Friday’s Headlines Because We’ve All Had Enough of This Week
Infrastructure is in the eye of the beholder, but whatever you call it, President Biden is right to go big. That and more headlines.
By
Blake Aued
12:01 AM EDT on April 9, 2021
- Republicans are arguing semantics when they insist that nothing but roads and bridges count as “infrastructure” because they can’t argue against the much-needed investments President Biden’s infrastructure plan contains. (Vice)
- Biden is right to think broadly about infrastructure, as FDR did when implementing the New Deal. (Washington Post)
- Speaking of roads and bridges, one way to pay for improving them would be to collect and sell data on their usage. (City Lab)
- The Grio interviewed Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg about how racism was literally built into American infrastructure.
- Seventy-six percent of U.S. workers drive to work alone, while only 5 percent commute by transit, according to the Census Bureau. (CNS)
- Even though many people will continue to work from home, the end of the pandemic could lead to more driving because those people will be driving to lunch instead of walking from their office, or making a special trip to the store instead of stopping on the way home. (Slate)
- Although marketed as a way to explore the great outdoors, a British study found that three-fourths of polluting and dangerous SUVs were actually bought by affluent urbanites. (The Guardian)
- Minimum parking requirements lead to more pollution, more traffic and even more drunk driving. (U.S. PIRG)
- A California bill would ban parking minimums. (Streetsblog CA)
- An Indiana bill that would have jeopardized two Indianapolis bus rapid transit lines died, but is likely to be reintroduced next year. (Star)
- A Maryland congressman wants the Biden administration to reconsider two previously approved Montgomery County freeway projects. (Maryland Matters)
- Atlanta has one of the worst transit systems of any major city. Improvements are coming, but are still a decade or more away. (Transit Center)
- A study found that a proposed gas-tax hike in Jacksonville would generate $1.6 billion and create 7,600 jobs, almost half of them due to expanding the Skyway people-mover. (News4Jax)
- Hoboken has recorded zero traffic deaths for the past three years. (Streetsblog)
- With the Canadian provincial capital in the Final Four, the Journal de Québec continues to closely watch Streetsblog‘s Sorriest Bus Stop contest.
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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