Friday’s Headlines to Round Out the Week
Every city seems to have a different approach to mask wearing on transit. (Oy, are we still doing this?) Plus all the other news from yesterday.
By
Blake Aued
12:01 AM EST on February 5, 2021
- Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg’s confirmation boosts hopes for a massive infrastructure bill. (Smart Cities Dive)
- Chicago is not enforcing President Biden’s new mandate that all transit riders wear masks (Sun-Times). Philadelphia is encouraging mask-wearing, but not fining riders like New York (WHYY).
- Los Angeles Metro CEO Phil Washington is leaving in May and may be headed to the Biden administration. (Streetsblog LA)
- Congress members in the Washington, D.C. area are sponsoring a bill to stabilize Metro funding by providing $1.7 billion a year for the next decade. (WaPost)
- Washington, D.C.’s new Vision Zero law, modeled on one in Cambridge, is being closely watched by other big cities. Any time road work happens, it requires the city to build a bus or protected bike lane if one’s been identified in future plans. (City Lab)
- Rad Power Bikes just got a buttload of funding. (Electrek)
- Denver’s Regional Transportation District, which has laid off 300 employees during the pandemic, received $203 million from the latest coronavirus relief bill. (OutThere)
- Salt Lake City’s plans for busy 300 West include sidewalks, a protected bike path and narrower car lanes. (SL Tribune)
- Madison is thinking about banishing bikes and buses from mostly pedestrian State Street, where cars are already not allowed. (Isthmus)
- Australia has run into political problems taxing land that skyrockets in value as a result of infrastructure projects — a practice known as “value capture” that can help fund those projects. (Sydney Morning Herald)
- Also from Down Under, The Driven says e-bikes are succeeding where other bike-shares failed because they appeal to a broader demographic.
- An American diplomat’s wife accused of killing a UK teen while driving in 2019 was working for a U.S. intelligence agency at the time, calling into question her diplomatic immunity. (New York Post)
- British officials say they want half of all trips to be made on foot or by bike within the next decade, but they’re still pushing forward with an expensive road-building program. (Forbes)
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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