Streetsblog

Wednesday’s Headlines Spanning the Globe

Cities learned their lesson from the ride-hailing wars, Biden's transportation agenda rides on Georgia and more headlines.

By Blake Aued

12:01 AM EST on December 2, 2020

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)

Blake Aued

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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