Wednesday’s Headlines Grow It, and They Will Drive
Ethanol isn't a clean fuel after all—it's actually worse for the climate than regular gas. Plus, Americans drive more than people in every other country.
By
Blake Aued
12:00 AM EST on February 16, 2022
- Anger, anxiety and substance abuse during the pandemic, along with taller and heavier vehicles, are at the root of soaring pedestrian deaths over the past couple of years. (New York Times)
- There’s no such thing as an environmentally friendly fuel: A new study found that corn-based ethanol is even worse for the climate than gasoline because of the land use and processing involved. (Reuters)
- Americans drive an average of 16,000 miles a year, more than any other any country and twice as much as people in European nations. Second place? Oddly enough, Iceland. (Frontier Group)
- Like a teenage human with a learner’s permit, autonomous vehicles have trouble driving the proper speed, recognizing objects and predicting how humans in the roadway will behave, according to a California report. (Jalopnik)
- Inside a London lab, researchers are studying how e-scooters interact with urban environments to make them safer. (Fast Company)
- Land Line thinks building more highway lanes is the only way to reduce congestion. Who wants to tell them about induced demand?
- Traffic deaths dropped 20 percent after Utah lowered the threshold for drunk driving. (The Hill)
- The Twin Cities’ Metro Transit is about to start construction on Minnesota’s first bus rapid transit line. (Minnesota Public Radio)
- Indianapolis hopes a BRT line will spur development along the underinvested corridor. (NBC News)
- Was the failure of a Philadelphia road diet the result of the city ignoring marginalized groups, or lobbying by entrenched business and political interests? (Citizen)
- California’s Valley Transit is investigating allegations of a toxic work environment. (San Jose Spotlight)
- Vote in Streetsblog‘s annual contest for the sorriest bike infrastructure in the U.S.
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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