Tuesday’s Headlines to Start the Week
Lots of news from the holiday Monday.
By
Blake Aued
7:08 AM EST on January 19, 2021
- President-elect Joe Biden’s $1.9-trillion American Rescue Plan includes $20 billion for transit (Mass Transit Mag). But concerns remain about how the money will be distributed, whether it will be enough and whether it can even get through Congress (Streetsblog USA).
- As mayor of South Bend, incoming Transportation Pete Buttigieg challenged the auto-centric status quo by building bike lanes and implementing a Complete Streets policy. (Washington Post)
- Transportation is a public health issue: COVID-19 vaccines are here, but not everyone has a way to get to them. (NBC News)
- The once-chaotic e-scooter industry looks like it’s finally breaking through to profitability. (Reuters)
- Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker signed a $16-billion transportation bill that will extend to passenger rail lines and modernize the system, but he also vetoed higher fees for Uber and Lyft rides, shot down a low-income fare program and declined to reverse transit service cuts. (NBC Boston)
- Amtrak has returned to DuPont, near Seattle, for the first time since a deadly 2017 derailment. (Post-Intelligencer)
- A year after B-Cycle disappeared, Denver’s transportation department is rolling out a new micromobility program with a mix of docked and dockless e-bikes and e-scooters. (Denverite)
- Texas has committed $600 million to Vision Zero, but it’s also facing a $1.9-billion drop in gas-tax revenue. Ideas include making big-rig drivers pay and charging a fee on electric and hybrid vehicles. (KSAT)
- Miami-Dade is trading in its pollution-belching diesel school buses for an electric fleet. (Miami Herald)
- Even in auto-centric Houston, residents want to live in a 15-minute city. (Rice Kinder)
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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