Friday’s Headlines

• As cities like Rotterdam, Paris, and San Francisco have shown us, car-free streets will soon be the norm as cities reorient themselves around people. (City Lab)
• Leaders at Amtrak and transit agencies in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Denver, Chicago and elsewhere shared their hopes and challenges for 2020 with Progressive Railroading. They believe infrastructure will be a top priority in the coming year, but some are dealing with workforce shortages.
• The Metro Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority, which hasn’t laid a foot of new rail in a generation, is finalizing a $27-billion plan to get people out of their cars with new light and heavy rail and bus rapid transit. The plan will put 420,000 additional jobs and 394,000 more low-income, minority or carless households within reach of transit. (AJC)
• Electric car owners don’t pay gas taxes, but then again, there’s relatively few of them on the road right now. So roads are crumbling not because e-vehicle drivers avoid gas taxes, but because of many other factors. Here’s a primer on what we can do. (Cal Matters)
• Virginia’s transportation secretary sees a gas tax hike as a “bridge” to other sources of funding, such as tolls, that can restore funding for local roads, as well as pay for Amtrak improvements. (WTOP)
• The North Carolina DOT finally finished a “sidewalk to nowhere” over a freeway dividing a Raleigh neighborhood. (CBS 17)
• San Francisco is fast-tracking several bike lane projects. (NBC Bay Area)
• A dedicated bus lane will connect downtown Tampa and the University of South Florida. (Tampa Bay Times)
• We think you meant to say, “It’s time to study distracted DRIVING,” MinnPost.
• The Hollywood Walk of Fame, which recently enshrined the Chevrolet Suburban, is nothing but a piece of crass commercial payola. Imagine that. (NBC News)
• And, finally, we can’t stop thinking about this brave Chinese kid in this must-watch video. (Streetsblog)