Today’s Headlines
Ten years after a deadly California train crash, a third of railroads still don’t have positive safety control, a safety measure Congress mandated after the crash. (WaPo) The Seattle Times delves deep into the $3-billion I-405 widening project, which includes new toll lanes (boo!), five bike and pedestrian paths and an 11-stop bus rapid transit … Continued
By
Blake Aued
9:52 AM EDT on September 12, 2018
- Ten years after a deadly California train crash, a third of railroads still don’t have positive safety control, a safety measure Congress mandated after the crash. (WaPo)
- The Seattle Times delves deep into the $3-billion I-405 widening project, which includes new toll lanes (boo!), five bike and pedestrian paths and an 11-stop bus rapid transit network (yay!).
- Tucson is the latest city to ban dockless electric scooters (KVOA). That’s a misguided policy, writes Vox’s Matthew Yglesias. They fill a niche in urban transportation—less physically demanding than biking and cleaner than cars—and cities should be designed around them.
- Bad and busted: An Alpharetta, Ga. man hit another man with his car twice during a dispute over a parking spot. He’s been charged with aggravated assault (WSB). A White Plains, N.Y. mom says an Uber driver took her disabled son on a joyride to jack up the fare (News 12). In L.A., an Uber driver was caught on video trying to lure a teenage girl into his car (KTLA).
- Baltimore, which for years has lagged behind other cities in bike infrastructure, is finally catching up with the adoption of a new policy on fire-truck access that will make it easier to add more bike lanes. (Sun)
- Meanwhile, Capital Gazette readers are no fans of Annapolis Mayor Gavin Buckley’s plan to replace downtown parking with bike lanes and sidewalk cafes.
- New Orleans’s bike-share program is free for one hour each day in September. (Curbed)
- City Lab explains induced demand—the idea that widening freeways never reduces congestion, because the additional lanes just attract more drivers.
- Domino’s is getting a lot of mileage out of a publicity stunt involving filling potholes. The fact that cities are willing to play along for a few hundred bucks’ worth of road work is an indictment of American infrastructure funding. (Eater)
Blake Aued has been doing Streetsblog's daily national news digest for years. He's also an Atlanta Braves fan, which enrages his editor in New York.
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