Wednesday’s Headlines Are Burning Up
Climate change is worse than you thought. Plus, freight haulers and (except for the East Coast) the uber-expensive Gateway project stand in the way of better Amtrak service.
By
Blake Aued
12:01 AM EDT on August 11, 2021
- More on that UN climate change report: It’s here, it’s “unequivocally” manmade, it’s already causing extreme weather like hurricanes and wildfires, and the only question at this point is, how bad will we let it get? (CNN)
- The infrastructure bill passed the Senate. (New York Times)
- Amtrak is allocating almost half its $66 billion in funding from the infrastructure bill toward the Gateway project in New York and New Jersey alone. (Slate)
- Thanks to decades of deregulation, freight haulers are latter-day robber barons standing in the way of Amtrak improvements and better passenger rail. (Washington Monthly)
- During the pandemic, people found comfort in owning a car even if they didn’t use it much. (Smart Cities Dive)
- Transit agencies’ workforces are strained at a time when they’re working to rebuild ridership. (Metro Magazine)
- Cities need more than sidewalks, crosswalks and safer streets to get people walking. They need denser housing, places to walk to and inviting places to walk past. (Saporta Report)
- Houston residents continued to push back against a proposed I-45 expansion right up until the close of public comment. (Houston Public Media)
- Portland elected officials are pushing for congestion pricing and want to make sure any real-estate windfalls from a Rose Quarter cap accrue to Black property owners and not the Oregon DOT. (Willamette Week)
- As Sound Transit wrangles with a projected budget shortfall, a West Seattle group is pushing gondolas as a cheaper alternative to light rail. (My Northwest)
- Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf’s plan for a vehicle-miles-driven fee is running into trouble. (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
- Las Vegas is using federal COVID funds to expand transit service. (Review-Journal)
- Denver is turning over some of its shared streets back to cars. (CBS 4)
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.
Read More:
More from Streetsblog USA
The California DMV’s Culture of Obstruction
California’s DMV is responsible for managing some of the biggest risks on the state’s roads, but researchers say a culture of secrecy and obstruction makes it nearly impossible for the public to access basic information about dangerous drivers and disabled parking placard fraud.
November 6, 2026
Opinion: I (Almost) Killed a Pedestrian With My Car
Every driver has a story or two about a near-miss traffic crash, even when they were doing everything right. Can we get those numbers down with safer systems?
November 6, 2026
Talking Headways Podcast: The Value of Cities
Cities are valuable precisely because there are so many people in them.
November 5, 2026
What It Will Take To Turn the ‘Blue Wave’ Into a Watershed Moment for Transportation Reform
Democrats won big at the ballot box in the midterms. Will they fight for multimodal travelers when they're in office?
November 5, 2026
