Wednesday’s Headlines Keep Their Promises
Unlike Uber and Lyft. (Hey, where are our flying cars?) Plus, President Biden gets an assist from the mayor of Phoenix in hyping the infrastructure bills.
By
Blake Aued
12:01 AM EDT on October 20, 2021
- President Biden will be in his hometown of Scranton today to promote Democrats’ infrastructure bills. (NBC Philadelphia)
- The bills will help cities create a sustainable future, writes Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego. (Smart Cities Dive)
- Uber and Lyft promised to end private car ownership, reduce congestion and boost transit ridership. Instead, they used venture capital to hook riders with artificially cheap prices at the expense of walking, biking and transit, and drivers wander around in empty vehicles polluting the air almost half the time. (New York Times)
- The National Transportation Safety Board is urging transit agencies to inspect their trains after finding wheel flaws that potentially led to a recent Washington, D.C. subway derailment. (Bloomberg)
- Cleveland transit agency Laketrans rolled out Ohio’s largest electric bus fleet at the dedication of a new transit center. (News 5 Cleveland)
- A St. Louis board is expected to vote soon on accepting a federal grant to restart the Loop Trolley, and the outcome is up in the air. (Post-Dispatch)
- Austin is betting big on an ambitious transit expansion to unclog roads as its population rapidly grows, but even some experts are skeptical that car-loving Texans will use what would still be a relatively skeletal system. (Reuters)
- Investors in Texas high-speed rail are forming a development company to build stations in Dallas, Houston and College Station. (Progressive Railroading)
- The Metro Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority will break ground on the city’s first bus rapid transit line next year. (Axios)
- Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker wants to spend $1.2 billion to rebuild 16 miles of I-80. (Southern Illinoisan)
- With three new light rail stations, Seattle is starting to feel like a real city. (Public Cola)
- Behold, perhaps the most egregious use of passive voice ever in describing a car crash. (WFTS)
- Wait, how did this even happen? (Fred Schultz via Twitter)
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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