Wednesday’s Headlines Spanning the Globe
- Uber and Lyft ran roughshod over city officials, so now many of them are taking a harder line on e-scooters and trying to get ahead of the curve on robo-taxis. (Wired)
- Unless Democrats win two Senate runoffs in Georgia, Mitch McConnell will be able to block Joe Biden’s agenda, including infrastructure and a coronavirus stimulus package with emergency transit funding. (Washington Post)
- Newsweek has another article about transit agencies’ pandemic-driven fiscal crisis. Meanwhile, Congress failed — again — to bail out transit (Streetsblog, amNY, Mass Transit, the Washington Post).
- Cargo-bike ambulances could save lives in congested cities because they can get to the patient faster than traditional ones. (Clean Technica)
- Instead of just taking people to work and back home, commuter rail should convert to all-day, affordable and frequent regional rail. (Commonwealth)
- Houston is using unspent money from light-rail construction to build protected bike lanes leading to the Red Line and bus routes. (Chronicle)
- Chicago needs a more robust transit system for the people who can least afford cars. (Crain’s)
- Phoenix is asking for the public’s help in choosing from among six potential routes for bus rapid transit. (KJZZ)
- A new ride-hailing company launched in Los Angeles that touts its drivers’ employee status, despite the passage of Prop 22. (L.A. Mag)
- Madison signed a new 10-year bike-share deal that will add 100 bikes to docks in 2021 and expand the system into new neighborhoods (State Journal), and a new company is bringing 150 e-scooters to Louisville (WDRB)
- Amtrak is planning a potential route between Scranton and New York City. (The Citizens’ Voice)
- When Uber slashed fares in Kenya, it saddled drivers who’d bought cars with mountains of debt they couldn’t repay. (NBC News)
- Jakarta and Manila tried to reduce congestion by restricting when people can drive based on their cars’ license plate numbers. It backfired: Instead of using the cities’ unreliable transit systems, people who can afford it are just buying extra cars. (Vice)
- China and Japan are competing to develop new high-speed maglev trains that could be big sellers on the international market. (Bloomberg)
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