Tab Combs
@drtcombs.bsky.social
8.9K followers 1.9K following 1.9K posts
Transport-Equity-Resilience PhD. Researching & teaching🚶‍♀️🚲 🚌 & 🛣️. Occasional outbursts about dogs, kids, Davidson hoops, & gardening. My opinions are mine. She/hers. Villagist. Please read pinned post before following.
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drtcombs.bsky.social
You may be a very nice person but if you have no profile description, no posts, no profile pic (doesn't even have to be of you!), and follow a bazillion accounts, please don't follow me.
drtcombs.bsky.social
because they truly believe it's not their fault.
drtcombs.bsky.social
woot. any day with fewer oversized jeeps on the road is a good day by my reckoning
dannypalmer.bsky.social
The future is great, huh?

"A software update to Jeep 4xE models caused major malfunctions over the weekend – leaving many owners stranded and some in danger after their power failed."

www.thestack.technology/jeep-softwar...
Jeep software update bricks vehicles
“Please exercise extreme caution”
www.thestack.technology
drtcombs.bsky.social
the best ones have belt drive with CVT because it's quieter, smoother, and doesn't gunk up your pant leg
Reposted by Tab Combs
activetraveltt.bsky.social
“How are you designing a city for me as a teenager - without the need for a man to protect me, a rape whistle or having to plan it like a survival mission?”
#MobilityIsEquity #PoliticalWill
urbancyclinginstitute.substack.com/p/how-our-to...
How Our Toddlers and Teenagers Must Be Seen as Planners not Passengers
An Intergenerational Call for Active Transport Justice
urbancyclinginstitute.substack.com
drtcombs.bsky.social
I lived the first half of my childhood in Beaufort and have amazing friends and family there still. St. Helena Island (a short hop away) has an incredibly rich cultural history, full of the most wonderful and resilient humans you will ever meet.
www.penncenter.com en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_H...
Saint Helena Island (South Carolina) - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
drtcombs.bsky.social
Every shooting happens in someone's hometown.
This one happened in mine. It's terrifying and heartbreaking.
drtcombs.bsky.social
I'm legit giddy right now.
drtcombs.bsky.social
WAIT...does this mean we might get temporary fixes to our main bike/ped corridors in as little as two weeks?? THIS WOULD BE INCREDIBLY GOOD!!!

#ChapelHillNC #Chantal

Hey @triangleblogblog.bsky.social can y'all investigate?

content.govdelivery.com/accounts/NCC...
Trail Repairs Begin Next Week
content.govdelivery.com
drtcombs.bsky.social
I really hope I'm reading this right. It would be the VERY BEST news I've heard since Dolly announced she was still alive (and the second-best news in a whole lot longer than that)
drtcombs.bsky.social
WAIT...does this mean we might get temporary fixes to our main bike/ped corridors in as little as two weeks?? THIS WOULD BE INCREDIBLY GOOD!!!

#ChapelHillNC #Chantal

Hey @triangleblogblog.bsky.social can y'all investigate?

content.govdelivery.com/accounts/NCC...
Trail Repairs Begin Next Week
content.govdelivery.com
drtcombs.bsky.social
wait...is that a porta potty in the bike lane? WHY? there are THREE empty car lanes it could be in.
drtcombs.bsky.social
gosh that photo makes it perfectly clear that the only people using the near side of that road are either riding bicycles or going sideways in pickups
drtcombs.bsky.social
that intersection appears designed to absolutely punish anyone outside a car. malpractice at the very least.
Reposted by Tab Combs
oldenoughtosay.com
the answer to the trolley problem is not to pick who to sacrifice, it’s to dismantle the system that led to an unsafe trolley crossing.

if any part of your morality strategy involves picking a group to let die on a hill, throw the entire strategy out. it’s wrong.
Reposted by Tab Combs
costasamaras.com
In my remarks at UVA about AI & the environment, I said the next 10 years of AI energy policy, in data centers, power infrastructure, & society, will set the trajectory of costs and emissions, and who bears those costs and emissions, for the next few decades. We don't want to look back with regret.
scottdoney.bsky.social
Thanks so much @costasamaras.com for participating in today’s AI & Environment panel hosted by @uvaenvironment.bsky.social it was a great event with other panelists from @uvaenvisci.bsky.social and UVA @weldoncoopercenter.bsky.social
drtcombs.bsky.social
Oh heck no, 2025. You do not get to take Dolly, too.
drtcombs.bsky.social
FWIW. I am "anti" a campus that bans a safe, vital mode of transport, and any person who insists e-bikes are for people who can't pedal

@padremiguel.bksy.social I am on your side.
drtcombs.bsky.social
100%

I wear a helmet. If and when I get smashed by a driver, odds are the only thing my helmet will do is maybe, just maybe, sway the responding cop into believing the crash wasn't my fault.
drtcombs.bsky.social
prohibited on campus entirely? or just in dorms?

if the former, that's completely bonkers

if the latter, there's a rationale but I hate it
drtcombs.bsky.social
kind of a personal question, and also irrelevant
Reposted by Tab Combs
emily.space
Oooh the Nobel Prize is out today, so it's time for my yearly round of ignoring that news and reading about many of the women who were snubbed of the prize in the past and who the Nobel Prize committee refuses to apologise for. 🧪🔭
drtcombs.bsky.social
If you feel yourself being drawn in by a vision of uncongested city streets, please come talk to me. I can help. Traffic Impact Assessment will charm you, exploit your fear of driving slowly, and then will STAB YOU RIGHT IN THE BACK.

It's ok though. You're worth saving.
drtcombs.bsky.social
I got not beef with people getting in touch with their spiritual selves, but please, people, #TIA is snake oil. Do not fall for it! Please read my paper and save yourselves from that false prophet, "congestion mitigation"

#TrafficImpactAssessment

doi.org/10.1177/0739...
Evolution in Local Traffic Impact Assessment Practices - Tabitha S. Combs, Noreen C. McDonald, William Leimenstoll, 2023
This study evaluates the state of traffic impact assessment (TIA) practice at the local level in North Carolina and the Washington D.C. metro area. Using semist...
doi.org
drtcombs.bsky.social
Reader, I can assure you there is nothing in my paper that would lead any reasonable (or honestly, any unreasonable) human to draw that citation from it.
drtcombs.bsky.social
I am increasingly baffled...and alarmed.

What is the value of citations--one of the primary ways academics are judged--if they are generated through #AI #slop?

#AcademicSky #Academia
screenshot of the paragraph in which my research on traffic impact assessment is cited. The text reads: "Adaptation is an effort to modify movement patterns to suit specific requirements, such as adjusting, changing, rearranging, revising, and adding variations. Meanwhile, origination is creating new movement patterns to suit certain situations or problems, such as designing, composing, building, creating, constructing, and creating something new (Combs, McDonald, and Leimenstoll 2023)."