Friday’s Headlines
- There’s safety in numbers. The flaw in Vision Zero is that it targets deaths alone, discounting close calls, instead of asking why more people don’t ride bikes. (Jalopnik)
- Having fallen into disuse and disrepair, some of America’s first parking garages are finding new life as mixed-use developments. But parking garages are hard to retrofit, so some architects are now designing them to be easier to turn into something else one day. (Governing)
- Waymo — Google parent company Alphabet’s self-driving car subsidiary — is opening up a treasure trove of data to researchers for free. (Road Show)
- E-scooter provider Bird is ending a program that helped cities pay for new bike lanes over concerns that they’re misusing the funds. (Smart Cities Dive)
- If he’s elected president, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders says he’ll make it easier for “gig economy” workers like Uber and Lyft drivers to unionize. (Gizmodo)
- A massive, must-read Willamette Week project dubbed “Blindsided” shows that Portland’s Vision Zero program isn’t working.
- Volunteers in Washington, D.C. fanned out Wednesday and counted more than 300 vehicles illegally parked in bus-only lanes (Fox 5). Philadelphia has a similar problem, and Philly Mag published a column about drivers parking in bike lanes.
- Virginia’s two-year-old cross-state bus partnership with Megabus, known as Breeze, has exceeded initial ridership estimates by 200 percent. (Greater Greater Washington)
- In addition to a penny sales tax for transportation voters approved last year, Tampa-area officials are also mulling a 5-cent gas tax hike. (WTSP)
- IndyGo’s new CEO wants to make Indianapolis transit one of the most accessible systems in the country. (Star)
- The New Orleans Regional Transit Authority is looking for a new company to oversee passenger ferries. (The Advocate)
- Denver is installing corrals for dockless bikes and scooters in hopes of keeping sidewalks free of clutter. (KDVR)
- San Antonio will launch a “sidewalk squad” next year to patch up two miles of cracked pavement. (Rivard Report)
- How did this Toronto streetcar get in the middle of the woods? The internet wants to know! (Narcity)
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