Tootfinder

We celebrated Peterson's one week anniversary yesterday. Our brave hero--born from a handful of puppy floof, 2 earplugs, and a broken bit of chalk--has successfully protected our screen-loving kiddo (from playing dumb video games her school signed her up for) for over 7 gloriously happy days.
This was never our intent, but the kid loves #Peterson, and hasn't once considered…

Good morning only to the judge who just sided with the City in the second lawsuit against Cambridge MA bike lanes https://www.cambridgeday.com/2024/02/27/city-prevails-again-in-second-suit-on-bike-lanes-ruled-as-mar…

A hawk joined us on the bike ride to school this morning.
#BikeTooter #KidsOnBikes #BikeToSchool

No, Ms. Communications Person for the Minister of Transport, labelling of CO2 emissions should not be solely "in the purview of the Minister of Environment and Climate Change". You regulate transportation. You share responsibility. You decide what Canadians see on their travel tickets. That should include CO2 emissions! Stop passing the buck!
#CdnPoli

Hi #Math people! If you had half an hour a handful of incredibly bright, incredibly bored 10 year olds, what math would you teach them?
The 4th grade math curriculum is letting these kids down, and they are hungry for a challenge...and to see that math can be fun again!
#Thanks i…

At the risk of pissing off my employers… fuck curbside EV charging.

Extreme points of general transportation polytopes
Patrice Koehl
https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.16791 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2404.16791

Extreme points of general transportation polytopes
Transportation matrices are $m\times n$ non-negative matrices whose row sums and row columns are equal to, or dominated above with given integral vectors $R$ and $C$. Those matrices belong to a convex polytope whose extreme points have been previously characterized. In this article, a more general set of non-negative transportation matrices is considered, whose row sums are bounded by two integral non-negative vectors $R_{min}$ and $R_{max}$ and column sums are bounded by two integral non-negat…

6 missing construction workers likely died in Francis Scott Key bridge collapse (The Baltimore Banner)
https://www.thebaltimorebanner.com/community/transportation/key-bridge-collapse-YDNMRSLMDREE7ADUZJQFQJ3WDA/
http://www.memeorandum.com/240326/p81#a240326p81

‘Rural states have unique needs’: Transportation providers spotlight challenges at House hearing
#RealEstate #UrbanDevelopment #SmartCitiesDive

This https://arxiv.org/abs/2304.02444 has been replaced.
initial toot: https://mastoxiv.page/@arXiv_csRO_…

Autonomous Hook-Based Grasping and Transportation with Quadcopters
Payload grasping and transportation with quadcopters is an active research area that has rapidly developed over the last decade. To grasp a payload without human interaction, most state-of-the-art approaches apply robotic arms that are attached to the quadcopter body. However, due to the large weight and power consumption of these aerial manipulators, their agility and flight time are limited. This paper proposes a motion control and planning method for transportation with a lightweight, passiv…

ISW: Russia may shift to attacking Ukraine's transportation systems: https://benborges.xyz/2024/04/24/isw-russia-may.html

The transportation Minister is in full swing.
#baltimore

Summer-camp summer degree of difficulty just went up a notch or two https://www.consumerreports.org/h…

Tesla Autopilot feature was involved in 13 fatal crashes, US regulator says
US auto-safety regulators said on Friday that their investigation into Tesla’s Autopilot had identified at least 13 fatal crashes in which the feature had been involved.
The investigation also found the electric carmaker’s claims did not match up with reality.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) disclosed on Friday that during its three-year Autopilot safety investigation, <…

Performative climate advocacy boomerangs as DC officials target costly electric-vehicle mandate at transit, the politically weakest part of the transport system.
Director of DC Dept of Transportation confirms that DC is canceling Circulator bus service because District law requires them to convert to much costlier battery-electric.
Rider tells WaPo he'll need to buy an (undoubtedly gas-powered) car.

D.C. says axing Circulator won’t hurt riders much. Some riders disagree.
D.C. plans to eliminate the Circulator bus system in 2025 as part of budget cuts, That could force thousands of regular riders to find a new way to commute.

paris_transportation: Paris Transportation (2016)
A multiplex transportation network of Ile-de-France, jointly representing the road network, train network, and subway network. Nodes are intersections, rail stations or metro stations. Different modes of transportation are given by different layers. Within-layer edges represent direct transference by a particular mode of transportation, and between-layer edges represent the conjunction of those layers at that node.
This network ha…

"We are not contesting 2035," said de Meo, who is also CEO of French carmaker Renault. "Now we must get down to it."
https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transporta…

Extreme points of general transportation polytopes
Patrice Koehl
https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.16791 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2404.16791

Extreme points of general transportation polytopes
Transportation matrices are $m\times n$ non-negative matrices whose row sums and row columns are equal to, or dominated above with given integral vectors $R$ and $C$. Those matrices belong to a convex polytope whose extreme points have been previously characterized. In this article, a more general set of non-negative transportation matrices is considered, whose row sums are bounded by two integral non-negative vectors $R_{min}$ and $R_{max}$ and column sums are bounded by two integral non-negat…

queued up cowboy carter for like the 26th time

my first social media post to go viral after leaving that other place was a post on threads about the windows log-in screen
😕

This https://arxiv.org/abs/2209.06751 has been replaced.
link: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=a

Urban transportation networks and optimal transport-based infrastructures: similarity and economy of scale
Designing and optimizing the structure of urban transportation networks is a challenging task. In this study, we propose a method inspired by optimal transport theory and the principle of economy of scale that uses little information in input to generate structures that are similar to those of public transportation networks. Contrarily to standard approaches, it does not assume any initial backbone network infrastructure, but rather extracts this directly from a continuous space using only a fe…

🚲 Bike Bus gains supporters as a way to promote sustainable and safe mobility
#transportation

Bike Bus gains supporters as a way to promote sustainable and safe mobility
The Bike Bus movement has emerged as a powerful tool to promote road safety, sustainability and community. According to a global survey carried out by the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (ICTA-UAB), the phenomenon has gained momentum globally in recent years, with more than 470 Bike Bus routes worldwide, transporting 32,000 children to school every week.

Oh hello, apparently that fucking robot police dog is in Assembly Square. https://www.facebook.com/share/r/PQAdWSGs7TXfSeXP/?mibextid=Rz46X9

ISW: Russia may shift to attacking Ukraine's transportation systems: https://benborges.xyz/2024/04/24/isw-russia-may.html

Learning Traffic Signal Control via Genetic Programming
Xiao-Cheng Liao, Yi Mei, Mengjie Zhang
https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.17328 https://

Learning Traffic Signal Control via Genetic Programming
The control of traffic signals is crucial for improving transportation efficiency. Recently, learning-based methods, especially Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL), garnered substantial success in the quest for more efficient traffic signal control strategies. However, the design of rewards in DRL highly demands domain knowledge to converge to an effective policy, and the final policy also presents difficulties in terms of explainability. In this work, a new learning-based method for signal contr…

Good morning to my #DurhamNC friends. I need a favor from you!
Some colleagues and I are studying the impacts of school bus service disruptions on families, and need help getting a survey out to parents and neighborhoods. @ me please and thank you!
#BullCity

Cars are king of the commute. But employers may have a once-in-a-generation chance to change that.
#RealEstate #UrbanDevelopment #SmartCitiesDive

thank goodness for work-from-home

#JobAnnouncement!
UNC-Chapel Hill is seeking 2 two full-time #Teaching Assistant Professors in city & regional #planning!!
 
Position 1: intersection of p…

paris_transportation: Paris Transportation (2016)
A multiplex transportation network of Ile-de-France, jointly representing the road network, train network, and subway network. Nodes are intersections, rail stations or metro stations. Different modes of transportation are given by different layers. Within-layer edges represent direct transference by a particular mode of transportation, and between-layer edges represent the conjunction of those layers at that node.
This network ha…

but what if I have to yada yada yada

Cars negating any future need for this wintertime car care trick

In the 1980s as railroads abandoned thousands of miles of track following deregulation,
Congress provided for “#railbanking,” seeking to preserve rail corridors while allowing for interim use as trails.
Today, there are nearly 26,000 miles of rail-trails in the U.S., according to RTC.
• More than $830 million in U.S. Department of Transportation funds announced last week under the ⭐️R…

Communities build walking, biking trails along old railroad lines with federal grants
Active transportation projects represent over 25% of the $3.3 billion grant awards the DOT announced last week.

deleted that patriarchy post because they fixed it and are trying to fix the system as well. IYKYK

LASIL: Learner-Aware Supervised Imitation Learning For Long-term Microscopic Traffic Simulation
Ke Guo, Zhenwei Miao, Wei Jing, Weiwei Liu, Weizi Li, Dayang Hao, Jia Pan
https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.17601

LASIL: Learner-Aware Supervised Imitation Learning For Long-term Microscopic Traffic Simulation
Microscopic traffic simulation plays a crucial role in transportation engineering by providing insights into individual vehicle behavior and overall traffic flow. However, creating a realistic simulator that accurately replicates human driving behaviors in various traffic conditions presents significant challenges. Traditional simulators relying on heuristic models often fail to deliver accurate simulations due to the complexity of real-world traffic environments. Due to the covariate shift iss…

This https://arxiv.org/abs/2209.09020 has been replaced.
link: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=a

Vehicle Trajectory Tracking Through Magnetic Sensors: A Case Study of Two-lane Road
Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) have a pressing need for efficient and reliable traffic surveillance solutions. This paper for the first time proposes a surveillance system that utilizes low-cost magnetic sensors for detecting and tracking vehicles continuously along the road. The system uses multiple sensors mounted along the roadside and lane boundaries to capture the movement of vehicles. Real-time measurement data is collected by base stations and processed to produce vehicle traje…

Random #Question.
Say you're wearing your bluetooth earbuds as ear plugs in your own home, not connected to anything, and they suddenly start playing music, how might you go about finding the source of said music?
It's neither of the 2 devices said earbuds are connected to.

Ebikes are changing who rides

urban_streets: Urban street networks (2017)
20 urban street networks, corresponding to 1-square-mile maps of 20 cities around the world.
This network has 32 nodes and 36 edges.
Tags: Transportation, Roads, Unweighted, Metadata
https://networks.skewed.de/net/urban_s

Wallethub included me in a panel of experts to talk about insurance for "high risk" drivers and I argued with their entire premise. To their credit, they published my response anyway
https://wallethub.com/edu/ci/sr-22-insurance/7337#expert=Tabitha_Combs

With regular watering, your flexposts will grow and multiply

This is Peterson. Underneath Peterson is the kid's ipad, which has lately become a source of strife. The ipad is not off limits, but using it would require destroying Peterson, who, being composed entirely of puppy floof leftover from a recent beard trim, is very fragile.
Peterson is entering his 3rd day of life today.
We have no idea how much longer our brave little hero will survive, but we salute him.

paris_transportation: Paris Transportation (2016)
A multiplex transportation network of Ile-de-France, jointly representing the road network, train network, and subway network. Nodes are intersections, rail stations or metro stations. Different modes of transportation are given by different layers. Within-layer edges represent direct transference by a particular mode of transportation, and between-layer edges represent the conjunction of those layers at that node.
This network ha…

Fellow #EBike riders - friendly reminder to angle your headlights slightly down and kick off your high beams in high traffic areas or when you see another road/path user headed toward you...just as you would in a car!
I met a lovely lady this morning who told me about having been blinded on our local bike path while walking her dog last night. Wasn't me, but I can see how it could …

I recently switched from a step-over #ebike with a somewhat aggressive riding position (and famously no rear brake pads...https://youtu.be/SEDkUxUwc6s?t=352) to an upright, step-thru model.
And the number…

contiguous_usa: Contiguous states (USA)
A network of contiguous states in the USA, in which each state is a node and two nodes are connected if they share a land-based geographic border. The dataset includes the lower 48 states, and the District of Columbia.
This network has 49 nodes and 107 edges.
Tags: Transportation, Roads, Unweighted

The door handle to my classroom fell off in my hand this morning, and it went downhill from there.
No Wi-Fi, no cables, no microphone, no white board markers. Grateful to my 80 students for just rolling with it though!!

This quirky little building at Mass/Cedar/Cameron currently houses a law firm, but in its masonry heart yearns to provide Community Pathside retail

Imagine if we had implemented the Interstate Highway System alphabetically by state? Too often, active transportation networks are built out in exactly that patchy way.
We just posted a new $44.5M grant opportunity that is different:
1) Just for active transportation,
2) Focused on planning and implementing *networks*,
3) Aims for outcomes beyond safety.
Learn more about ATIIP:

Imagine if we had implemented the Interstate Highway System alphabetically by state? Too often, active transportation networks are built out in exactly that patchy way.
We just posted a new $44.5M grant opportunity that is different:
1) Just for active transportation,
2) Focused on planning and implementing *networks*,
3) Aims for outcomes beyond safety.
Learn more about ATIIP:

paris_transportation: Paris Transportation (2016)
A multiplex transportation network of Ile-de-France, jointly representing the road network, train network, and subway network. Nodes are intersections, rail stations or metro stations. Different modes of transportation are given by different layers. Within-layer edges represent direct transference by a particular mode of transportation, and between-layer edges represent the conjunction of those layers at that node.
This network ha…

ok Monday, you win this round.

No one asked me… but if we all viewed the Str0ng T0wns ‘movement’ as having only limited applicability to urban contexts in red areas, we’d all be a lot better off.

Over on threads, I'm doing that thing where I change my profile pic to a random white guy and wait to see how long before the reply guys stop being assholes to me.
Don't tell...

This week in Complete, Safe, Equitable Streets: a field trip to a cluster of schools located on a narrow, high speed two-lane road, and meeting with #ChapelHillNC planning staff to discuss ways we can make the area safer for kids to get to and from school.
The focus for the 2nd half of the course is on developing design and policy recommendations to support the town's commi…

Trying to think of something witty to say about the truck full of leafblowers blocking the bike lane (and parked facing the wrong direction) today but I'm all out of gas.
#BikeLane #LeafBlowers

i know that supporting development means supporting developers, but god that is really really hard sometimes https://www.linkedin.com/posts/hoffmandev_maine-avenue-at-the-wharf-has-suppl…

The other night the kid and I e-biked home from a late theater rehearsal via a cross-town #greenway in #Carrboro and #ChapelHill. It was a clear enough night that she was picking …

Saturday was date night

DC - who has room to store this $1200 Bullitt for me til I can drive down and fetch it? https://www.facebook.com/share/p/UdnBt5VAqdXzpTtK/?mibextid=79PoIi

It's tough being a muppet but somebody's got to do it.
#dogsofmastodon

but what if there’s a dusting of snow and Cambridge DOESNT close the schools?

#NorthCarolina's state bird is the northern red cardinal. What these striking red birds lack in brains they make up for in their talent for mimickry....which is cool until they start mimicking car alarms.
This is not a post about #birds after all.

We have decided to embrace the musical chaos
#4thgraderlife #recorders

Love to see it. But damn, Eisenhower Ave itself is not compatible with this level of activity. https://www.alxnow.com/2024/04/18/alexandria-considering-big-plans-for-properties-next-to-eisenhower-avenue-metro-station/

Good lord what a day.
I'm really looking forward to the long bike ride home.

five years, and my guilt has barely relented https://washingtoncitypaper.com/article/180644/dave-salovesh-19652019/

Good lord what a day.
I'm really looking forward to the long bike ride home.

Proposal to add 127-unit all affordable housing (30-50% AMI) building on Tingey Plaza right next to USDOT HQ 👍👍 https://www.bizjournals.com/washington/news/2024/03/18/navy-yard-affordable-housing-dot-headquarters.html

it's that easy, folks

Proposal to add 127-unit all affordable housing (30-50% AMI) building on Tingey Plaza right next to USDOT HQ 👍👍 https://www.bizjournals.com/washington/news/2024/03/18/navy-yard-affordable-housing-dot-headquarters.html

Four years ago today my kid's school shut down and I coped by making a list of cities that were closing streets to cars so kids could play in them.
Shortly thereafter, I took to social media for help documenting what would soon be a global phenomenon.
It was a hell of a ride.
#COVID

Got a spare kid and rode an Onderwater tandem, it was FUN

Did we #BikeBus in the pouring rain? YUP.

This week in Complete, Safe, Equitable Streets, we're talking about how to measure travel demand...in the most literal sense of the word: "I demand to be able to get to work, school, the park, wherever, safely, via my chosen travel mode."
We'll cover common approaches to evaluating demand, pitfalls of those approaches, and techniques you can use now to better understand your community's mobility needs.

Here’s a newish urban arrow with 1847 miles on eBay in Miami, currently sitting at $3500 bid https://www.ebay.com/itm/404925111194?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&am…

what noise cancelling settings work on the recorder?

This kid rode 7 miles round trip to her playgroup tonight and I’m incredibly fucking proud rn

Today I asked my Google hub to average three numbers. It added them up correctly and divided by two.

Big news at the always-awesome cargobike test ride event was that a new e-cargobike (Urban Arrows) rental outfit is coming soon to camberville! https://RideCargoB.com

I've been blocked by #EVThreads and I couldn't be prouder.

My bike is on the left, a guy in my office has the bike on the right. If anyone ever needs a story prompt for a Camberville-themed remake of “My Cousin Vinny,” come find me.

When policy makers claim their policies are "data-driven" what they mean is "I either don't acknowledge, understand, or care how the biases embedded in my judgments about what constitutes 'data' and in how data should be collected, analyzed, and interpreted affect outcomes."

Wheelies on the Rue de Rivoli, what a frickin incredible street

Wheelies on the Rue de Rivoli, what a frickin incredible street

This week in Complete, Safe, Equitable Streets, we're talking about:
-- the relationships between #CompleteStreets and #SafeSystems with the brilliant and lovely @…

Peterson turned 2 weeks old yesterday. He's starting to show some age--he has little less poof--and has been relocated from the kitchen counter to a secluded bookshelf for his safety. He is still valiantly soldiering along though, constantly overwhelming the temptation of playing with the ipad with his mere existence.
#Parenting

#ChapelHillNC is doing a lot of really good stuff for #walking and #cycling lately, but they're still fighting an uphill battle against

Yeah WE’RE DOING THIS! If you live in Camberville, we need YOUR help!
Peabody #BikeBus is doing a special ride on Wed, May 8, (7:30-9AM) for Walk/Bike/Roll To School Day.... with the friggin HONK BAND!!!
But we need folks to haul band members in cargobikes, and other stuff. Can you help?

The retail price of a luxury #ebike is less than the value the average US car loses the moment it's driven off the sales lot
The fact that we pour billions of public dollars into propping up a transportation system that virtually requires car ownership for all but the most privileged--when cheap, safe, fun alternatives are easily available--is criminal

but what if I need to pick up four large pizzas after school pickup in the famous Boston winter rains

every bike can be a cargobike

#ShutItDown:
“We ran the test four times using Full Self Driving version 12.3.3, and the Full Self Driving Tesla hit the child-sized mannequin on all four tests.” https://vimeo.com/932562717/5fb3189771

When you use bright colors to highlight content on a screen, you may think you're calling attention to that content.
But for a whole lot of people, you're making that content invisible at best, and sometimes sending us running for cover (literally covering our heads and hiding in the dark until the migraine subsides).
Please don't use bright colors to highlight stuff on screen. There are better ways to call attention to the important bits.

If you use excel to grade papers and exams, maybe this site will save you hours (days?) of effort like it just did me:
https://www.exceldemy.com/split-excel-sheet-into-multiple-files/

Ten of us queued to make the Community Path crossing at Mass at 5pm yesterday

My kid's school uses an app to teach kids grammar. The app autocorrects their grammar, and then checks to see if their grammar is correct.
We are doomed

Happy #NewBikeDay to me!!!!!!
#BikeTooter

I think I know why the spaghetti sauce isn't selling.

Periodic reminder that lots of people can't read stuff highlighted in bright yellow, so if you cover your Most Important Information That You Definitely Need Everyone To Read in bright yellow, you are shooting yourself in the foot.
ahem.
#BrightYellow #Vision