Friday’s Headlines to Set You Up for the Weekend
Lots of news today, so let's get right to it!
By
Blake Aued
12:01 AM EDT on August 28, 2020
- Americans took 136 million trips on shared bikes and e-scooters last year, up from 84 million in 2018, according to the National Association of City Transportation Officials. (Bloomberg)
- Self-driving cars are still years away, but in the meantime, technology can help drivers deal with their road rage. (Time)
- A poll found that 82 percent of Uber drivers want to remain independent contractors. But take it with a grain of salt — the poll was commissioned by Uber itself. (Axios)
- Uber’s former chief security officer has been charged with trying to cover up a data breach. (Slate)
- Greater Greater Washington hosted a panel discussion on riding the bus while Black. Panelists from around the country discussed how transportation has been used to enforce segregation, and how transit is underfunded compared to highways.
- New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority says it needs a $12 billion federal bailout to avoid slashing subway and bus service by 40 percent. (Streetsblog)
- Las Vegas’s transit agency faces a $35-million shortfall this year that’s projected to grow to $75 million in 2021. (Nevada Current)
- Tampa light rail and streetcar projects are in limbo pending the outcome of a lawsuit challenging the sales tax that would fund them. (Tampa Bay Times)
- The Florida DOT might build a long-delayed SunRail extension to DeLand after all. (Daytona Beach News-Journal)
- Once left for dead, Minneapolis’ Southwest light rail line is now a quarter complete and likely to receive federal funds to finish the rest. (MinnPost)
- Orange County outsourced public transit to Lyft in 2016, and riders were nearly left stranded when the company threatened to pull out of California. (Voice of OC)
- A massive mixed-use project in Austin will include a MetroRail station. (Culture Map)
- Little Rock’s transit agency is dropping some less-popular routes and replacing them with a cross-town connector and on-demand van service. (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette)
- A federal judge threw out a weapons charge against an Iowa man, saying that he was arrested for “walking while Black.” (Press-Citizen)
- Locusts are very good at not colliding with each other, and Penn State engineers hope to learn from them how to keep self-driving cars from crashing. (Inverse)
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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