Monday’s Headlines
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- A California bill to curb sprawl and encourage denser housing around transit has failed for the third year in a row. Gov. Gavin Newsom and other supporters vow to press on. (L.A. Times)
- Brown goes green: UPS is buying 10,000 electric delivery trucks from British tech company Arrival, with an option to buy 10,000 more. They’ll be tested in London and Paris this year before being rolled out across Europe and North America. (Engadget)
- Most of the people who went to Sunday’s Super Bowl in Miami probably drove. Why not encourage sports fans to take a bus or train, parking guru Donald Shoup writes, by giving ticketholders free transit passes? It’s called transit validation, and it can reduce congestion, cut down on drunk driving and reduce the need for acres of parking around stadiums. (City Lab)
- Houston had the most car crashes of any U.S. city in 2018, according to nonprofit Go Safe Labs, followed by Charlotte, Los Angeles, Austin, Dallas, Raleigh, Oklahoma City, Baton Rouge, Nashville and Phoenix.
- From Barcelona’s superblocks to a planned car-free development in Tempe, Fast Company lists 11 cities that are banning — or at least limiting — cars.
- Traffic engineers should base speed limits on what is safe, not how fast drivers want to go. (State Smart Transportation Initiative)
- Another rich guy says that driverless cars will be better for cities. Gensler Co-Managing Principal Joseph Brancato seems like he has good intentions, but as Conor Oberst once sang, "If someone says they knows for certain, they're selling something certainly." (Inman)
- Lime is developing technology that can tell when e-scooter users are riding on the sidewalk, and will both alert the rider and report it to the city. But don’t expect an e-ticket — yet. (Electrek)
- About three-quarters of cyclists said they felt safer in an Atlanta pop-up bike lane during a weeklong test. Drivers, of course, hated it. (AJC)
- Suburban Memphis leaders are pushing back on plans to tax cars to fund transit. (Daily Memphian)
- The Nashville region’s 93 mayors plan to release a new transit plan in early 2021. Voters rejected a previous version two years ago. (Nashville Post)
- Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell is skeptical that the city’s troubled light rail line will open in October as promised. (Star-Advertiser)
- Some people paid less for their house than a San Francisco man wants for a parking space. (WTOC)
- And Streetsblog NYC rounded up the car culture ads during the Big Game.
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