Greg Erhardt @gregerhardt@transportation.social

Good morning.

I am currently in Slade, Kentucky, where the weather is 69 degrees and raining. This week I have ridden a chair lift to the top of the Natural Bridge in Natural Bridge State Park, kayaked inside of a flooded limestone mine, visited Whistling Arch in the Red River Gorge Park, and soaked in the hot tub at our vacation cabin.

Today, I will go on a zipline over the Red River Gorge.

CA DMV has suspended all of Cruise's robotaxi permits, immediately. #Cruise #robotaxi #robots #AI https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/24/california-dmv-suspends-cruises-self-driving-car-permits.html

Computers are supposed to make processes cheaper and more efficient, but Lyft has done the opposite to taxi dispatching, in a big way. It's honestly baffling. https://www.fullstackeconomics.com/p/i-drove-for-lyft-for-a-week-and-learned

Where to find Verge staff on Mastodon - https://www.theverge.com/23519135/mastodon-verge-staff-where-to-find

In the December edition of Highways Magazine I go after UK roundabout design and suggest that the authors of the Design Manual for Roads & Bridges try and cross their designs. Digital edition free as always https://www.highwaysmagazine.co.uk/latest-issue

After 1.5 years of infighting between the coalition parties, Berlin is about to approve a new mobility law that aims to reduce car use, reallocate street space away from cars & parking and introduce more parking pricing. But there will be no road pricing.
https://www.tagesspiegel.de/berlin/einigung-beim-mobilitatsgesetz-senat-will-autoverkehr-in-berlin-reduzieren-und-lieferzonen-schaffen-9061411.html?utm_source=push

Hi I'm Conor and I cover housing stuff for the NYT. Recently moved to LA from Oakland. Like many sane people I had been trying and failing to divorce Twitter for time/mental health reasons, but the recent fracas has been a great push. So here I am. I'm not great with tech so please excuse the inevitable stumbles. #introductions

Work from home has been a huge boon to employment access for disabled people.

“The jobless rate for disabled workers — typically in double digits and 12.3% two years ago — dropped to 5.8% in November … the lowest rate for people with disabilities since record-keeping began in 2008.”

https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2022-12-15/long-left-out-of-job-market-people-with-disabilities-reap-benefits-of-covid-19s-teleworking-boom

So! Since it's now been publicly announced, & before this platform becomes🗑️, I have some news! At the end of the year, I'll be leaving @BostonRegionMPO to be Deputy Director of Regional Transit Planning for @MBTA. Video of a very sweet goodbye at the MPO:
https://youtu.be/uW3_O0bdNwg?t=446

State #transportation agencies are divided over a proposed rule to track greenhouse gases and act accordingly.

Here’s what the head of Washington State DOT had to say: “We’re at a point of diminishing returns where building new #highways costs more and more and we get less and less out of it.”

More rural states tend to push back.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2022/12/15/road-building-climate-change/

#Climate #ClimateAction #TransportationPolicy

I suppose I'm overdue for an introduction... Was born and raised in Indiana, attended Purdue for undergrad (Math/Stats, Psychology) and the University of Washington (Civil Engineering, Applied Math) for grad school. Worked at the Indianapolis MPO for a year and a half doing land use modeling and other nerdy number things, and then four years at DVRPC and the past year at SANDAG doing travel model development (mostly of the activity-based variety).

googletraffic, a promising new #rstats package to download Google Traffic data https://dime-worldbank.github.io/googletraffic/index.html 📦developed by Rob Marty from the DIME team at the World Bank More info at their blog post: https://blogs.worldbank.org/opendata/introducing-googletraffic-r-package-new-tool-measure-congestion-across-large-spatial-areas

Some of you may have seen Elon Musk's endorsement of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s crazy antivax conspiracy theories today.

Over at post.news, I just posted a long-form piece about this, and about how science education needs to adapt to online disinformation.

Please a look. If you like it, boost it there or here or — if you dare — over on the birdsite.

https://post.news/article/2J7VEapSIpNWsrC0EawD8CopYqo

Cheaper, lighter electric cars are the way to go. https://apple.news/AxDv5Hww0TGOXnhRIyRrwQQ