Thursday’s Headlines For You And Yours
- The Trump administration declined to investigate allegations of potentially criminal ethics violations against former Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, including some that could have benefited her husband, then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. (Mother Jones)
- Chao also, as it turns out, previously approved an upstate New York bridge and a Bay Area rail line that Republicans later attacked as pork-barrel spending when they were included in the COVID relief bill. (Roll Call)
- Current Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg embraced the “fix it first” mantra of infrastructure maintenance over new projects at a Bloomberg gathering of urban leaders.
- Volvo will go all-electric by 2030 — the latest carmaker to ditch internal combustion. (Treehugger)
- As deliveries increase, electric vans can help meet climate goals. (Globe and Mail)
- The Virginia legislature rejected a proposal for the state’s largest utility to get into the electric school bus business. (Virginia Mercury)
- How green are electric vehicles, anyway? It depends on where the electricity comes from, and pollution from manufacturing and old batteries count, too. (New York Times)
- The federal mask mandate for public transit is still in place despite Texas Gov. Greg Abbott lifting coronavirus restrictions. (Houston Chronicle)
- Hillsborough County is aiming for another transportation sales tax referendum in 2022 after the Florida Supreme Court recently struck down the 2018 vote. (Tampa Bay Times)
- The Utah legislature is nearing an agreement on borrowing more than $1 billion for transportation projects, including $600 million for transit. (Salt Lake Tribune)
- Seattle’s Sound Transit is considering an employer head tax to close an $11 billion budget deficit. (My Northwest)
- Charlotte’s plans for a massive transit expansion are under attack by residents who fear it will spell the end of single-family zoning. (Observer)
- Toll revenue earmarked for transit will drop by $400 million next year, but Pennsylvania lawmakers don’t have much of a sense of urgency to replace the funding. (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
- Snowbi Wan Kenobi, F. Salt Fitzgerald and, of course, Plowy McPlowFace are among the internet's names for new Minnesota DOT snow plows.
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