Thursday’s Headlines Are Free for Everyone
Boston's Michelle Wu is far from the only mayor to push fare-free transit recently. Plus, ad campaigns that try to shame people into safety rarely work.
By
Blake Aued
12:00 AM EDT on June 16, 2022
- From Boston to Olympia, mayors are embracing fare-free transit as a way to address inequality. (Politico)
- Safe-driving ad campaigns mostly don’t work, and the money could be better spent on other strategies, like speed-limiting technology or designing safer roads. (Slate)
- The Biden administration is now taking a serious look at a gas-tax holiday (The Hill), which is a bad policy that doesn’t help drivers much, doesn’t encourage alternative modes and siphons money from transportation.
- Remember the time a self-driving Uber killed a woman who was crossing the street in Arizona? (Clean Technica)
- The Massachusetts Supreme Court blocked a Prop 22-style gig worker referendum that’s backed by Uber and Lyft. (CNN)
- The latest plan for Austin’s Project Connect calls for closing “The Drag,” a popular strip near the University of Texas campus, to cars. (American-Statesman)
- San Francisco museums want voters to allow cars on JFK Drive in Golden Gate Park again. (Examiner)
- Nashville Mayor John Cooper wants to ban sidewalk vendors in some parts of the city, saying they get in the way of pedestrians. (Tennessean)
- Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner has approved bike lanes on 11th Street, along with reducing vehicle lanes, pedestrian refuges, and more. (Houston Public Media)
- Milwaukee County is overhauling its transit system in an effort to lure riders back and avoid a budget shortfall. (Wisconsin Public Radio)
- The Pittsburgh Port Authority is now Pittsburgh Regional Transit, a name meant to better reflect its mission as, you guessed it, a regional transit agency. (Post-Gazette)
- Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo wants to transform the city’s ring road into a green belt. (Eltis)
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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