No kidding. If the author is on Hacker News: your spelling and grammar are impeccable, but you really need to lay out your ideas more clearly (which really is the most important part of a blog post!)
Just from the start:
> Garrett Wollman is giving an example, in the context of the Agricultural Branch, a low-usage freight line linking to the Boston-Worcester commuter line that could be used for local passenger rail service.
Imagine, just for fun, that a reader might not know who the famous Garrett Wollman is, what the Agricultural Branch is, or where the Boston-Worcester commuter line is? (Isn't Worcester in England and Boston in North America? Is there a transatlantic train service I'm ignorant about?) What do you think the above paragraph communicates to the reader?
> The more typical example of residential sprawl involves isotropic single-family density in a suburban region
Ah yes, isotropic density, that perennial scourge! The word isotropic of course means: “exhibiting properties (such as velocity of light transmission) with the same values when measured along axes in all directions”, which I didn't need to look up in a dictionary because it's such a common English word, and the meaning in the above sentence is self-explanatory, really.
Anyway, I think you get the point. This article is written in a way that's inscrutable to a general audience. That's fine if the blog is targeted at traffic nerds who talk about the isotropic density of the Agricultural Branch on the daily, but then why post it on Hacker News?
> What do you think the above paragraph communicates to the reader?
Nothing, really. I read the whole article and was constantly having the feeling that they were only a random sequence of overly technical words which after the fact hadn't conveyed any information. What an obtuse way of structuring ideas. I was thinking my English comprehension was nonexistent (which might be the case), until reading these comments here kind of confirmed me that "it's not me, it's them".
Just from the start:
> Garrett Wollman is giving an example, in the context of the Agricultural Branch, a low-usage freight line linking to the Boston-Worcester commuter line that could be used for local passenger rail service.
Imagine, just for fun, that a reader might not know who the famous Garrett Wollman is, what the Agricultural Branch is, or where the Boston-Worcester commuter line is? (Isn't Worcester in England and Boston in North America? Is there a transatlantic train service I'm ignorant about?) What do you think the above paragraph communicates to the reader?
> The more typical example of residential sprawl involves isotropic single-family density in a suburban region
Ah yes, isotropic density, that perennial scourge! The word isotropic of course means: “exhibiting properties (such as velocity of light transmission) with the same values when measured along axes in all directions”, which I didn't need to look up in a dictionary because it's such a common English word, and the meaning in the above sentence is self-explanatory, really.
Anyway, I think you get the point. This article is written in a way that's inscrutable to a general audience. That's fine if the blog is targeted at traffic nerds who talk about the isotropic density of the Agricultural Branch on the daily, but then why post it on Hacker News?