The US is in an abusive relationship with cars - and in nowhere is that felt more than here in #Detroit, so I submit.
The car’s heyday as an economic growth engine has long passed, ICE or #EV or otherwise, and all that is left in its wake its sprawl, unmanageable roadway death, unnecessary environmental damage and housing inaccessibility.
@adamjcook Agree totally. I got a Class 1 e-bike this Spring and it's revolutionized my life. I go everywhere around Boise on it. I've used my car 3 times this Summer (needed to move a big load of stuff).
The recent consolidation in the #3DPrinting market has been interesting from its lofty promise back around 2015 or so.
I can recall many pilot programs at many manufacturers that I saw personally.
#Manufacturing is a tough nut (perhaps, the toughest nut) to crack in terms of displacing entrenched, proven processes like #CNC machining and casting.
@adamjcook nycnc had a video a bit ago on a former nascar drivers business and was related to 3d printing metal and was pretty cool. Also virtual foundries has been interesting. They are out of wi
@adamjcook markforged does numbers, even though their stuff is hella proprietary and the way they've done their patents means hackers will have to wait until the 2040s to be able to integrate their type of continuous fiber tech without getting sued into the ground.
“Safety” is a term tossed around like a cheap suit these days - with cars, submarines, planes, whatever.
Note that safety has primarily nothing to do with software, software versions, sensors, 5-star ratings, statistics, data and so on.
Safety is all about the process - what is the fitness of the process that continuously seeks to identify, quantify and handle failure modes to avoid unacceptable death and injury.
@adamjcook I was fortunate to be at the Honolulu Skyline rail project debut last week and imagine my shock as a Las Vegas local to see a rail project that goes from where people live and work to the airport (track installed but that segment won't open for a few years). It's insane that we in Vegas don't have a rail system running from the airport up the strip, they are right next to each other. Maybe this tunnel silliness will start something, is my hope.
@adamjcook I do not know the details well enough to do a breakdown in that case. Here in SF the Central Subway Project was approved by voters in 2003 and was just finished this past year. It is the first new subway in 40 years. We need to have faster progress than that.
I would rather we have smaller tunnels which support direct routes to more places in a city. If they were mostly dedicated to bikes it would get a good amount of people off the surface streets and would be far safer than mixing with traffic. I'd love to live near a tunnel system which can get me to a few areas in the city without any hills.
Just look at the failed (not literally, but certainly effectively) Manufacturing USA initiative - a constellation of research institutes first launched in 2012 to counter the Made In #China 2025 program.
To its credit, the #Obama Administration foresaw the Chinese economic threat to the West before most in Washington, but the actions taken were structurally ineffective.
After the effective failures of Manufacturing USA, which was originally intended to primarily life up small/medium #manufacturing business to fill more advanced verticals and roles through partnerships and R&D subsidies... the #ChipsAct returned to (likely more safe, politically) "trickle down" thinking.
That is, #IndustrialPolicy based on crudely throwing money at big companies.
I owe some interested people an article about my personal experiences at one Manufacturing USA institute - the former #DMDII lab in #Chicago (now called #MxD): https://www.mxdusa.org
My article will be, well, less-than-glowing to say the least.
I am finishing that up, but these threads help me solidify my thoughts.
@phxrailfood I added a few Toots and images after my initial one that I believe should answer your questions. 😀
But, yes, the surface parking lot you mentioned is proposed to be converted into green space - which is very welcome.
That is great you were able to car-free on your visit!
I would really like to see the People Mover be expanded to north all the way up to New Center and east and west to Corktown and Lafayette Park/East Canfield, respectively.
An interesting and depressing, look at the construction of the Eisenhower Expressway in my hometown of #Chicago - what was lost and how, naturally, it was explicitly designed to negatively impact and destroy minority and #Black communities.
Faux-progress of the 1950s that we desperately need to unwind in all US cities.
@adamjcook In California it was the sixties when most of the neighborhood destruction for freeways occurred, especially in L.A. In San Francisco, citizens rose up and actually stopped construction of several freeways that would have crisscrossed the city and destroyed multiple neighborhoods.
@adamjcook I grew up 1/2 block from the "Congress Street Expressway" in Oak Park as it was being built. I was very young and have only vague recollection of what it was like before construction. The East Avenue exit was partially built and I was told that the pastor of Ascension Church/School was instrumental in it not being completed. That saved our neighborhood.
@adamjcook@mmasnick
Amazing how many people who have rightly condemned Facebook for years are perfectly happy to use Instagram and now Threads. Even if you don’t care about “minor” issues like destroying democratic institutions and fueling an ethnic genocide, you’d think some of these folks would be turned off by the obnoxious advertising and algorithmic feed.
Former #Michigan Governor Rick Snyder should be in the clink for the #Flint Water Crisis coverup - instead, we are continually treated with these thought pieces while he walks free amongst his victims.
Nothing, in recent memory, has damaged the attractiveness of Michigan like that episode.
@adamjcook In the wise words(ish) of Nick Fury: I recognize that Rick Snyder has an opinion, but given that it’s a stupid ass opinion I have elected to ignore it.
I can’t read the original article because of the paywall but fuck that criminal. We need government that doesn’t literally poison people.
I’m proud of the work that our new legislature has done in its short time and I hope they get the chance to continue making actual improvements.