Wednesday’s Headlines

By Blake Aued

1:05 AM EST on January 29, 2020

City Lab predicts that e-scooter companies will be culled, city regulations will produce winners and losers, the battle over data will rage on and forms will emerge that make women and gender-noncomforming folks more comfortable. Consolidation is already happening: Bird just acquired European rival Circ (The Verge). Meanwhile, e-scooter operator Spin is tripling its devices in Phoenix to 900 and adding 300 in Tempe. (KTAR)
More Americans are working from home, and CNBC has tips on how to do so effectively.
Maybe this is why? The average worker in Washington, D.C. spends 102 hours a year sitting in traffic, and commutes — already an average of 43 minutes, among the nation’s longest — are getting longer, because people who work in the city have to live further away to find housing they can afford. (WAMU)
Related: Los Angeles is promoting expensive, car-centric apartments near transit lines, which is not going to help grow ridership (City Watch). Dallas requires developers to provide too many parking spaces, which drives up the cost of housing (D Magazine). And some new urban developments have little to no parking, but the trend hasn’t spread to the suburbs. One retired Cal State East Bay professor hopes to change that, envisioning a 30-acre “pedestrian paradise” with one parking space per seven homes and a shuttle to the nearest transit station (San Francisco Chronicle).
Denver’s transit agency has been facing chronic bus driver and train operator shortages, route cuts and declining ridership. As RTD looks for new leadership, a state takeover could be looming. (Denver Post)
Rather than Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker’s flat tax hike proposal on Uber and Lyft, the Boston Globe editorial board wants a flexible ride-hailing fee that punishes users who could be taking transit during rush hour while absolving those who need a ride late at night when the T is dark.
Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam wants to raise the gas tax by 4 cents a gallon to help fund his $3.7-billion rail expansion plan. (Washington Post)
It’s not as ambitious as Virginia’s plan, but a Baltimore city councilman aims to take single-occupancy vehicles off the road by filling vacant transit positions, focusing on equity and providing fast, frequent and reliable service. (Greater Greater Washington)
Thirteen cities in the Netherlands have low-emissions zones, but the various rules are confusing to drivers, so the national government is standardizing them. (Eltis)
The founder of a new flat-fee electric shuttle in Oklahoma City hopes it will be a last-mile solution for streetcar riders. (KFOR)

Blake Aued

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