Streetsblog

Friday’s Headlines Are Not Enough

$1.2 trillion won't come close to fixing our infrastructure problems. But cities like Seattle and Tampa sure could use the money.

By Blake Aued

12:01 AM EST on November 12, 2021

Image: Px Here, CC

Transit systems worldwide require a $208 billion annual investment and ridership must double by 2030 to meet the Paris agreement’s climate change goals. (Streetsblog, City Lab)
The infrastructure bill is indeed massive and historic, yet still doesn’t do enough to address needs like better transit (Vox, USA Today)
Transit agencies that avoided steep ridership drops during the pandemic did so by eliminating fares and refocusing service on essential workers. (Urban Institute)
When it comes to emissions, transportation and land use are connected because cities need to be built in a way that makes walking and biking easy and driving unnecessary. (Treehugger)
Cities are the future, despite the current red/blue, rural/urban divide. (Brookings Institute)
Tampa Mayor Jane Castro is looking to spend federal infrastructure dollars on transit and biking, but Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis might have other ideas. (Tampa Bay Times)
In Seattle, the infrastructure bill could help fund a 116-mile light rail network and help Sound Transit avoid project delays it instituted last summer as revenue flagged. (KUOW)
A small toll cut traffic on I-65 between Louisville and Indianapolis in half, illustrating why it makes no sense to waste billions widening freeways. (City Observatory)
Nashville officials are exploring safety improvements on deadly Murfreesboro Pike, a five-lane road with no lighting, intermittent sidewalks and few crosswalks. (News Channel 5)
Dallas Area Rapid Transit wants to sell parking lots around six light-rail stations to developers for affordable housing. (D Magazine)
Raleigh officials credit improved bike infrastructure with a decline in cyclist deaths. (ABC 11)
A Santa Monica business owner’s fight against turning a parking deck into affordable housing is really a proxy for his concerns about the car-free Third Street Promenade’s decline in general. (Vice)