Tuesday’s Headlines: to Fare-Free or Not Fare-Free?
Newly elected Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has a decision to make on fare-free transit, and The Atlantic argues it should be "no."
By
Blake Aued
12:00 AM EST on December 13, 2022
- As incoming Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass decides whether to make transit fare-free (L.A. Times), The Atlantic argues that transit agencies should keep charging for the bus until governments can deliver better services.
- Shailen Bhatt won confirmation as administrator of the Federal Highway Administration by telling skeptical senators that he’s fine with road-widening projects. (Washington Post)
- Autonomous vehicles are blocking traffic, driving on sidewalks and otherwise causing havoc in San Francisco, and California officials won’t do anything about it. (Slate)
- Maintaining sidewalks should be a pretty basic function of municipal government, but outgoing Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti utterly failed at this task. (Curbed)
- Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell is calling for more Safe Routes to School, zero-emissions delivery vehicles and more ambitious climate policies. (Seattle Bike Blog)
- The opening of a Tacoma light rail line has been pushed back from spring to fall of 2023. (KING)
- Maryland governor-elect Wes Moore pledged to revive the Red Line, a Baltimore light rail line his predecessor, Larry Hogan, spiked in 2015. (City Lab)
- The head of Chicago’s transit system says it needs more public investment and can no longer rely so much on fares. (Smart Cities Dive)
- Milwaukee is using strategically placed posts to extend curbs and slow down drivers. (Urban Milwaukee)
- Short-story vending machines are among the many delights of riding transit in Philadelphia. (Billy Penn)
- If a bus and a train had a baby, it would be Adelaide, Australia’s O-Bahn. (The Drive)
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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