Our Thursday’s Headlines are No Joke
- President Biden's recovery package includes $621 billion for transportation, including $20 billion for road safety, $85 billion to modernize and expand transit, and $80 billion for Amtrak. (CNN)
- Biden is steering clear of both gas and mileage taxes to pay for his infrastructure plan (USA Today). Some believe that’s for the best — a VMT would hit low-income rural communities the hardest (Grist). Instead, Biden wants to tax corporations and the wealthy (Reuters).
- Infrastructure Week? Try Infrastructure Year. The bill will likely take months to pass. (Politico)
- The U.S. DOT has released $30 billion in funding from the American Rescue Plan to transit agencies. (RT&S)
- Regulations mandating too-wide streets and too-high speed limits that encourage drivers to go fast are to blame for the recent spike in pedestrian deaths. (City Lab)
- Biking or walking instead of driving reduces your carbon footprint by tenfold compared to driving an electric car and 30 times more than driving a gas one. (The Conversation)
- Pacific Northwest leaders envision whole new cities sprouting up along a high-speed rail line connecting Portland, Seattle and Vancouver. (Seattle Met)
- Officials in the Washington, D.C. area are pushing for fare-free transit (NBC Washington). Chicago transit agencies are also considering reduced or no fares to lure back riders lost during the pandemic (Sun-Times).
- The Utah Transit Authority is shifting its focus away from COVID-19 and toward restoring ridership, which fell by half during the pandemic. (Standard-Examiner)
- Harris County, Texas, is analyzing high-crash corridors as its Vision Zero initiative gets underway. (Houston Chronicle)
- Detroit’s QLINE streetcar is coming back a year after halting service due to the pandemic. (Free Press)
- Following Virginia, California is the latest state to consider decriminalizing jaywalking. (San Francisco News)
- San Antonio is taking public input on how to spend $300 million in federal transportation funds. (KSAT)
- A 75-year-old Florida man was training for a 500-mile bike ride when a driver hit and killed him. (Palm Beach Post)
- Atlanta Magazine runs down all the bike lane and greenway projects going on in the ATL.
- Lyft says it will add the option of taking an autonomous electric car to its app in 2023 (SlashGear). Someday, too, a robot might bring you your Chipotle burrito (Fast Company)
- A Quebec newspaper wrote about Streetsblog's ugly bus contest ... in French! (Journal de Quebec)
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