What is it going to take to get through to elected officials and progressive transportation planners, that they're working with a machine that's been designed to build freeways through poor neighborhoods and coerce anyone who could afford it into cars? A machine made of #trafficEngineers and #police which then accreted a century of CYA, cultural, legal, and bureaucratic armor against change? Giving the DOT more money for safety won't ever get us out of #carSupremacy. It's designed to not.
The whole ten-year cycle of planning and public outreach and design and legislature allocating funding, to do some cast-in-place concrete curb-protected sidewalk with bike stencils on it, that isn't wide enough to carry as much bike traffic as there are cars on the street, with no design-speed consideration, sharp corners and blind spots at intersections... It was conceived & designed as a way to get people on bikes out of the way of motorists, who are the important road users with places to go.
The market has had like fifty years to solve climate change and traffic congestion without you having to ride a bike or bus, and they've come up with two options: stalling or lies.
I'm not sure whether to celebrate the Portland gas tax renewal passing when it is still only a $0.10/gal, and basically means PBOT will keep doing what they've been doing, which is totally failing to act on #GlobalWarming or #VisionZero in any meaningful way while spending "safety money" on flashing lights that drivers ignore.
Here he is, three minutes later, it turns out cars aren't very fast even if you think you're important enough that everyone around you should wait for you while you operate your big stupid vehicle. #SeeYouAtTheNextLight
edit: already sold! The legendary Surly Cross Check, yours for a good price and a good cause. #pdxBikes (with delivery by cargo bike via @robgalanakis) 54cm
DIY $15k shed on a $20 foundation, "wanted to turn it into an AirBNB but the city wouldn't let us" LMAO, helluva youtube genre I've stepped in there. Is this the crap they trained the AI on?
Why spend so much on roof structure + decking + surface and then punch holes in it to add solar panels? I'm thinking of a solar porch/deck roof that's mostly just panels on structure, with gutters underneath. But what if you had insulation + waterproof membrane / house wrap on the roof and a similar system on the house? Thermal bridging vs structure through the foam, and gutters full of slime under the panels are a couple reasons why not, maybe the panels need airflow below?
@enobacon In most climates and with current PVs they do benefit from airflow on both sides, and if you're planning for concentrated heat on a planar surface dumping it via convection will be more effective than trying to resist its ingress via insulation. That said, you're right that classic roof design and retrofit solar designs are in tension here and there's a lot more caulk and torch work going into offsetting all those penetrations. I'd like to see updated framing designs to support the panels - it might be as simple as exposing structurally robust mounting points six inches above the roof line.
99% of our housing stock has roofs that were designed to shed water long enough to avoid warranty callbacks and not much else. 0.9% looked up solar azimuths once to keep HVAC costs down. Solar rack and rail designs are working up a very steep hill of pre-baked choices.
(Also, the folks with enough land to put the panels on a simple frame in a pasture are laughing at us.)
@carraway I think there might be lower hanging fruit, like the awning and porch covering, where there's air circulation below, easier to clean/adjust / maintain, and less critical concern about water or leaks.
hey petromasculinity dudes, RIP your sperm counts, LoL, PVC
"Microplastics found in every human testicle in study
Scientists say discovery may be linked to decades-long decline in sperm counts in men around the world"
The contrast with failed #VisionZero plans like #Portland's seems pretty basic: "They said: 'You as provider of the road transport system are no longer allowed to kill people on that mass level that you've done'
#VisionZero has worked when the adopted plan actually mandated changes to infrastructure instead of wishes for "safety funding". Here, we let people keep driving after they participate in the city/state killing someone with their car, because "we all need to drive." If we're going to hold drivers accountable, we need to make it easy & convenient to get to and from the bar without driving, make infrastructure where bad driving will break the vehicle, require drivers actually learn how to drive.
NIMBYs will complain about "human feces" in places where they personally opposed public restrooms because homeless people might use them, and then really just let their dog crap wherever