:P

FLY is a story about a boy who gets a second chance. Help his story take flight June 9th 11am EST on Kickstarter. Thank you for being the wind beneath my wings I hope this story lifts the world to a brighter place.

I'm a huge proponent of public transit, rail in specific, and I'm very glad that the greater Seattle area is finally starting to see some solid light rail infrastructure sprouting up in the form of the 1 and 2 lines, but that in no way stops me from critiquing the decisions made in planning and implementation.

Light Rail, in it's colloquial form here in the US, is basically always a compromise solution. It's cheaper than subways, can make good use of existing right-of-way around freeways, and can function as a kind of low-capacity commuter rail in the suburbs while behaving more like a tram or streetcar in downtown areas. It is crucially, however, not a streetcar, nor is it a commuter rail. Streetcars make frequent stops and are optimized for dense areas with lots of traffic. Commuter rails are larger and stop less frequently, optimized for bringing suburban residents into city centers. Commuter rail should, however, be independent of street traffic so it can travel at higher speeds. For this reason, most of the Link light rail system in seattle is actually not at-grade (street level), but on either elevated or sub-grade track. Downtown, the lightrail actually functions as a low-capacity low-frequency subway system in what used to be the bus tunnel (we don't have time, but yes it was stupid). Everywhere else, it's up on elevated tracks that largely follow the freeway system.

There are three stations, all immediately south of that Mount Baker elevated station, where the Link actually runs at-grade. These stations run through the historic low income immigrant neighborhoods of southeast seattle. Here, the trains are forced to stop at red lights, interact with crossing and left-turning traffic, and even cross through sidewalks and terrifyingly narrow pedestrian islands. They could have built elevated track here, as they did everywhere else, but they didn't. they didn't want to spend the money. I have personally watched light rail cars carrying hundreds of people have to wait two full minutes for cars turning left in front of them, delaying trains so like, 5 people could drive there. Once it reaches the end of this low income immigrant-dominant neighborhood, however, the Link returns to it's above-grade status, with Mount Baker being the first elevated stop. You want to know how this woman, who claims she was misdirected by her GPS, probably ended up here? I would bet anything she tried to make a turn at the intersection just before the stop and got confused. The intersection, for reference, looks like this:

I'm not saying it's an easy mistake to make, but given the number of people who drive through here every day, it's honestly not that surprising that someone, especially someone who is from out of town, or someone who is used to shared streetcar lanes, would eventually make this mistake. When you're dealing with a city of hundreds of thousands of people, it's only a matter of time before a mistake like this happens. but it is only possible for it to happen because of the decisions made in the planning process, and one of those decisions was effectively "we can save money if we make everything worse in that part of town where all the foreign poors live", and so they built the thing at-grade, instead of keeping it elevated like everywhere else.

All of the above commentary is 1000% valid. But also, putting on some traffic engineer goggles for a sec, there are SO MANY ways to make this kind of mishap avoidable:

giant red DO NOT ENTER stripes on the ground level [seductive, smooth] entrance to the elevated section of railway

rumble strips

BIGGER SIGNAGE

automated crossing barriers, as encountered at fucking parking lots which apparently even hotels can afford

I understand "too expensive" but we're talking about minimal spending here for maximum return. As opposed to the millions it would cost to do it right, via elevated rail.

we're looking to create an AI policy, and when we were talking about this, my boss (older millennial) was genuinely shocked to hear that younger people do not (seem) to view AI positively (a la the recent commencement speakers being booed)

please rb for larger sample size!

Question 1/3

Thank you for helping with this data collection. Please rb for as big a sample as possible!

happy pride month shoutout to sora ninjago for inventing trans people

MOST straights don't think about queer people much at all, and when they do it's either neutral or positive. This time around, public opinion seems negative because it's been hijacked by loud assholes.

TUMBLR ADS ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO AUTO-PLAY AUDIO! THAT IS A BUG AND YOU SHOULD REPORT IT!

"This ad is auto-playing audio" is literally on the drop down menu for reporting an ad. Tumblr isn't trying to implement this! Don't protest this "new policy", cause it's not one.

Report the broken ads.

This is all bugs or malicious advertising which is also against tumblers ad policy. You should report all ads which do this.

stenographer: well her bio says she/her...

me: better play it safe anyway [writes "it"]

the ghost of marie curie: [appears out of thin air] ivy... you're the first person to ever correctly gender me in a hundred and eighty-two years. from the bottom of my cold dead heart, thank you.

me: [dies of radiation poisoning]

This movie messed me up

apparently the murder happened in 2023 after doing some research but the murderer has been found not guilty.