Tuesday’s Headlines

By Blake Aued |
  • A Tea Party group called No Tax for Tracks is making a last-ditch effort to convince Tampa voters to reject a $276-million transportation levy. (Tampa Bay Times)
  • MARTA is planning to build a 22-mile commuter rail line in the Atlanta suburb of Clayton County — another major expansion for the transit agency after decades of stagnation. (AJC)
  • Traffic deaths have fallen in Philadelphia since the City of Brotherly Love enacted Vision Zero, but short of the pace to eliminate them by 2030, the program’s goal. (Philly Mag)
  • California plaintiffs have filed a class-action lawsuit alleging that Bird and Lime acted negligently by “dumping” scooters all over Los Angeles, and that they should have known leaving them on sidewalks would injure people. (Washington Post, StreetsblogCAL)
  • Attending the next major protest in Washington might get a bit more expensive: The D.C. Metro hosts a public hearing Tuesday night on proposals to end free parking on weekends and holidays and raise fares during major events. (WTOP)
  • The San Francisco Chronicle jumps in late on the debate over whether ride-hailing services contribute to traffic congestion, urging Uber and Lyft to work with the city.
  • Lyft’s new sustainability director says the company is 100 percent carbon neutral. (Green Biz)
  • The Albuquerque Journal urges voters to continue a sales tax that funds transit.
  • Cincinnati will start testing its first-ever bus-only lane next month. (WCPO)
  • A Los Angeles talk-radio jock knows that slowing down traffic saves lives, but he still hates road diets anyway. (Press Enterprise)

Monday’s Headlines

By Blake Aued |
  • As Uber deals with PR crisis after PR crisis — most recently a $3.5-billion investment from Saudi Arabia, which murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi — and prepares for a potential $120-billion IPO, investors wonder if it’s the next Amazon or just a debt-ridden mirage. (Vanity Fair)
  •  Vice finally weighs in on the topic everyone has been talking about for a year or three: Will the proliferation of dockless e-scooters create a problems given that bikes and scooters are too slow to mix with cars and too fast for sidewalks?
  • Lyft rolls out electric scooters in Washington, D.C. (Curbed)
  • The Honolulu city council is likely to dip into property taxes for $44 million the Federal Transit Administration is demanding for a new light rail line. (KHON)
  • A Charlotte planning group is considering a new light rail stop in South End. (WSOC)
  • Ridership is falling on Cincinnati’s star-crossed streetcar (Enquirer). In other streetcar news, Tucson’s will be free Nov. 10 and 11 (KGUN), and Oklahoma recently finished its new tracks (Oklahoman).
  • Boise is adding bus rapid transit and bike lanes to gridlocked State Street. (Idaho Press)
  • Chicago Tribune columnist: Scrap the gas tax and start charging drivers by the mile to fund infrastructure.
  • Workers of the world unite — and take back the subway. (Commune)
  • Cars and bikes are always a dangerous combination. In Mississippi, you can add deer to the mix, too. (Jackson Clarion-Ledger)

Friday’s Headlines

By Blake Aued | | 1 Comment
  • As Uber grows, fares are dropping, turning the gig from a lucrative side hustle into a full-time trap with little hope of a living wage. (The Ringer)
  • Three California cities — San Francisco, San Jose and Los Angeles — top the list for worst streets in America, according to a study by TRIP, a D.C.-based transportation research group. Sounds like a good argument to vote against Prop 6. Find out where your city ranks here.
  • CNBC may have set a new record for breathless hyperloop coverage. Are they smoking as much as Elon Musk?
  • An architect envisions how gas stations can transition into charging stations as electric cars replace gas-powered ones. (Inverse) Maybe this will accelerate the process: Sweden is putting warning labels on gas pumps warning drivers of fossil fuel’s effect on climate. (Mobility Lab)
  • The Memphis Area Transit Authority has formed a committee to look at ways to raise $30 million and add 200,000 hours of bus service a year. (Flyer)
  • A Minnesota chamber of commerce leader argues that the state should spend more on mass transit, arguing that it will boost the economy and attract more millennial workers. (Echo Press)
  • King County Metro in Seattle is experimenting with a ride-hailing app. Users can summon a shuttle to take them to a park-and-ride station, if they live within three miles. Rides will be free at first, then cost as much as a bus. (Curbed)
  • An Akron road diet has gotten mixed reviews from residents. But it’s succeeded in slowing traffic — and wait until it connects to another trail that carries millions of riders, says one city official. (News 5 Cleveland)
  • Think America doesn’t have an infrastructure problem? Watch this video of an Arkansas bridge buckling as a bus crosses it. Luckily, the bus made it across — this time. (WNEP)
  • Formula 1 racing doesn’t just waste gas and glorify the automobile — it’s racist, too. (City Lab)
  • Transportation 4 America is hosting a conference in Atlanta in December for state-level leaders to learn about expanding access to transportation options.
  • This Chicago driver in a bike lane must be taking his cue from New York drivers. (NBC 5)

Thursday’s Headlines

By Blake Aued |
  • Not only are New Orleans streets unsafe for — and drivers hostile to — cyclists, but when a driver hits someone on a bike, police are often reluctant to investigate, even when presented with video footage. (Times-Pic)
  • City Journal editor Brian Anderson describes seeing a driver hit and kill a woman in a Washington, D.C. crosswalk. It seems like streets are getting even more dangerous, but “it doesn’t have to be this way,” he writes.
  • Five ways to make city streets friendlier to bikes and scooters: more roundabouts, forcing trucks to make deliveries at night, replacing car parking with scooter and bike parking and (duh) more bike and scooter lanes. (Bloomberg)
  • Cincinnati police are in full victim-blaming mode as they crack down on speeding drivers and distracted pedestrians. (Local 12)
  • A San Francisco study says Uber and Lyft are responsible for half the city’s increase in traffic since 2010. (Tech Crunch)
  • In contrast to many cities, most users of new dockless bike-share programs in Minneapolis and St. Paul seem to be following the rules. (Minn Post)
  • Dockless e-scooter company Bird is trying to get around municipal restrictions by delivering scooters directly to users’ doors. (WTVA)
  • Renew Atlanta, a $250-million program to tackle a backlog of road projects, doesn’t have enough money to get to all the projects on the list. Some, like making Howell Mill Road a complete street, will be scaled back or reprioritized. (Saporta Report)
  • Anti-transit gadfly Randal O’Toole thinks government investment in transit is wasteful, so we should just give people cars. He recently debated transportation consultant Jarrett Walker, who argued that cities need good transit because they can’t accommodate everyone driving. (City Lab)
  • An excerpt from “Building the Bicycling City” describes how the Dutch created an accessible urban biking culture. In rapidly growing Eindhoven, it had more to do with appeasing frustrated motorists by separating slow and fast traffic than encouraging cycling, which remained a popular mode post-World War II. (Next City)
  • The Hillsborough Metropolitan Planning Organization is organizing a “walk of silence” Saturday in memory of the 200 people killed in car crashes in the area each year. (Tampa Bay Times)
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