Tuesday’s Headlines

By Blake Aued | | 1 Comment
  • As Atlanta finalizes a $2.5-billion transit expansion plan, it’s looking to Minneapolis for inspiration. (AJC)
  • “Cars own the best real estate” in Annapolis, says Mayor Gavin Buckley in defense of the downtown bike lane that’s divided the city. (Capital Gazette)
  • Greater Greater Washington agrees with Streetsblog that e-scooters aren’t necessarily dangerous—but our streets are. Scooter deaths are likely the fault of poor street design that favors cars over other modes of transportation.
  • The Hill has more on the Trump Administration refusing to distribute transit funds. Congress increased funding for transit, and the Federal Transit Administration is thwarting its will.
  • Baton Rouge-area cyclists gathered for a 100-mile ride along a route where a driver killed a city councilman three months ago to promote bike safety. (The Advocate)
  • Milwaukee residents got an up-close look at The Hop, the city’s new streetcar, over the weekend. (CBS 58)
  • Downtown Dayton residents are worried that a major new employer will eat up all the on-street parking in the neighborhood. How about better transit so employees don’t have to drive to work? (Daily News)
  • New details have emerged in the case of a Pinellas County, Fla. shooting over a shopping center parking spot, including the shooter’s alleged use of racial slurs. (Tampa Bay Times)
  • Bike shares open in San Marcos, Tex. (KXAN) and Annapolis (Bay Weekly), expand in Fairfax, Va. (WTOP), eye Tampa (WFTS).
  • Mobility Lab has a roundup of PARK(ing) Day temporary parklets in the D.C. area.

Monday’s Headlines

By Blake Aued |
  • Road design is the biggest factor in bike safety, according to a University of Minnesota study that Streetsblog covered last week. Here’s some coverage from the Post Bulletin.
  • Cycle commuting is dropping — except in cities. (WIRED)
  • The San Diego Union-Tribune is urging a “no” vote on Proposition 6 — repealing a recent gas tax hike — in part because the tax funds commuter rail.
  • Houston METRO is planning to extend two light rail lines to Hobby Airport. (KWHOU)
  • Perhaps shook by recent backlash against the South Phoenix light rail project, the Phoenix City Council is considering pulling funds from two other light rail extensions to pay for street repairs. (Downtown Devil)
  • Philadelphia may create a new type of unarmed police officer to enforce traffic laws. The police union is opposed, but other city officials see appointing approximately 100 non-sworn traffic officers as a way to ease traffic gridlock. (Inquirer)
  • Delaware Transit Corp. is building new bus shelters on Wilmington’s busiest route, a new bus-only lane and a new transit center. (Delaware Public Media)
  • The D.C. Metro spent $12 million to prevent water from leaking onto underground tracks, one of the main causes of smoke and fire. (Post)
  • A Tallahassee Uber driver was charged with kidnapping after a trapped rider jumped out of the car (Democrat). A driver in Augusta, Ga. is accused of stabbing two passengers (WJBF). And a Washington state cab driver rammed a passenger who tried to pay with the Uber app (Tri-City Herald)
  • The Netherlands is making bike lanes out of recycled plastic. (Arch Daily)

Friday’s Headlines

By Blake Aued |
  • The $3.3-billion transit plan Houston unveiled this week, tentatively set for a vote in November 2019, is heavy on dedicated bus lanes, but rail could be put back into the mix. (Chronicle)
  • The campaign to pass a 1-percent sales tax for transportation in Hillsborough County, Fla., has strong support from Tampa-area businesses. (Florida Politics)
  • Atlanta’s booming exurbs are struggling to fund their growing transit needs. (WABE) Meanwhile, Metro Atlanta’s transit agency is considering shifting funding from Clifton Corridor light rail — which the city annexed Emory University to build — to the Atlanta Beltline, where advocates want funding to build more of a proposed 22-mile light rail line along the trail. (AJC)
  • A group called MilWALKee Walks is placing memorials at intersections where 12 Milwaukee residents were hit by drivers while walking. Forty-four percent of Wisconsin’s pedestrian deaths happen in the Cream City despite having just 10 percent of the state’s population. (Fox 6)
  • St. Louis County is considering withholding millions of funds for Metrolink security until the transit agency improves security — because less money will really help it curb crime. (KSDK)
  • Columbus’s lone protected bike lane is popular, but the Ohio capital city has no plans for actually building them. (Underground)
  • Streetcar success: The Kansas City streetcar hit 5 million rides in a little over two years, and the city is looking to buy two more cars (KSHB). In Tucson, the Sun Link streetcar hit 4 million riders in four years (Arizona Daily Star).
  • Cities that felt powerless to make demands of Uber and Lyft have wised up and are getting better about extracting data from e-scooter companies. (WIRED)
  • While cities are caught up in autonomous cars or dockless scooters, walkability is what makes a city great. And it’s easy and often relatively cheap to make a city more walkable. (The Guardian)

Thursday’s Headlines

By Blake Aued |
  • Pittsburgh is again seeking $100 million from the feds for bus rapid transit (Tribune-Review). A previous plan was pulled because riders protested service cuts that would have paid for part of the project. (NEXTPittsburgh)
  • Minneapolis’s bike-share thinks it has a less chaotic system for dockless bikes. Rather than riders leaving bikes anywhere, Nice Ride is setting up “virtual stations,” or designated pickup and drop-off points marked by paint. (Fast Company)
  • Ann Arbor, Mich. is working on a deal with Bird to lay out where the dockless scooters can be parked — near curbside planters, for example, where they won’t block foot traffic. (MLive)
  • Police state? BART can track riders on San Francisco trains — and it turned that data over to ICE. (City Lab)
  • Mayors are so busy fawning over electric cars they’ve forgotten about less sexy (and cheaper) climate change solutions, like walking and biking. (Curbed)
  • The Wisconsin Bike Federation is leading a ride along the route of The Hop, Milwaukee’s new streetcar, to teach cyclists how to stay safe while riding near it. (Journal Sentinel)
  • Brightline, which operates a private passenger rail service in Florida, has acquired the rights to high-speed rail between Las Vegas and Victorville, Calif., and says it will break ground next year. The project had been on hold since 2012 under former owner XPressWest. (KTNV)
  • The two frontrunners for mayor of Phoenix support a controversial south Phoenix light rail project, but two upstart candidates say they didn’t do enough outreach while on the city council. (Arizona Republic)
  • Today in road rage: A Santa Rosa, Calif. man is in critical condition after getting into a fight over an SUV door hitting a truck in a casino parking lot. (Press Democrat)
  • Think congestion is bad now? Wait until Kroger starts delivering groceries in autonomous vehicles. Streets don’t have room for all those extra trips, and cities are ill prepared. (Urbanism Next)
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