Monday’s Headlines
Seven months after a self-driving car killed an Arizona woman who was crossing the street, Uber wants to start testing autonomous vehicles on public roads again. (The Verge) Lyft drivers are joining their Uber counterparts in suing to be considered employees rather than contractors, meaning labor protections like minimum wage laws would apply to them. … Continued
By
Blake Aued
12:01 AM EST on November 5, 2018
- Seven months after a self-driving car killed an Arizona woman who was crossing the street, Uber wants to start testing autonomous vehicles on public roads again. (The Verge)
- Lyft drivers are joining their Uber counterparts in suing to be considered employees rather than contractors, meaning labor protections like minimum wage laws would apply to them. (Tech Spot)
- Carmaker General Motors recently unveiled two electric bikes it plans to start selling in 2019. (USA Today)
- The Portland City Council officially approved the Southwest Corridor light rail line. It’s the most expensive project in TriMet history at $2.6 billion, and is expected to carry 20 percent of the traffic between Portland and nearby Tigard once it’s completed. (KATU)
- Unlike many near-useless streetcars (coughAtlantacough), Milwaukee’s The Hop, which started running Friday, is designed to serve downtown residents, not tourists, connecting housing with shopping rather than museums with sports arenas. (Journal Sentinel)
- Detroit’s People Mover, on the other hand, is a prime example of transit that doesn’t really go anywhere or serve anyone. It sure is fun to ride, though. (City Lab)
- Seattle is stepping up enforcement on drivers who block bike lanes, bus lanes and intersections. Mayor Jenny Durkin also wants to change state law so the city can use red-light cameras to catch violators. (KIRO)
- More talk that a Democratic win on Tuesday could revive Trump’s infrastructure bill. (Yahoo, Barron’s)
- California Gov. Jerry Brown made a rare campaign appearance in San Francisco to, um, rail against Prop 6, which asks voters to repeal the state’s new transit- and road-funding gas tax hike. (Chronicle)
- Even Alec Baldwin gets road rage. The actor was arrested Friday in New York and accused of punching a man in a disagreement over a parking space. (CNBC) And, of course, StreetsblogNYC blamed free parking as the real villain.
- A streetcar named “Look Out!”: One of New Orleans’s historic rail cars hit a garbage truck last week. (NOLA.com)
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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