Friday’s Headlines to Round Out the Week
Want to know about freight fleets? Look to the humble ant. That, plus all the other news of the day.
By
Blake Aued
12:34 AM EDT on July 31, 2020
- An international auto consultant predicts that in the future people will drive less and buy fewer cars, eliminating the need to widen roads. (City Observatory)
- The Brookings Institute suggests a stimulus plan that includes covering households’ transportation costs and grants to states for infrastructure maintenance.
- Minimum parking requirements are among the regulations limiting the amount of new housing built in cities. (City Lab)
- Ants can show us how to optimize freight fleet routes to cut vehicle emissions in half. (Intelligent Transport)
- Wonk fight! Pedestrian Observations takes on the Strong Towns philosophy of incremental transportation improvement, arguing that it’s born out of timidity.
- After a string of legal losses on the labor rights front, Uber and Lyft won a victory in the California Supreme Court, which ruled they can’t be sued for undercutting taxi fares. (San Francisco Chronicle)
- Willamette Week calls Portland’s $5-billion transportation referendum a “big gamble,” wondering if the rise of telecommuting will hit transit as hard as it hits driving in the long run. Meanwhile, Portland is fining the feds $500 for every 15 minutes an illegal fence blocking a bike lane remains up around a federal courthouse. (KOMO).
- WHYY says Philadelphia’s transit agency, SEPTA, should install bus-only lanes to speed up service and lower fares for regional commuter rail to entice riders.
- A cracked West Seattle bridge could be replaced with one built from local timber that accommodates light rail, bikes and pedestrians. (Post-Intelligencer)
- Houston Public Radio interviews the Harris County METRO CEO about ridership losses, restoring fares and why so many bus drivers are getting COVID (hint: Texas is one of the states that reopened).
- Mobility company Helbiz is putting 300 e-scooters into Arlington and Alexandria. (ARLnow)
- America’s most famous sidewalk, the Hollywood Walk of Fame, is getting an upgrade, with outdoor dining, shade trees and safety improvements replacing on-street parking. (NBC4)
- National Geographic has a list of interesting places to walk, like secret staircases in Los Angeles, the country’s longest pedestrian bridge in Chicago and a bucolic cemetery in Washington, D.C.
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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