Thursday’s Headlines Keep Riding

Source:  Portland Department of Transportation
Source: Portland Department of Transportation
  • Cities that built protected bike lanes during the pandemic have found that people are still using them. (Associated Press, Bicycling)
  • Common Edge interviews author Nicholas Dagen Bloom about the rise and fall of transit in the U.S.
  • Because electric vehicles weigh more and accelerate faster, they also wear out tires more quickly than gas-powered vehicles, raising concerns about additional particulate pollution. (PC Magazine)
  • Los Angeles’s much-maligned “La Sombrita” bus shelters are a symptom of municipal bureaucracies that make everything impossible. (Vice)
  • Fares only make up less than 2 percent of the L.A. Metro’s budget, but a low-income rider might spend a month’s wages on fares over a year. Why not get rid of them? (L.A. Times)
  • Austin officials announced the final route for a new 10-mile light rail line. (Monitor)
  • Private passenger rail company Brightline expects to finish its Miami-to-Orlando expansion this summer. (WFTV)
  • Uber will begin operating driverless Waymo vehicles in metro Phoenix. (CNBC)
  • Kansas city will ask voters to renew a sales tax for transit in November that’s expected to raise $350 million over 10 years. (KMBC)
  • Seattle capitulated to concerns about lost parking from a new protected bike lane by adding more parking to surrounding streets (The Urbanist). Hasn’t anyone in the Emerald City read Grabar? (Streetsblog)
  • California regulators are forcing San Diego restaurants to replace any parking they converted into outdoor dining space. (PB Monthly)
  • The replacement of overhead power lines has made Denver light rail virtually unusable this week. (Denverite)
  • Richmond’s bikeshare abruptly shut down this week (Times-Dispatch), and some advocates believe it should be turned into a nonprofit rather than run by a private company (WTVR).
  • France banned short-haul domestic flights that could be completed in less than two and a half hours by train. (CNN)

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