Wednesday’s Headlines Are Rated X
It's been a bad few days for Elon Musk, with his stock dropping among Tesla owners, an NHTSA investigation and a humiliating incident involving his social media company.
By
Blake Aued
12:01 AM EDT on August 2, 2023
- Tesla owners are starting to turn against CEO Elon Musk after his right-wing heel turn (Slate). On top of the PR hit, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration launched an investigate into 280,000 vehicles after some Model 3 and Model Y owners reported losing steering (Reuters). Over at Elon’s other company, the city of San Francisco forced him to remove an “X” sign that was installed on the app formerly know as Twitter’s headquarters without a permit (NPR).
- As more people commute by bike, cities need more secure bike parking, which will in turn encourage more people to ride if they know there’s a safe place to leave their bike. (Momentum Mag)
- Drivers have killed at least one person on Texas roads every single day for the past 23 years, and all the state DOT is doing about it is telling drivers to slow down. (Jalopnik)
- Drivers have already killed more cyclists in Houston this year than all of 2022, and are on pace to set a record in 2023. (Houston Chronicle)
- On the bright side, a 50-mile loop of interconnected biking and hiking trails in Dallas is nearing completion. (D Magazine)
- New fareboxes on D.C. buses will reduce wait times by allowing for all-door boarding. (Washington Post)
- Is the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority just paying lip service to transit advocates? (Commonwealth)
- Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg visited East St. Louis to announce grant funding for MetroLink flood recovery and new rail cars. (Belleville News-Democrat)
- New Orleans is removing two miles of bike lanes in Algiers because business owners complained. (WDSU)
- Oklahoma City is creating a Vision Zero plan. (Free Press)
- New Hampshire has the lowest pedestrian death rate in the country — partially because of some subtle complete-streets design changes, and partially because it’s just too cold to walk. (Concord Monitor)
- You can get there from here on Montreal’s new REM light rail train (Trains), which could become a model for other projects or a cautionary tale. (Toronto Star)
- Portugal’s 2030 pedestrian mobility strategy aims to increase the share of trips taken on foot to 35 percent. (Eltis)
- A new report suggests that Vancouver build bike highways to reduce emissions and save cyclists time. (The Province)
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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