Benjamin Ross

Just 41 years after the Bethesda Metro station opened, we are getting a WMATA-standard sign to show people approaching on foot from the west where the station is.

Key takeaway is at end of this article [gift link].
Sales of new exurban houses are falling, but there's unmet demand for urban infill. If cities & inner suburbs repeal offstreet parking mandates & cut minimum lot sizes, builders will keep building […]

The AFL-CIO has called a solidarity march for tomorrow (Thursday), meeting at 4:00 pm in Dupont Circle. I will be there. Can you? https://act.aflcio.org/events/solidarity-season-labor-day-2025-rally-march?source=direct_link&

@philipncohen.com I would not make any assumptions.
20-30 years ago I worked with an expert on detecting non-target chemicals in environmental samples. In landfill leachate we ran into a lot of hard-to-identify-exactly compounds not in the Merck Index, that looked like some sort of degradation […]

Left: Capital Crescent Trail 2.0. Multi-use. Multi-age. Be gentle. Right: We are all human powered on this trail. We are all equal & equally vulnerable. Take your sign to Little Falls Parkway next block where those are roaming in 4000-pound steel junk. Annually 40,000 killed by cars in crashes, 55,000 killed by car air pollution. You are blinded by the ideology of the car system!

Signs on Capital Crescent Trail next to Kenwood. (Neighborhood that led successful fight to partially reverse road diet on Little Falls Parkway, road where prior to road diet cyclists & pedestrians crossing on trail were repeatedly hit, one killed, by drivers.)

US gov vehicle with no agency ID on cap crrscent trail north of Fletchers boathouse. white pickup. drove away when I stopped & took out camera

Historic preservation is bad for affordability #296903.
Parking lot preserved as historic landmark (yes, this is not the Onion) in Cleveland Park, DC raises price to $26 for parking less than one hour -- even less than 15 minutes […]

Fairfax County expands its bikeshare network to 94 stations, with more to come. While Montgomery County has been shrinking its 77-station network, despite having urbanized areas more conducive to bikeshare use than anywhere in Fairfax […]

Chair of MoCo Planning Board advocates single-stairway building code reform. https://ggwash.org/view/100397/how-rethinking-stairwells-could-boost-housing-in-montgomery-county

Car culture at its absolute worst meets an unjust legal system. Parents lose a son and are then convicted of a felony because they let him walk across the street. Gift link […]

Car culture at its absolute worst meets an unjust legal system. Parents lose a son and are then convicted of a felony because they let him walk across the street. Gift link […]

Complexity of interchanges at multi-lane expressway with separate free & toll lanes confuses drivers & creates safety hazard. https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/transportation/fatal-beltway-crash-express-lanes-braddock-road/3964277/

27% of families in New York City with children and income below $100,000 live in apartments with more than two people per bedroom. gift link] [https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/26/nyregion/nyc-overcrowding-homeless.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Zk8.uKgb.yMUGk-TwtO6O&smid=url-share

After Houston's Astrodome sits empty two decades plus, support fades for preservation. Despite the better-than-most case for genuine landmark status that can be made for the first indoor baseball stadium […]

If younger people can't afford to live in your county, your county doesn't have a future - no matter how much the older, more affluent homeowners might hate the idea of change.

A classic. Reporter fails to pay attention to what the nimbys actually say.
Reporter: Critics fear that [very modest] upzone won't produce "housing that is actually affordable for county residents"
Then quotes critic who fears it will "just provide more affordably priced rental units" […]

Trump & China: TACO gift link] [https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/20/us/politics/trump-china-technology.html?unlocked_article_code=1.X08.vV0m.heUT4E1iWQAj&smid=bs-share

If the birthday card had come out before the election, it would have had little effect.
Six months into Trump's term, Epstein is the vehicle onto which MAGA has loaded its repressed disillusionment with the regime's plutocracy, corruption & brutality.

@w7voa Was this a driverless car? I read all the way to the end of the article and there is no mention of any human who might have been at fault.
A particularly egregious example of news media absolving people who kill with motor vehicles.

If the birthday card had come out before the election, it would have had little effect.
Six months into Trump's term, Epstein is the vehicle onto which MAGA has loaded its repressed disillusionment with the regime's plutocracy, corruption & brutality.

For DC's upcoming report on how historic preservation promotes equity, here's a fine case study.
Guy bought historic townhouse in Alexandria in 2021. Converted three apartments “into something that Louis XIV would be proud of.” A 6-bedroom house with inlaid marble, gold leaf ceilings, gold […]

Please don't add things we don't want or need. Bus and bike lanes aren't helpful and discriminate against families for whom public transportation is not an option. I drive past empty bike lanes on a regular basis. There are other ways to help the environment and improve our community that don't harm thousands of residents.

Bus and bike lanes discriminate against families for whom public transportation is not an option.

At this point, Trump & Epstein is giving off vibes of Stalin & Kirov.

I'm on the Davka Smolah podcast. Talking with socialist zionists about my recent article on the way forward for Jewish progressives. Relating anti-Israel animus to the turn by much of the left away from the politics of solidarity and common interests toward a politics of charity & "allyship." […]

DC historic districts, where it's very hard to build new housing, contain 20% of city's population. All but a few are wealthy white areas. DC Office of Planning agrees to study historic districts' equity effects.
Then it turns around & turns study over to preservation advocates […]

Our brain-dead political reporting. Progressive endorsed by Bernie & AOC wins primary in landslide. NYT reports result as "Mamdani momentum withers."
Lazy media, please tell us where candidates stand on issues. Stop fixating on their age & identity […]

@philipncohen.com A little unfair to include Thunberg & AOC, given age, and Pope & Dalai Lama, given oaths. If you drop the latter two, all but one male have 3+ which is way above average for US elite population.

Lord’s Vengeance The Department of Homeland Security posted an explicitly Christian nationalist and violent...

This video makes me think better of the prophet Jonah:
The word of the Lord came to Jonah, son of Amittai: Go at once to Nineveh... Jonah, however, started to flee to Tarshish [the end of the known earth in the opposite direction]
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/lords-vengeance

I wonder if one contributor to people ignoring weather warnings is Nextdoor trying to boost engagement by sending out weather alerts every time there's a thunderstorm in the vicinity. Which is pretty much every afternoon at this time of year around here.

The young applicant had scored 4.0 marks in math and physics. The recruiter congratulated him. But what the recruiter didn’t know was that in Norway, the best grade was a 1.0, not a 4.0, the top grade in American schools. In fact, a 4.0 in Norway was barely passing — something like a D on American report cards. In reality, his academic record in Norway had been anything but impressive. He did not want to be dishonest, Dr. Giaever would say in recounting the episode with some amusement over the years, but he also did not correct the interviewer. He got the job.

Is this the same New York Times that is covering Mamdani's college application as a scandal?
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/08/science/ivar-giaever-dead.html