For 11 weeks, I tracked all of my AI use. One hundred sessions. I counted the tokens processed and applied publicly available numbers on per-token energy and water intensity from Epoch AI and operator-reported data from Microsoft and Google. Anyone can run this math.

In those 11 weeks, I built an iOS app from scratch and wrote policy briefs on extreme heat for nonprofits I work with. I produced documentary pitch decks and drafted a 15,000-word climate fiction piece about the Colorado River collapse. I used AI every single day, often for hours at a time.

Total lifecycle water footprint of all that work: about five gallons. That accounts for everything: the water used to cool the data centers, the water consumed at power plants to generate the electricity, and the water embedded in manufacturing the hardware.

When an Outside editor reached out to ask me to write this story, I was on a trip to Marble Canyon, Arizona, to train raft guide companies on what is happening with the river. I drove my diesel Sprinter van from Tucson to the site, which tallied 383 miles at 20 miles per gallon of gasoline. When I ran the numbers later, the lifecycle water footprint of my fuel was around 110 gallons. One drive to the work I do on the Colorado River used more than 20 times the water of everything I did with AI in 11 weeks. That comparison stopped me cold—and I study this for a living.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is on the hunt for parking in Lower Manhattan — but they’re not just circling the block waiting for a spot to open up. Instead, they’re looking to rent out a whole parking lot.

ICE put out a call for information from parties interested in securing a contract with the agency for up to 150 parking spaces, according to a government procurement document posted online on April 16. The infamous immigration enforcement agency is looking for a lot in the vicinity of its Varick Street field office in Hudson Square, just south of downtown New York City’s tony West Village.

“We should all be ensuring that we’re not complicit.”

The need for parking of ICE vehicles set off alarms for immigrant advocates like Murad Awawdeh, president of the New York Immigration Coalition, who called on garage owners to resist the temptation of “a quick buck” in exchange for making ICE’s job easier.

“The Trump administration continues to expand its war on immigrants, and in this moment it’s incumbent on private parking facilities to not collude with immigration enforcement that separates families and guts our communities,” Awawdeh said. “New Yorkers are outraged by what we’re seeing day in and day out, and we should all be ensuring that we’re not complicit.”

ICE operates a fleet of vehicles to use in its deportation operations, including unmarked vehicles that agents use to get around and take people into custody. At a downtown lot near its Varick Street office, ICE has stored compact cargo vans with internal cages — the sort used to transport immigrant detainees —  according to local news site The City. The contract for that lot is set to expire.

The new request for information about potential contracts says, “The ICE NYC Field Office is seeking no more than 150 exclusive secure, reserved indoor parking spaces to accommodate a mix of SUVs, mid-sized vans, and mini-buses.”

[

Related

ICE Drives Unmarked Cars. This Public Database Tracks Their License Plates.](https://theintercept.com/2026/01/02/ice-license-plates-database/)

There are at least a dozen parking garages within a quarter mile of the office operated by ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations at Varick and West Houston streets, the distance specified in the request for information. Among the other requirements listed are 24/7 security monitoring, a single designated space within the facility for ICE vehicles, key-card access controlled by ICE, and a minimum height clearance of 7 feet and 6 inches. (ICE and its parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)

The posting of the procurement document comes as one of the agency’s go-to parking spots in the area is set to become unavailable to ICE vehicles. In January, the Hudson River Park Trust, a publicly owned corporation overseen by the state and the city which administers the garage at Pier 40, announced it would allow its contract for ICE parking at a waterfront garage to expire.

A New York-based ICE observer, who asked for anonymity to avoid retaliation, told The Intercept they had seen unmarked ICE vehicles used for deportation operations using the Pier 40 garage as recently as last week.

The Trust had maintained the contract with ICE dating back to 2004, but, amid the mounting criticism of ICE for its instrumental role in President Donald Trump’s hyper-aggressive immigration crackdown, the corporation said it was no longer interested in providing space or taking ICE money.

“The Trust is currently in the last year of a five-year parking contract that commenced during the previous federal administration and does not intend to renew the contract,” a spokesperson for the organization told The City. News of the group’s continued business with ICE was first reported by Sludge, and its intent to let the contract expire was first reported by Hell Gate, another local news site.

It was unclear from the new request for information if the need for parking spaces is meant to address existing demand for ICE parking or whether it would be intended to accommodate any increased presence of ICE vehicles in Manhattan. In the 15 months since Trump returned to power, immigrant advocates in the city have waited in uneasy anticipation for a surge of Department of Homeland Security agents like those seen in Chicago, Los Angeles, and Minneapolis.

[

Related

Federal Agents Are Intimidating Legal Observers at Their Homes: “They Know Where You Live”](https://theintercept.com/2026/03/05/ice-cbp-minnesota-surveillance-intimidation-observers/)

Thus far, it hasn’t arrived. But amid periodic threats from the Trump administration to target so-called sanctuary cities like New York, the threat of a large-scale surge remains on the minds of immigrants and their supporters.

For ICE observers in the city, monitoring ICE parking facilities is a key part of keeping tabs on the agency and trying to divine its upcoming moves.

“Agents are important to this process, but the vehicles they move in are of almost equal importance, and many of these vehicles begin and end their days at these contract lots,” said the New York-based ICE observer. “They have aggressive abduction quotas that they’re pursuing, and when you think about what they need to reach those quotas, people often think about detention capacity, but that’s the post-abduction side. The pre-abduction side is where you put all the goddamn cars.”

Oil price spikes caused by the US and Israel’s war in Iran are straining the pocketbooks of ordinary citizens the world over. But a new study shows that even in normal times, dependence on fossil fuels poses a tremendous financial cost while a small group of companies reaps the rewards.

The report published by the environmental group 350.org on Tuesday found that people around the world are subsidizing the fossil fuel industry to the tune of $12 trillion per year, a cost of about $1,400 for every person on Earth…

…In addition to calling for an immediate end to both the war in Iran and Israel’s war against Lebanon, 350.org called on governments around the world to tax the industry’s wartime windfall profits and put the money toward lowering the energy bills of ordinary families.

The group also called to replace fossil fuel subsidies with household support and subsidies for cheaper renewables, which it says will be resistant to the shocks that oil and gas regularly face.

Headline: Land Rover driver mortified after finding mocking note saying 4x4 owners are 'entitled to free NHS penis enlargement therapy on his vehicle'

And the picture shows a man sitting in the driver seat of his 4x4 holding up the note.

cross-posted from: https://aussie.zone/post/31860675

Last year 219 people were seriously injured on Seattle streets, the majority of whom were driving or passengers, and around a third were pedestrians…As for deaths, 27 people died in traffic collisions last year, and the majority (18) were people walking.

People on Seattle streets interact with Vision Zero projects everyday: dozens of “No Turn on Red” signs, increased intersection visibility, and speed humps.

Advocates testified before [Seattle city] council members that they already know where the problem is…“And the ingredient that’s been missing has not been a lack of ideas or commitment from Seattle Department of Transportation, it’s been a lack of political will.”

cross-posted from: https://discuss.tchncs.de/post/58799415

By Robert Ariail

The nearly 1,200-metre bridge is said to be the longest bridge in the world that will exclusively serve pedestrians, cyclists and trams.

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/58742992

Slammers

12,000+ words

https://archive.is/fHKon

cross-posted from: https://aussie.zone/post/31773328

Cars are unsafe at any speed. We need to ban them.

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/58724606

Cross-Posted, via ShitPost Community.

Those who use the bike know this very well: in the city, speeding motorists overtaking other cars, only get one thing: they arrive first to the next red.

With a simple model, the author estimated the probability that one car that overtakes another, will then be reached again at a later red light. Then he estimated the probability that the same thing will happen when there are multiple successive traffic lights, as usual in the cities.

The result is that as fast as an aggressive driver goes, the presence of multiple traffic lights makes it virtually certain that a slower driver will catch up

So, if someone aggressively overcomes you, when you reach him at the next traffic light, you can tell him that it is mathematically proven that he/she is an idiot.

In addition, this study has implications for the 30 km/h city, demonstrating how in urban areas the traffic lights determine the travel times, not the maximum speed reachable between one traffic light and the next.

The original scientific article is here: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/rsos/article/13/4/260310/481212/The-Voorhees-law-of-traffic-a-stochastic-model

crossposted from: https://poliversity.it/users/rivoluzioneurbanamobilita/statuses/116419204210303856

Cross-Posted, via ShitPost Community.

Paris Marx is joined by Dara Kerr to discuss how Elon’s decision to prioritize aesthetics over safety has created a safety crisis causing people to burn alive in their Cybertrucks and other Tesla vehicles.

In today’s world, “Armageddon” refers to a worst-case scenario, a total breakdown of normal functioning. That is exactly where the LA28 Olympic mobility plan finds itself. Los Angeles Metro requested nearly $2 billion in Federal funds for its plan, and expected to receive it, but the Trump administration’s budget unveiled last Friday excluded it.

Without those funds a fluid, Mayor Karen Bass‘ proclamation of a “no-car Games” is impossible. To fully understand the shortcoming, consider this: to create a bus fleet suitable for the Games, it must temporarily acquire, operate and store nearly 1,750 additional buses (the number has been scaled down from 3,000 to 2,700 to 1,750, whenever a critical milestone was not met). At the same time thousands of operators, mechanics and support personnel have to be hired, trained and State-certified.

It is a shock beyond Metro’s ability to absorb it. Without these funds, Los Angeles’ transportation system could hit the breaking point. “Without the full level of funding requested, the complete scope of the Games Enhanced Transit System would not be feasible, as the cost of operating this temporary system exceeds Metro`s available operating resources,” the agency has said.

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