Tuesday’s Headlines Want More Transit Contracts
Cities and states are using federal infrastructure funds to ramp up road construction, but contracts for transit projects are down.
By
Blake Aued
12:00 AM EST on March 7, 2023
- Cities and states are quick to spend federal infrastructure funding on roads, but transit projects are lagging behind. More than 38,000 contracts for roadwork in 2022 totaled $102 billion, but just 180 transit contracts were awarded, totaling $3.5 billion. (Smart Cities Dive)
- The libertarian magazine Reason argues that transit agencies should not eliminate fares to boost ridership, but instead use those funds to redesign their networks around jobs that have dispersed from downtowns.
- In California, farebox recovery will not be enough to fully fund transit. (CalMatters)
- A Chicago plan to use cameras to catch drivers who block bike and bus lanes could be approved as soon as next week. (Sun-Times)
- Ann Arbor police are cracking down on drivers who park in bike lanes, ticketing 28 in the past few months. (MLive)
- An Austin transit board is coming under fire for the secretive process of hiring a new executive director. (KUT)
- Atlanta streetcar service is resuming more than three months after the Metro Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority halted it over safety concerns. (WSB-TV)
- Portland snowplow drivers are leaving piles of snow at the entrances to protected bike lanes. (Bike Portland)
- Omaha’s Heartland Bikeshare has grown from 20 to 500 e-bikes in the past four years and just ordered 100 more. (WOWT)
- Tempe and Mesa are studying whether to extend the former’s streetcar to the latter Arizona city. (12 News)
- “Saturday Night Live” star Pete Davidson joined the seemingly endless ranks of drivers who crash into buildings. (Los Angeles Times)
- Here are the best places to eat along the Kansas City streetcar line. (KCUR)
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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