Thursday’s Headlines Want It to Make Sense
The infrastructure bill mitigates the effects of climate change but does little to slow it down. Plus, Make the American Bike Industry Great Again and more.
By
Blake Aued
12:00 AM EST on December 16, 2021
- The bipartisan infrastructure bill has an incoherent approach to climate change, with money for seawalls and home buyouts in flooding areas, but nothing to stop states from building more roads, which got us in this mess in the first place. (American Prospect)
- The U.S. can’t sustain its current bicycling boom without building up domestic manufacturing capacity. (Industry Week, Streetsblog USA)
- E-bikes are the solution to the last-mile delivery problem. (GreenBiz)
- A California lawmaker introduced a bill that would block freeway expansions in Black and Latino communities, citing racial health disparities. (Los Angeles Times)
- Governing shows how Maine residents revived the Downeaster, one of Amtrak’s most successful lines. And the Michigan DOT is building a new $57 million Amtrak station in Detroit (also Governing).
- Detroit extended free QLine streetcar rides through April. (Metro Times)
- The Jacksonville city council voted against repealing a May gas-tax hike that will fund trail and transit projects. (First Coast News)
- Preservationists fought the construction of Penn Station 50 years ago, and now they want to save it. (City Lab)
- Europe has a new urban mobility framework (Eltis). The plan calls for more cross-border rail to reduce carbon emissions (Bloomberg).
- Unlike the U.S. and Canada, which are proudly announcing more freeways, Austria is canceling freeway projects to reduce the climate impact. (Treehugger)
- An Australian commission endorsed higher congestion and parking fees for cars while also coming out against fare-free transit. (Sydney Morning Herald)
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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