Skip to Content
Streetsblog USA home
Streetsblog USA home
Log In
Streetsblog

Wednesday’s Headlines Are Burning Up

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)

Stay in touch

Sign up for our free newsletter

More from Streetsblog USA

Why We Care About Some Transportation Tragedies More Than Others

Why do we respond to major transportation disasters with so much urgency — and why don't we count our collective car crash epidemic among them?

March 28, 2024

The Toll of History: MTA Board Approves $15 Congestion Pricing Fee

New York City's first-in-the-nation congestion pricing tolls are one historic step closer to reality after Wednesday's 11-1 MTA board vote. Next step: all those pesky lawsuits.

March 28, 2024

Take Thursday’s Headlines Home, Country Roads

Heat Map reports on why rural Americans are resisting electric vehicles, and why it might not matter much for the climate.

March 28, 2024

Guest Commentary: Traffic Engineers Must Put Safety Over Driver Throughput

No other field would tolerate this level of death and destruction. The tragedy of West Portal is more evidence that the traffic engineering profession is fundamentally broken.

March 27, 2024
See all posts