Notices by Benjamin Ross (benrosstransit@mastodon.social)

Waymo (aka Google) admits that it trains its robotaxis to break the law. When WaPo reporter finds robotaxis fail to stop for pedestrians in marked crosswalk 70% of the time, Waymo says it follows "social norms" rather than laws.
Expert explains: When robotaxis obey law, they don't go fast enough to compete successfully with Uber, so Google execs ordered engineers to ignore laws.
https://wapo.st/3ZZDifm

@hannu_ikonen The story since then is an example of a very common pattern in public health guidance. Guidance (such as a safe level of a chemical) is issued on the basis of very limited information. As more information accumulates, authorities fail to update the guidance because there isn't definitive proof that the original guidance is wrong -- even though the new evidence is much stronger than the evidence behind the original guidance. 2/2

@hannu_ikonen There is more to this story.
I looked into this in April and May 2020. (I have some background in indoor air pollution and more in multiphase flow in porous media.)
I was able to find the original papers from the ~1930s. The experiments were all done at low humidity. The basic idea was that small aqueous droplets will evaporate before they go very far.
As I said then in this blog comment, this ignores the non-aqueous components of the droplet.
https://pedestrianobservations.com/2020/05/15/is-the-united-states-giving-up-on-public-transportation/#comment-76785
1/2

@Alon @mekkaokereke Canvassing in Pennsylvania I've been to plenty of houses where the wife is voting D and the husband R. Mostly the husband knows, but I was at one where the wife whispered to me & said don't let my husband hear this.

Wall Street & Big Tech deploy their wealth to force the most pro-labor president since FDR off the ballot.
They say their goal is to beat Trump, but I can't think of anything Trump would enjoy more than running against their candidate.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/04/us/politics/biden-donors.html?unlocked_article_code=1.4k0.bMH-.H524BKGsN1F0&smid=url-share

Pressure grows on Tesla to sign union contract in Sweden as workers in Sweden's DMV stop issuing license plates to new Teslas https://finance.yahoo.com/news/tesla-sues-swedish-agency-striking-124735097.html

Minneapolis-area bus system launches study aimed at adding bus lanes, signal priority, curb extensions etc system-wide.
But some of busiest routes left out of study because they're under study for future "BRT" & this is just like BRT.
Explain to me why there are two studies. What possible advantage is there to planning this as two networks rather than a single bus network that's as good as possible, other than to use "BRT" as an excuse for not building rail lines??
https://www.minnpost.com/metro/2023/08/technology-not-just-luck-keeping-metro-transit-buses-and-trains-running-on-time/

Ukrainian refugee flees to Columbus OH with her 2-yr-old child. Moves back to Kyiv because the bus service is so bad. https://talkingpointsmemo.com/prime/a-short-week-in-kyiv