Wednesday’s Headlines Grow It, and They Will Drive

Photo by Todd Trapani from Pexels
Photo by Todd Trapani from Pexels
  • 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.

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