iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Benjamin Ross @benrosstransit.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 27/04/2026

This misses the point. Hasan Piker is not just a problem for Jews. He is a problem for the entire anti-Trump coalition. He does not belong in a pro-democracy coallition because he supports dictatorial regimes in China, Iran and elsewhere […]

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Benjamin Ross @benrosstransit.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 28/08/2025

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.

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Benjamin Ross @benrosstransit.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 28/08/2025

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 […]

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Benjamin Ross @benrosstransit.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 27/08/2025

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? act.aflcio.org/events/solidarity-se…

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Benjamin Ross @benrosstransit.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 16/08/2025

@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 […]

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Benjamin Ross @benrosstransit.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 14/08/2025

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.)

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!

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Benjamin Ross @benrosstransit.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 12/08/2025

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

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Benjamin Ross @benrosstransit.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 12/08/2025

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 […]

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Benjamin Ross @benrosstransit.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 12/08/2025

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 […]

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Benjamin Ross @benrosstransit.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 07/08/2025

Chair of MoCo Planning Board advocates single-stairway building code reform. ggwash.org/view/100397/how-rethinki…

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Benjamin Ross @benrosstransit.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 06/08/2025

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 […]

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Benjamin Ross @benrosstransit.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 06/08/2025

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 […]

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Benjamin Ross @benrosstransit.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 01/08/2025

Complexity of interchanges at multi-lane expressway with separate free & toll lanes confuses drivers & creates safety hazard. www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/tr…

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Benjamin Ross @benrosstransit.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 27/07/2025

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] [www.nytimes.com/2025/07/26/nyregion…

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Benjamin Ross @benrosstransit.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 26/07/2025

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 […]

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Action Committee for Transit 👣🚲🚇🚍🚊🧑🏻‍🦽 @actfortransit.bsky.social · 24/07/2025

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.

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Benjamin Ross @benrosstransit.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 22/07/2025

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" […]

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Benjamin Ross @benrosstransit.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 19/07/2025

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.

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Benjamin Ross @benrosstransit.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 19/07/2025

@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.

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Benjamin Ross @benrosstransit.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 19/07/2025

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Benjamin Ross @benrosstransit.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 18/07/2025

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 […]

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Action Committee for Transit 👣🚲🚇🚍🚊🧑🏻‍🦽 @actfortransit.bsky.social · 18/07/2025

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

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.

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Benjamin Ross @benrosstransit.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 18/07/2025

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

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Benjamin Ross @benrosstransit.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 17/07/2025

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." […]

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Benjamin Ross @benrosstransit.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 16/07/2025

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 […]

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Benjamin Ross @benrosstransit.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 16/07/2025

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 […]

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Benjamin Ross @benrosstransit.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 15/07/2025

@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.

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Benjamin Ross @benrosstransit.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 13/07/2025

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] talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/lords-…

talkingpointsmemo.com

Lord’s Vengeance

The Department of Homeland Security posted an explicitly Christian nationalist and violent...

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Benjamin Ross @benrosstransit.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 12/07/2025

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.

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Benjamin Ross @benrosstransit.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 08/07/2025

Is this the same New York Times that is covering Mamdani's college application as a scandal? www.nytimes.com/2025/07/08/science/…

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.

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Benjamin Ross @benrosstransit.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 08/07/2025

@emptywheel.bsky.social He flew from the US to Rome via Moscow. And his lawyer says it was a "connecting flight"?

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Benjamin Ross @benrosstransit.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 05/07/2025

@danwentzel The Gulag was concentration camps. Called that in Russian (kontzentratzionslager). The name is an acronym fot state adminstration of camps.

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Benjamin Ross @benrosstransit.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 04/07/2025

@actfortransit.bsky.social Isn't that the section of University Blvd where some loud people in nearby neighborhoods insist that we can't allow any more housing because it would slow down traffic?

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Benjamin Ross @benrosstransit.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 29/06/2025

Zohran Mamdani was asked about "globalize the intifada". He dodged the question. Lots of politicians dodge questions. I'm less upset by Mamdani dodging the question, which told me little I didn't already know, than by the people (some I respect) denying he dodged the question or saying the […]

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Benjamin Ross @benrosstransit.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 27/06/2025

My article just out: Progressive Jews (and non-Jews too!) need to revive the social democratic politics of solidarity. It brings poor & middle together, in contrast to the politics of far-left "allyship" & elite charity which both drive them apart […]

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Action Committee for Transit 👣🚲🚇🚍🚊🧑🏻‍🦽 @actfortransit.bsky.social · 18/06/2025

The Hell No‼️ Committee For Friendship Heights says, "If we [sic] don't speak up, the council will pass ZTA 25-02." 🥳, but! Make sure YOU speak up. Please ask the County Council to pass ZTA 25-02 as a first step toward legalizing missing middle housing! actionbutton.nationbuilder.com/share/SPK-QE...

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Benjamin Ross @benrosstransit.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 16/06/2025

Weakening NEPA without replaciing it with something better is no abundance agenda. This highway widening would foreclose future transit expansion and probably make traffic worse for most drivers.It is opposed by both local governments it goes through. NEPA is the only veto point. A transit […]

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Benjamin Ross @benrosstransit.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 16/06/2025

New poll on "abundance agenda" shows majority still support local decision-making. Do you support or oppose limiting local zoning rules to build more homes? Yes 28% No 43% www.gelliottmorris.com/p/trump-appr… BUT: When you ask […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

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Benjamin Ross @benrosstransit.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 13/06/2025

@paytonc Much better than the usual button you shouldn't push (because it makes loud sounds that make the sidewalk less inviting) but has a sign that says push to cross.

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Benjamin Ross @benrosstransit.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 13/06/2025

Under Randy Clarke, WMATA has cut the end-to-end travel time on the Metro Red Line by 8 minutes. This is a 68 minute trip, so it's a gain in efficiency of over 10% on top of faster trips for riders. This is a combination of automated train operation (with doors closing sooner), raising the speed […]

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Benjamin Ross @benrosstransit.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 13/06/2025

Welcome to "rowhome"! As usual, you can count on real estate marketers to signal status shifts. "Townhome," invented because "rowhouse" felt low-class, now feels low-class itself. I think they would have done better to just say "rowhouse" and invoke the prestige of historic preservation […]

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Benjamin Ross @benrosstransit.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 13/06/2025

After some neighbors say they want to be able to drive cars in cycletrack, DC govt replaces it with painted lanes & says basis for action was aesthetics of flexposts. If the problem is really that flexposts don't look nice, why not replace them with decorative bollards? wapo.st/4dXmJY1

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Benjamin Ross @benrosstransit.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 13/06/2025

@philipncohen.com This is a silly dispute. When bad actors exploit real problems, not trying to fix the prblems is the wrong answer. Should anti-Nazi Germans in 1930 have stopped trying to fix the economy? And at the same time scientists should try to be as precise as possible in what they say.

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Benjamin Ross @benrosstransit.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 12/06/2025

@lukebro92.bsky.social The stereotypical US breakfast is eggs, toast, fried potatoes, and ham or sausage. The continental breakfast is just a pastry and maybe some fruit. It is much more like what they eat for breakfast in France. The 18th & 19th century US usage of Continental referring to the […]

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