I should definitely go downtown and catch those!

An e-Divvy parking platform taped off with caution tape on Argyle, right by the river

Is this River Park station on Argyle next? 👀

Two dark ducks (mergansers???) taking off from River Park

A male mallard sitting on some rocks giving side eye

An unknown eagle ish bird in the sky

A woodpecker on a tree branch

Plus some stills

The world is hard - so please accept this Chicago bird moment of zen

A photo of the inside of a CTA train with graffiti, showing timestamp on the right of Nov 22, 2014

A blue line platform photo timestampped Aug 28 2014

I couldn't find a photo of me riding the train as a kid, but I found the first photos Google Photos found that I took of a train - back in 2014, when I was 16/17 years old

Also, wow, the world sure was grainy back then

I've been riding the CTA with my brother (only two years older) since we were probably 10 or 12. It was safe, taught us independence and map skills, and meant that by high school we could explore and visit friends totally independently!

It sure beat being chaperoned around in a car everywhere

I think it's just not personally an issue for me - on Turbo my Gazelle Ultimate T10 from 2022 goes pretty dang quick! I think about it's lack of acceleration not at all and think about it's lack of power out all the time, since I'm using my phone for navigation 😂

Housing near public transit encourages car-free living A Bucktown resident is perplexed by neighbors who think housing near a Blue Line stop will bring more cars. Also, the Illini men's basketball team, Trump and what spring break was like for teens back ...

"When we build housing near a train, with less parking, we encourage a different kind of resident to move in: someone who doesn’t own a car, or someone who’s ready to finally get rid of the car he or she doesn’t want anymore." chicago.suntimes.com/letters-to-t...

A hopefully positive sign - from the article:

“There are car people, just bottom line,” he said. “But the way the city is coming up, a lot of people don’t buy cars. A younger generation, they don’t drive. They use bikes and they use the scooters all the time.”

Public transit deserves to be celebrated and valued, and needs it's stories told! That's something Nora Leerhsen mentioned during a recent conversation with @thewaroncars.bsky.social at an event hosted by @betterstreetschicago.org!

How do you celebrate transit?

I think it's so important to highlight how projects like these work and make spaces infinitely more pleasant. I used to avoid Lawrence like the plague because it was noisy and felt dangerous to walk along - it's still not perfect, but it feels a lot more pleasant!

A view down Lawrence Ave from Rockwell, showing a neon green bike rack and a sapling starting to turn green with buds

A view North on Lawrence by HarvesTime Foods showing two people walking side by side, with room to go past them on the left, and another sapling

A view looking North next to HarvesTime showing a much narrower sidewalk

A view South on Lawrence showing a very wide road and very narrow sidewalks

It makes me so happy to see these saplings on Lawrence blooming this spring, brought in just two years ago with a street redesign!

Look at the last two photos for what it looked like before these changes, with a narrower sidewalk that made it real unpleasant

(CC @andrefor40th.bsky.social)

Viktor standing wearing two cameras on him, one with a microphone mounted to it

Photo of me about to crouch walk all around this venue

Dual wielding cameras delivers results

Honestly I wish, but not enough flower covered signs for that bit

A small set of tightly bunched bright green sprouting leaves on a tree

A flower starting to bud on a bare tree with some colorful easter eggs hanging on it

[fin]

Small white flowers blooming on a tree branch

Yellow flowers dramatically lit in a beam of sun, against some shadow

White flowers with some blurred out construction signage behind

A No Turn On Red When Pedestrians Present sign somewhat obscured by small red flowers, with a red traffic light and Do Not Enter sign behind

Even more spring blooms

A blue and white disabled parking sign with Magnolia's blooming above it

Some delicate green flowers backlight in the sun against the thick trunk of their tree

Bright yellow flowers brightly lit in front of a dark Chicago gangway

Small purple flowers on a Chicago street, with some apartments and houses behind

Signs of spring 🧵

Same to you! You've got lots of cute content that puts a smile on my face 😁

Now are flowers and birds enough to make me feel better in the face of everything? Not quite. But a phone free photo walk definitely helped a lot

This is why I engage in what I would call is positive shit posting:

I have some stunning flower photos coming up for ya too to celebrate spring

A chunky mourning dove siting on a tree branch

Two male house sparrows sitting on a white roof

A chonky robin puffed up on a tree branch, looking valiant

A very rotund robin on the ground

In our time of need, it's time for borb indeed

How Pakistan’s solar boom is shielding it from worst of Iran war crisis A quarter of Pakistani households are now using solar panels. This insulates millions of families from the energy crisis

“Now, I don’t care if the prices of diesel increase,” he says, proudly pointing to the sun above. “As long as there is this sun, I can grow my watermelons.”

*That* is energy independence.

I guess to clarify, could you then run a grid more cheaply at 100% solar and storage then? My gut says no, because the huge amount of batteries you would need to then cover even rare nighttime or winter load is too high

This is hilarious to me considering my electrician friend owns a smaller truck but just takes the train to work (because by union rules tools are provided at the site)

Very very few people need a pickup, much less an extra large F-250

Giant Batteries Are Transforming the Way the U.S. Uses Electricity (Gift Article) They’re delivering solar power after dark in California and helping to stabilize grids in other states. And the technology is expanding rapidly.

I've seen a lot of data around California and batteries, but is there a ceiling around that? Does solar plus batteries always reduce cost or at a certain point does it tip over to causing more problems?

Welcome to Chicago! If you need any recs for food biking or anything else, lmk 💪🏻

Is this a bit or a fact?

Maybe I'm too... gullible

Honestly I just want USB-C charging and then I'm happy to just bring my laptop charger and plug in to an outdoor outlet, but I would love one of those wireless chargers that run through the kickstand 🤯