Friday’s Headlines
Low-clearance rapid transit could be faster than trolleys and cheaper than subways. Trams run at street level except at major intersections, where they briefly dip underground. Meanwhile, minor cross streets are blocked off to cars, with those intersections only open to pedestrians. This lets trams avoid stopping at traffic lights without all that slow, expensive … Continued
By
Blake Aued
12:42 AM EST on November 8, 2019
- Low-clearance rapid transit could be faster than trolleys and cheaper than subways. Trams run at street level except at major intersections, where they briefly dip underground. Meanwhile, minor cross streets are blocked off to cars, with those intersections only open to pedestrians. This lets trams avoid stopping at traffic lights without all that slow, expensive digging. (Treehugger)
- Uber ran roughshod over local governments in its early days, but now that cities are increasingly regulating and taxing ride-hailing, the company wants to play nice. (The Verge)
- Seattle saw the largest drop in car ownership between 2010 and 2018, according to Census data — but the drop was only 3 percent, to 81 percent. The biggest increase was 4 percent in Philadelphia, where 69 percent of households have at least one car. New York City has the lowest rate of car ownership at 45 percent. (Seattle Times)
- The New York Times discovers the e-scooter craze. Could the scooter menace one day extend to Manhattan?
- Now that Cincinnati voters have tentatively repealed a small income tax dedicated to transit, advocates now have to convince them to approve a related sales tax hike that would bring in $130 million annually — a more difficult proposition. (WCPO)
- Thanks to Ohio’s new gas tax, the state DOT will spend $400 million on new road projects over the next four years, including widening two freeways. (Columbus Dispatch)
- More BS road widening is happening in Connecticut, funded largely by federal borrowing, according to a leaked draft of Gov. Ned Lamont’s $21 billion transportation plan (Hartford Courant). On the bright side, the plan does include some passenger rail upgrades (Connecticut Post).
- For wonks only, Boston’s Metropolitan Area Planning Council has a wealth of data on how people are using dockless shared bikes.
- Minneapolis’s Nice Ride bike-share wants to scrap dockless bikes next year and replace them with 2,000 docked pedal-assist models. (Bring Me the News)
- Drivers hit eight people in 10 years at one intersection alone in Tampa’s Seminole Heights neighborhood. (WFTS)
- Sacramento is quadrupling the number of protected bike lanes in the city, adding 93 blocks to the current 29. (KCRA)
- Miami won a $22 million grant to build part of “the Underline,” a 10-mile linear park underneath elevated Metrorail tracks. (Herald)
- A former mayoral candidate and advocate for the homeless in San Francisco wants to turn a Tenderloin parking lot into housing and a dog park. (Examiner)
- The Milwaukee Record comes to the stunning conclusion that people are more likely to ride a streetcar when the weather’s nice and things are going on downtown.
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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