Tuesday’s Headlines Want You to Slow Down
Vox does a good job of putting the 42,000 traffic deaths in the U.S. annually (and rising) into perspective.
By
Blake Aued
12:01 AM EDT on September 21, 2021
- Drivers kill as many people in the U.S. as guns. It’s a public health epidemic, and most of those deaths are preventable if we stop engineering roads for speed. (Vox)
- The pandemic and inequality in transportation have both disproportionately affected Black and brown communities. (Washington Post)
- CommonWealth magazine calls for incentives for e-bikes, more equitable transportation spending and safer bike infrastructure.
- Gentrification isn’t caused by bike lanes — it’s caused by a cycle of disinvestment and capital influx that draws people with suburban attitudes to cities. (Substack)
- NPR profiles an Afghan former military translator who was forced to become an Uber driver because he couldn’t find other work after escaping his war-torn homeland.
- The decline in peak-hour demand is allowing the Twin Cities’ Metro Transit to get creative by lowering fares, handing out passes to apartment-dwellers and beefing up service to schools. (MinnPost)
- The feds won’t intervene in a dispute among New York, New Jersey and Connecticut over how to share $14 billion in COVID-19 transit funding. (NY Daily News)
- Charlotte area leaders still have no timetable for moving forward with a $13 billion regional transit plan. (WFAE)
- I-35 is responsible for a quarter of Austin’s traffic deaths, and adding lanes won’t make it any safer. (Chronicle)
- Biking in Anchorage is dangerous because the city neglects bike infrastructure. (Daily News)
- Detroit buses and the QLINE streetcar now have a transit-only lane on major downtown thoroughfare Woodward Avenue. (Free Press)
- Pittsburgh’s director of mobility is leaving to take a job with the Federal Transit Administration. (WESA)
- Portland’s bike-share is offering free rides to college students on financial aid, as well as all residents who qualify for social services. (Oregonian)
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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