerville for doing this years ago and proving to the rest of Massachusetts that the sky doesn't fall without parking minimums.

I’ll definitely look closely into this. Thanks for bringing it to my attention!

It should be illegal to buy a company with debt and then sell it off to a foreign owner, but that fight was lost long ago. Anyway, now the Saudis own a truly distressing portion of American entertainment, from Hollywood to Video Games to Sports. This is not neutral behavior. Anyway.

Not enough people take seriously "funding delays"/"bureaucratic nonsense can kill people" but here it is right here. If I was mad when a patient died because it took a few extra months for lawyers to try to look for a legal basis for an international data transfer, I'm incandescent, now.

I should also note we already sort of do this with rideshares, but it’s limited to trips that start in Somerville. I’d prefer to drop that for something that more accurately captures the cost burden—especially considering the majority of our VMT is through traffic.

I hear you! The hard part is it would require us to compel private citizens to track and share precise location which has surveillance concerns. My presumption is that Waymo and the rest are already tracking this and that it’s somewhat trivial to anonymize taxi company data.

Bus cameras are about to enforce the bus lanes; just last night I was joking with my wife that a sibling program for bike lanes is next.

So while I'm staying curious and optimistic, I'm also not willing to let Waymo drive both the cars and the public policy regulating them.

finally we need: - taxes that go to public transportation and the communities they are driving in—and I mean in. As in a tax on the number of miles driven in the city. Somerville is a city of through traffic. Oour roads get worn out fast because of it. We shouldn't have to subsidize Google's biz

continued: - laws requiring the cars to follow the law (not replicate bad behaviors) and establishing a legal baseline for how the cars must behave - laws making clear who is responsible in an injury or death and ensuring a person isn't bled dry by heavily lawyed companies with infinite money

continued: - they drive around barriers closing streets and into markets Somerville is one of the most walkable/bikeable cities in the country. There's no rush for this kind of service. Before we go further we need to: - know how to ticket a car without a driver - laws making safety data public

continued: - they drive around a lot without anyone in them which increases congestion and is bad for the environment - they are being trained to park in bike lanes - they are competing with public transit without paying for the infrastructure they are wearing out - they slow roll into crime scenes

Waymo has a lot of reports saying their cars are great. I'm glad mom says the cars are handsome, but I want third-party reports based on open data access. What we know for now: - in SF the number of vehicle miles travelled - SF accidents increased during that same time (correlation or causation?)

Waymo is far safer than Telsa, but that's the problem. We don't have a standard. I also question the wisdom of ceding transportation to the same company that controls a large portion of the internet, homes, media, phones, etc. That said, this is not even my primary set of concerns.

Oh man, Bluesky posts are probably not the right format for this. Here's the shortest version I can share on my perspective: I'm not fully against the idea of a driverless car. I'm extremely concerned that we are rolling these out giving too much deference to the companies pushing them.

Wow, so many typos. I’d pay for the ability to edit. …many of which aren't doing the required work. A regional cost is being passed onto Somerville and Cambridge residents is an untenable inequity.