Wednesday’s Headlines
- Is “Infrastructure Week” no longer a joke? Axios reported Monday that President Trump hated his own public-private infrastructure proposal and secretly wanted to spend $2 trillion in actual tax dollars. Sure enough, when Trump left a meeting with Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer on Tuesday, they’d agreed to $2 trillion in spending to upgrade highways, railroads, bridges and broadband. They’ll meet again in three weeks to talk about how to pay for it—which, pun intended, is where the rubber meets the road. (NY Times)
- One problem with the bipartisan “infrastructure” bill is that it'll be a disaster for the environment — so supporters of the Green New Deal rallied outside Schumer’s office to protest his capitulation to Trump’s desire to build more roads and burn more fuel (NY Post). The good news? The Gateway Tunnel project, a Schumer favorite, might move forward (NY Post)
- When a small town in Ontario opted to subsidize Uber rides rather than start a transit system, it was a big hit. Problem is, when ridership rises, so do costs, and Innisfil has implemented a cap on rides. Buses, however, get more efficient the more people use them. (City Lab)
- Even this Automobile Magazine columnist is in favor of congestion pricing and better transit and walking and biking infrastructure in cities’ urban cores.
- Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke’s climate change plan says next to nothing about cars, even though they account for a fifth of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S.
- Speaking of which, do electric cars really pollute more than gas-powered ones, as the Wall Street Journal claims? No, they do not. (Jalopnik)
- Ever wonder how cities decide where to build sidewalks? Indiana Public Media explains the process in Bloomington.
- Duke University wasn’t a lone gunman. A lot of factors conspired to kill the Durham-Orange light rail line, according to this Duke Chronicle postmortem.
- Light rail is raising property values on St. Paul’s University Avenue. (Pioneer Press)
- Lime e-scooters are returning to Spokane, Wash. This time, keep them off the sidewalk. (Spokesman-Review)
- A Boston dad laments that the city's streets are too dangerous to teach his daughter how to ride her bike. (WBUR)
- San Francisco workers sick of paying exorbitant rates for co-working space are parking their butts (and laptops) in some of the city's cheap, plentiful parking spots. (Fast Company)
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