Damn the Torpedoes, Friday’s Headlines Are Ahead

David Zipper has a long read in Slate about the history of freeway construction and how it compares to dams.

1:16 AM EDT on August 30, 2024

Allendale, a lower-income, largely black neighborhood in Shreveport, had plans to build a new park and housing. But regional planners, with support from the mayor, want to bulldoze a new highway right through through the neighborhood.

Even in 2024, some officials are still talking about Black communities as "blighted" areas that should be replaced with freeways, and they still haven't grasped the concept of induced demand. David Zipper writes in Slate about how the environmentalists and fiscal conservatives that halted America's dam construction binge can also be applied to interstates.
In a USA Today interview, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg touted the Biden administration's $1 billion investment in rail accessibility.
A bipartisan group of more than 350 mayors signed a pact to electrify their city fleets. (Governing)
Bird scooters are now available for rent via the Lyft app in 25 U.S. cities. (Smart Cities Dive)
A coalition of transit riders and advocates are speaking out against DART budget cuts in Dallas. (KERA)
Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan is targeting 8,000 abandoned vehicles as part of a war on blight. (Next City)
Milwaukee drivers think the city's new bike lanes are for parking their cars. (Journal-Sentinel)
Seattle's Lynnwood light rail line officially opens today. (KIRO)
Austin's Project Connect will start final design work on a light rail line next year. (KXAN)
Greater Greater Washington uses data to push back against bike-lane haters who claim to never see cyclists.
New York City-based monthly e-bike rental service Whizz is now available in Philadelphia. (Philly Mag)
Saudi Arabia's $25 billion plan to build a metro system in Riyadh is apparently the largest single-phase transit project the world has ever seen. (Newsweek)
India's passenger rail network is now 96 percent electrified, compared to one percent for the U.S. (Fast Company)
Hamburg has a dubious plan to alleviate traffic with autonomous shuttles hailed through an app. (City Lab)
The U.S. isn't the only country where poorly planned streetcars get stuck in traffic. One study says Toronto's are the slowest in the world. (Daily Hive)