Thursday’s Headlines

By Blake Aued |
  • With Uber and Lyft’s prices spiking as they try to wean themselves off venture capitalists’ subsidies, some former ride-hailers are turning to cheaper bikes and scooters to get around. (TIME)
  • Indianapolis is famous for a car race, and less than 1 percent of workers commute by transit. But next month, its first bus rapid transit line will open — the beginning of a 62-mile BRT network that could transform the city at a cost of just $500 million. (City Lab)
  • High school and college students in Phoenix — many of whom use transit to get to school — are widely opposed to Prop 105, which would halt light-rail expansion. (Northeast Valley News)
  • San Francisco drivers have already killed as many people — 23 — in 2019 as they did in all of 2018. (SF Weekly)
  • Cincinnati’s streets are designed to encourage drivers to speed — one reason why a homeowner says his house has been hit 34 times. (WCPO)
  • The Washington Post tried one of D.C.’s 400 new electric mopeds.
  • Detroit’s QLine streetcar now uses the same payment system as city and regional buses. (Detroit News)
  • Milwaukee’s JobLine — a bus that takes city-dwelling workers to the suburbs, where there’s a surplus of jobs — is shutting down Saturday. (WUWM)
  • Downtown Las Vegas’ bike-share program is going electric. (Review-Journal)
  • A month after pledging $1.3 billion for the Montreal subway, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau committed to spend $1.2 billion upgrading Quebec City’s transit system. (Red Deer Advocate)
  • Uber, which lost $5.2 billion last quarter, is cutting its $200,000 annual balloon budget. Was the house from “Up” the inspiration for the flying car they’re working on? (SFGate)

Wednesday’s Headlines

By Blake Aued |
  • Uber and Lyft are distracting investors from better and cheaper ways to fix transportation. (The Week)
  • The Federal Transit Administration has awarded $85 million in grants for low- and no-emissions buses and $33 million for ferries. (SmartCitiesWorld)
  • Does this have anything to do with the FTA? Probably not! But the world’s largest electric ferry just made its maiden voyage. (CNBC)
  • It used to be easy to take transit to the beach. Not anymore. (City Lab)
  • San Diego is selling $335 million in bonds to help finance the Mid-Coast Trolley’s Blue Line extension. (Fox 5)
  • More than a fifth of Denver’s 76 pedestrian deaths since 2013 happened Federal Boulevard. It was one of the first streets targeted for a Vision Zero makeover last summer. (Westword)
  • A nonprofit for people with disabilities urges Phoenix voters to reject the anti-rail Prop 105. (Arizona Capitol Times)
  • Light rail is back up and running in Baltimore six weeks after a sinkhole shut down the system. (Fishbowl)
  • Six D.C. Metro stations are expected to reopen on Sept. 9, which will also mark the return of parking fees that were waived during construction. (WTOP)
  • The Rhode Island DOT wants to cut $37 million from pedestrian and bike infrastructure. (eco RI)
  • Columbus buses are moving faster now that they’re using a dedicated bus/bike lane (Dispatch), and a new dedicated bus lane opened last weekend in downtown Austin — and no, it’s not going the wrong way. (Spectrum News).
  • Life comes at you fast: A California IT professional thought he found a clever way to avoid getting tickets. He wound up with $6,000 worth of them and now refuses to pay. (The Drive)
  • Hasan Minhaj has figured out all the problems with American transit. (Milwaukee Record)

Tuesday’s Headlines

By Blake Aued |
  • Seniors need transportation alternatives more than ever, but they’re intimidated by ride-hailing apps. (New York Times)
  • Lyft is facing another class-action labor lawsuit. (Jalopnik)
  • The Baltimore Sun calls on President Trump to make a stronger push for the Senate’s bipartisan $287-billion highway bill.
  • After outlawing riding e-scooters at night and putting a moratorium on new providers, Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms says she has no plans to ban e-scooters entirely. She’s also promising to create new temporary protected bike lanes (AJC). Already one of Atlanta’s nine e-scooter companies is pulling out of the city, saying there’s too much competition (Curbed).
  • In Seattle, Lime bike batteries are catching fire (Crosscut), and some city officials want to crack down on people who park their rented bikes poorly (KING). Meanwhile, an e-scooter pilot program is set to launch in February — when it’s rainy and cold and no one in Seattle wants to leave the house (The Stranger).
  • Interstate construction in the 1960s claimed many homes in the black neighborhood of North Charleston. Now the South Carolina DOT is coming back for more. (Post and Courier)
  • More than a week before the Aug. 27 election to decide the fate of light rail in Phoenix, 110,000 people had already cast their ballots. (ABC 15)
  • The Twin Cities’ Metro Transit trains are now shutting down for two hours every weekday morning. What does that mean for the 180 to 275 homeless people who sleep on the train? (StarTribune, Streetsblog)
  • Denver has made only halting progress toward Vision Zero, but public opinion seems to be swinging that way after two cyclists’ high-profile deaths. (Outside)
  • Cafes are increasingly cluttering up sidewalks in Chicago. (Sun-Times)
  • Dockless Mad Max trucks? You think you’re kidding, Washington Post, but don’t give Silicon Valley any ideas.

Monday’s Headlines

By Blake Aued |
  • Construction workers are turning against Donald Trump because he’s failed to produce promised infrastructure jobs and introduced proposals that would lower wages. (Politico)
  • A company that UPS invested in has been secretly testing self-driving delivery trucks in Arizona since May. (Gizmodo)
  • A Pittsburgh startup invented a device that gathers highly detailed data about sidewalk conditions so planners can decide where to spend resources. (NEXT Pittsburgh)
  • This pop-up electric car charger doesn’t block the sidewalk unless it’s in use. (Treehugger)
  • In the midst of a rash of cyclist and pedestrian deaths, the New York Times editorial board urges Mayor Bill de Blasio to do more to protect people on bikes and on foot. (Hello, Gray Lady, but Streetsblog NYC has been doing that for years.)
  • Colorado’s economy would reap $700 million annually from high-speed rail along I-70, according to a new study — but where will the funding come from? (Colorado Public Radio)
  • Rowers — not drivers — are the surprising antagonists against a bike and pedestrian bridge over Washington, D.C.’s Anacostia River. (Washington Post)
  • If Phoenix voters approve Prop 105, artists who’ve designed public art for the Valley Metro light rail extension that would be out of a job. (New Times)
  • The Utah DOT is introducing bike boxes to Salt Lake City. (Tribune)
  • Streetcar roundup: Tempe construction has wrapped up for the season (AZ Big Media). Boise is setting aside $600,000 to study a circulator (Boise State Public Radio). Kansas City added a sixth streetcar to its fleet today (KSHB). A 70-year-old Fort Collins trolley is almost ready to return to service (Coloradoan).
  • This New Jersey driver gave a new meaning to the term “double-parked.” (NY Post)

Friday’s Headlines

By Blake Aued | | 1 Comment
  • Lack of investment by the federal government is causing America’s public transportation system to fall into disrepair. (Smart Cities Dive)
  • Driverless cars won’t save Uber and Lyft. (MarketWatch)
  • It seems like common sense, but new research suggests that easier access to transit will lure drivers away from their cars. (Bloomberg)
  • The California beach cruiser helped kick-start the cycling renaissance in the 1970s and ’80s. (City Lab)
  • A candidate for district attorney in San Francisco is proposing having an on-call prosecutor come to the scene of every traffic death. He says the DA’s office has been lax in prosecuting drivers who kill cyclists, pedestrians and other motorists. (Examiner)
  • Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner signed an executive order officially adopting Vision Zero. (Click 2 Houston)
  • The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority recently rolled out new cars on the Orange Line, but as Curbed points out, the T still has major problems.
  • The Complete Streets Louisville Coalition walked 15 miles of streets and found they need major safety improvements. (Courier Journal)
  • Expanding transit is a top priority for Portland, Maine, which is surveying residents to find out how they want to go about it. (Press Herald)
  • Toledo, Ohio, was supposed to be testing a self-driving shuttle bus by now, but what do you know? The technology just isn’t ready yet. (Blade)
  • Westword has an in-depth explanation of Denver’s Vision Zero efforts.
  • Seattle has a new superhero: the Bus Lane Avenger. (Patch)
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