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Wednesday’s Headlines Are Fully Funded

Get breakdowns on how the bipartisan infrastructure compromise differs from President Biden's original plan, and how the U.S. DOT can fulfill its equity promises.

By Blake Aued

12:01 AM EDT on July 7, 2021

The bipartisan infrastructure deal cut a third of the funding for transit from President Biden’s original American Jobs Plan, and it includes just 10 percent of the funding for electric vehicles. (Washington Post)
Can Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg finally make sweeping changes to an agency whose highways swept through Black and brown neighborhoods in the 1950s and ‘60s? Tearing down urban freeways is only part of the work — those neighborhoods need new connections and better access to transit. (City Lab)
The infrastructure bill is where the rubber meets the road on the Biden administration’s equity goals. (Shelter Force)
Republicans will try to blame Biden for rising gas prices. (The Hill)
Putting electric vehicles’ batteries underneath the floor makes it difficult to convert them for wheelchair users (The Verge). New technology, however, can make transit easier to use for people with disabilities, and Philadelphia is testing it out (Smart Cities Dive).
Tesla is facing two dozen federal investigations and several lawsuits involving crashes caused by its autopilot technology. (New York Times)
The pandemic showed that a small decline in travel yields a much bigger decline in congestion, but don’t expect Texas to learn that lesson. (City Observatory)
Columbus, Ohio is expected to add a million people over the next 25 years, but city officials recognize they don’t have room for another million cars, so they’re starting the process of creating a bus rapid transit system. (WBNS)
Pedestrian deaths in Hawaii are falling because the state DOT’s been installing raised crosswalks. (KHON)
San Diego’s North Park bikeway will be completed later this month. (Union-Tribune)
The Pennsylvania Avenue sidewalk in front of the White House, closed during the George Floyd protests last summer, has been reopened. (ABC News)
Tacoma light rail has been fare-free for nearly 20 years, but Sound Transit is going to start charging in 2022. (News Tribune)
El Paso’s streetcar is running again after being closed for over a year during the pandemic. (KTSM)
The Charlotte Observer profiles a local woman who’s logged 57,000 miles on her bike.

Blake Aued

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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