DW Rowlands
@82streetcar.bsky.social
280 followers 220 following 330 posts
Freelance Urban Geographer and Master of Social and Anti-Social Sciences. A trains-trans in exile (from Maryland to South Holland). Learning Dutch.
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82streetcar.bsky.social
I should probably introduce myself. I'm a human geographer and civil servant with an interest in walkable urbanism and public transit. Professional website: dwrowlands.com.

I am also an autistic trans woman with interests in cooking Polish food, languages, ancient history, and religion.
A map of US states and Canadian provinces where I have cooked and/or eaten pierogi.
82streetcar.bsky.social
How would you position it to avoid part of it being in the middle of the harbor? Or would you just roll with that?
82streetcar.bsky.social
I've written up my work on the ETC Explorer on my webpage, complete with links for the public to download the data and documentation that was made publicly available before the Trump administration ordered it taken down.
Equitable Transportation Communities Explorer - DW Rowlands Solutions
During my eighteen months (2023-2025) in the Office of Policy Coordination and Development at the United States Department of Transportation (US DOT), I was technical lead for the development of the D...
dwrowlands.com
82streetcar.bsky.social
The Trump administration's policies forbidding me to use any restrooms in the building I worked in forced me to leave US DOT a few months later. I'm now working as an independent GIS and urban/transportation geography consultant, but the work I did on equity at US DOT is still important to me.
Equitable Transportation Communities Explorer - DW Rowlands Solutions
During my eighteen months (2023-2025) in the Office of Policy Coordination and Development at the United States Department of Transportation (US DOT), I was technical lead for the development of the D...
dwrowlands.com
82streetcar.bsky.social
Unfortunately, the ETC Explorer and the entire concept of targeting grants to disadvantaged and underserved communities was wiped away almost immediately by the new administration a couple of weeks after it went online.
Equitable Transportation Communities Explorer - DW Rowlands Solutions
During my eighteen months (2023-2025) in the Office of Policy Coordination and Development at the United States Department of Transportation (US DOT), I was technical lead for the development of the D...
dwrowlands.com
82streetcar.bsky.social
A year ago, I was working at the U.S. Department of Transportation, putting the finishing touches on the updated ETC Explorer model and building the web tool that we released at TRB to help discretionary grant applicants explain the types of disadvantage that their projects could help alleviate.
Equitable Transportation Communities Explorer - DW Rowlands Solutions
During my eighteen months (2023-2025) in the Office of Policy Coordination and Development at the United States Department of Transportation (US DOT), I was technical lead for the development of the D...
dwrowlands.com
82streetcar.bsky.social
Thread!
opensketchbook.bsky.social
"jim crow inspired the nuremberg laws" is a corruption of what actually happened, which is that nazi lawyers looked at jim crow laws hoping to mine its justifications and language for the creation of legal race categories, and by and large outright failed
chbarts.bsky.social
Post like this and I unfollow and mute. This is erasing centuries of European pogroms and other violence prior to WWII by making America the sin-eater for the entire Western world. I won't have it and I won't let it slide:
Reposted by DW Rowlands
bretdevereaux.bsky.social
Peisistratos literally tried once to overthrow the Athenian government using an unusually tall woman masquerading as the goddess Athena.

They have always been this dumb. They sometimes succeed anyway.
Reposted by DW Rowlands
murshedz.bsky.social
“[T]he broader aim of all this agitprop is far uglier. Trump has employed a form of state propaganda that may be unrivaled by any presidency in modern memory, and these MAGA influencers are generating material for that vile effort.”
gregsargent.bsky.social
This MAGA propaganda is deeply sinister. Stephen Miller has been lying about Portland/Chicago relentlessly. It's core to his project: He's trying to establish quasi-absolute power for Trump to simply invent pretexts by fiat to justify whatever abuses he launches. 5/

newrepublic.com/article/2016...
82streetcar.bsky.social
Really good explanation of what the Catholic priest who demanded admission to an ICE facility while carrying the Eucharist was doing, and why it was so symbolically effective.
rahaeli.bsky.social
It's always good to see priests who still remember there are *seven* Catholic social principles. Also, that noise you hear is the USCCB screeching to the Vatican and getting back nothing, lol
richraho.bsky.social
Chicago priest Fr. Larry Dowling describes procession to ICE facility: “No one had the courage to speak directly to us. No one from Homeland Security could stand in the presence of the Monstrance holding the Blessed Sacrament. No wonder. Evil is repelled, recoils in the presence of Christ.”
Reposted by DW Rowlands
doug.city
The standard—and not totally incorrect—narrative is that the US basically abandoned transit after WWII, but there was a real revival underway in the 1970s that stalled out by the mid-1980s as the political winds shifted. Things have improved since, but we've never fully recovered that ambition.
ndhapple.bsky.social
UMTA R&D spend from 1972-1989. The amounts in the 1980s appear to be overstated as a lot of those projects were commissioned in the 1970s and were finishing up. Dollars are not adjusted for inflation.

New spend by the late 80s was down to $13m/yr, $3m/yr of which went into 'privatization' =>
Tables of new R&D spend between 1985-1989. Spending on research related to train and system design had been entirely zeroed out. Table of R&D spend from 1972-1985. The wind-down begins in 1982.
82streetcar.bsky.social
Does that mean that the government/provinces have to (or are planning to) make replacement treaties for the older ones? Or just that the older treaties give the native groups less power?
82streetcar.bsky.social
Yeah, in retrospect, both your points make a lot of sense. And, of course, he was a big target of Turning Point's professor hate-lists.
82streetcar.bsky.social
I _really_ hope that you're right, here.
82streetcar.bsky.social
Things I learned about recently...
brilliantmaps.bsky.social
Countries That Have Eaten Their Prime Minister

The story: brilliantmaps.com/eaten-pm/
82streetcar.bsky.social
My impression from what @ellenteapot.ca was saying is that the difference is that British Columbia is actually legally obligated to / is in the process of trying to negotiate treaties for all its unceded land...which means its authority is kind of provisional / could be limited by eventual treaties?
82streetcar.bsky.social
What's the significance of whether the treaty is modern? (What does "modern" mean in this context?)
82streetcar.bsky.social
Huh...so everywhere in the prairie provinces and almost all of northern Ontario was ceded by treaty, but British Columbia in general wasn't, meaning that it has an irregular status where, outside reservations, the provincial government clearly is in charge, but they don't have a clear legal basis?
82streetcar.bsky.social
Wait, is the "unceded territory" phrase that one sees in land acknowledgements across North America all derived from a legal usage in British Columbia specifically?
82streetcar.bsky.social
Huh. What's the legal meaning of it in Canada?
82streetcar.bsky.social
Wow...on the outside that _really_ feels like a New England Protestant church of some sort. I don't know if I like the fitting-in-with-the-local-style or just feel like it looks wrong for a cathedral.
Reposted by DW Rowlands
madycast.com
He hasn't signed the other bills yet, but he still has days to do so
This headline is misleading for not mentioning that.

The gender education veto is bad, but far from the most important trans rights bill on his desk.

There's still time to contact Newsom for the rest!

www.gov.ca.gov/contact/
Reposted by DW Rowlands
whattheshea.bsky.social
“If we view feminism as the struggle of gender-marginalized people for bodily autonomy, rather than just calling these things “women's issues,” then we make room for all trans people within feminism.”
assignedmedia.org
"As much as our enemies are louder and crueler, and in many cases more powerful than ever, we have more allies than ever too."

Assigned Media interviews transmasc feminist @judedoyle.bsky.social
Jude Doyle On Manhood After Patriarchy — Assigned
Assigned Media interviews transmasc feminist author Jude Doyle.
www.assignedmedia.org
82streetcar.bsky.social
...wow.
catsuka.bsky.social
Rebecca Sugar (Steven Universe) to direct a "Moomins" animated feature film.
variety.com/2025/film/ne...
82streetcar.bsky.social
...Canada's Supreme Court decided to stop looking like santas!?