Tuesday’s Headlines to Start Your Day
All eyes are on the Senate this week as transit systems nationwide are begging for a bailout. That, plus all the other news.
By
Blake Aued
12:01 AM EDT on July 21, 2020
- The 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act didn’t do enough to shore up city and state budgets, or invest enough in infrastructure to create jobs. Will the federal government make the same mistake again? (Slate)
- Integrating passenger and freight transportation could make the system more resilient to crises like a pandemic. (World Economic Forum)
- In the Cleveland area, as in the rest of the country, federal highways facilitated white flight, contributed to segregation and concentrated poverty. Recognizing this, a regional transportation planning agency will now consider equity when deciding whether to build new interchanges. (Plain Dealer)
- Portland voters will decide in November on an $8-billion, 25-year transportation package that will create 37,000 jobs and includes funding for bike lanes, bus rapid transit, a new MAX light rail line and free bus passes for high school students. (Bike Portland)
- The dispute between Maryland and contractors over Purple Line cost overruns is just the latest of problems that have been brewing since 2016. (Washington Post)
- A proposal to use unarmed “ambassadors” rather than police to collect fares, connect the homeless with services and enforce drinking and smoking bans on Metro Transit is languishing in the Minnesota legislature. (Minneapolis Star Tribune)
- After being criticized for scrapping thousands of JUMP e-bikes, Uber is donating 3,000 to the nonprofit Shared Mobility, which will deploy them for free at “transportation libraries.” (Buffalo News)
- After a two-year delay, a new BRT line in Uptown Houston will start running next month. (Chronicle)
- Baltimore’s next mayor has the opportunity to embrace urbanism by reforming the city’s bike-share program, demanding transit improvements from the state and embracing mixed-use development. (Sun)
- A Chicago police officer in an unmarked department SUV drove onto a sidewalk and hit a person walking with a bike at a protest against police brutality. (Sun-Times)
- UK Uber drivers want access to the company’s secret algorithm and want to know how the data the company collects is used. (The Guardian)
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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