Thursday’s Headlines Have Ways to Save
Cutting gas taxes won't save drivers much money—but policies that reduce driving will. Plus, the enduring legacy of Robert Moses and more news.
By
Blake Aued
12:00 AM EDT on April 28, 2022
- Cutting gas taxes may be popular with the public, but it’s not a good solution for soaring tax prices. Tax rebates and fare-free transit offer relief in the short term, and the long-term solution is to reduce demand by driving less. (Governing)
- Crime and transit ridership are intertwined in multiple ways. People feel safer in groups, so as ridership fell, the remaining passengers became uneasy. (New York Times)
- Transit leaders are not representative of their agencies’ ridership, skewing heavily toward the white male demographic and often living in suburbia. (Transit Center)
- Forty years after his death, Robert Moses’ way of thinking still dominates urban planning, with officials often placing property values before people. (The Baffler)
- Car-sharing could, somewhat counterintuitively, promote transit use, walking and biking while also reducing the amount of space wasted on parking. (Protocol)
- Massachusetts tops the League of American Bicyclists’ bike-friendly states, followed by Oregon, Washington, California and Minnesota. South Dakota, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Nebraska and Wyoming bring up the rear. (Planetizen)
- A Los Angeles pilot program will give 2,000 residents $150 a month that they can spend on transit and scooter, bike and electric vehicle rentals. (L.A. Times)
- California lawmakers are unlikely to halt a scheduled increase in the gas tax, but direct payments remain on the table. (Politico)
- A 1 percent sales tax for transportation will be on the November ballot in Tampa, with 45 percent of the $342 million in revenue going toward transit. (Tampa Bay Times)
- Downtown Pittsburgh cyclists are being squeezed between cars and sidewalk cafes. (WTAE)
- Uber will pay a $19 million fine for misleading Australian riders about cancellation fees and competing taxi fares. (Fox Business)
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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