Friday’s Headlines (With No Mention of Last Night’s Debate)
There was plenty of news yesterday and it had nothing to do with the national election just 11 days away. Click to check it out.
By
Blake Aued
12:01 AM EDT on October 23, 2020
- No matter who wins the national election, the path to better transit will still run through progressive states and cities. (The Transport Politic)
- Tesla is moving forward with fully self-driving cars even though the technology isn’t ready. And the company can do so, because autonomous vehicles are only lightly regulated. (Washington Post)
- While Gen X and boomers tend to live in the suburbs and have the space to work from home, city-dwelling millennials still want to go into the office, as Metropolis reported…
- …But working from home won’t cut emissions unless telecommuters don’t need their cars to make other kinds of trips, too. (GreenBiz)
- City Lab asked an interesting question — with an obvious answer: No! Cities are not ready for the pandemic motorcycle boom. They should be passing restrictions on emissions and noise, not welcoming the two-wheeled mini-cars.
- One reason pedestrian deaths are on the rise could be that car-less people are moving to dangerous, auto-centric Sun Belt cities and suburbs. (Planetizen)
- A future Biden administration might try to force Uber and Lyft to classify drivers as employees, but it’s probably not high on the priority list. (Motley Fool)
- Uber has $185 million to spend promoting Prop 22, but it’s pinching pennies on postage by claiming to be a nonprofit. (San Francisco Chronicle)
- San Francisco is not on track to meet its goal of zero pedestrian deaths by 2024. Drivers have killed 19 people there so far this year. (Examiner)
- The Governor’s Office of Highway Safety in Georgia tweeted a photo of a driver about to hit a person in a crosswalk, and then blamed pedestrians for getting hit. StreetsblogNYC called for every employee at the office to be fired (which didn’t happen … but the tweet was deleted!).
- Charlotte is trying to undo 50 years of autocentric planning that divided and destroyed Black neighborhoods. (Agenda)
- A federal judge ruled that New York City crosswalks don’t protect pedestrians who are blind or have bad eyesight. (Associated Press)
- Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot wants to raise the gas tax to help close a $1.2-billion budget shortfall. (NBC Chicago)
- A minority of people — loud, but still a minority — oppose low-traffic neighborhoods in London. (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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