Thursday’s Headlines
- Pedestrian deaths are at a 30-year high because drivers are more distracted than ever. Almost half of drivers are “phone addicts” who are more dangerous on the road than drunk drivers. (Fast Company)
- Self-driving vehicles are a delusion that, in 50 years, will be looked upon as a “futile, antisocial endeavor,” an expert on artificial intelligence writes in Vox.
- Medium-sized cities like Nashville are mostly over-paved and car-centric. Here are some of the little things they can do to improve their transportation systems, without breaking the bank on infrastructure. (Mobility Lab)
- An $88-million Federal Transit Administration Grant will pay to upgrade a bus rapid transit line in Portland (Oregonian). In addition, Spokane won a $52 million federal grant for its first BRT line (Spokesman Review). But the paper also reports that the Washington state government is spending almost $200 million on a new freeway.
- The South Carolina House of Representatives passed a bill requiring Uber and Lyft drivers to display illuminated signs in their vehicles after a college student who mistakenly getting into the wrong car was murdered. (The State)
- Since it opened in 2007, Charlotte’s Blue Line has drawn 58 million riders and $3.5 billion in development — a major success that proved transit doubters wrong. (Agenda)
- Ohio is boosting state funding for transit by nearly $40 million, but that won’t be enough to fix Cincinnati’s struggling system. (WCPO)
- Los Angeles will create permanent memorials to cyclists killed by drivers — “a place where the realism of death hits you,” as one bike advocate put it — as part of its Vision Zero initiative. (Curbed)
- Australia is spending $500 million on parking near train stations, but The Conversation points out that park-and-ride lots waste land and do little to boost transit ridership, and says there are better ways to spend the money, like buses connecting universities to city centers.
- If Duke University killed the Durham-Orange light rail line and GoTriangle said it had no pulse, the Durham County Commission just took it off life support. (INDY Week)
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