Thursday’s Headlines Hold Out Hope
It's not as catchy a slogan as MAGA, but maybe Donald Trump will Make American High-Speed Rail Great For the First Time?
By
Blake Aued
1:02 AM EST on December 12, 2024
- Project 2025 calls for cutting transit funding, but Donald Trump himself thinks the lack of bullet trains in the U.S. is SAD! So who knows what he’ll do once he takes office again? (The Urban Condition)
- New insurance industry research found that pedestrians hit by slow-moving vehicles are more likely to be injured if the vehicle is a truck rather than a car. (Streetsblog USA)
- GM’s robotaxi subsidiary Cruise lost more than $3 billion last year, and now GM is pulling the plug. The company will focus on self-driving technology for personal use instead. (The Verge)
- Bikes are now another front in the never-ending culture war. (Momentum)
- Colorado recently banned minimum parking requirements near transit lines, but Denver wants to go a step further and get rid of them altogether. (Denverite)
- The Portland Bureau of Transportation is taking a load off police by reviewing automated camera traffic citations in-house. (BikePortland)
- After a Philadelphia bus driver was shot and killed last year, transit agency SEPTA is now installing bulletproof glass on buses. (The Trace)
- Twin Cities trains can’t start running on the completed portion of the Green Line because there’s nowhere to perform maintenance. (MinnPost)
- MARTA gave its CEO a $20,000 bonus despite his subpar record running the Atlanta transit agency. (Mass Transit)
- The head of Seattle’s DOT, who made safety a priority, is leaving the job. (MyNorthwest)
- Salt Lake City and the Utah Transit Authority cut the ribbon on SLC’s first bus-priority lanes. (Weekly)
- Sacramento is the latest city to install cameras on buses to catch drivers who block bike and bus lanes. (CBS News)
- The revenue Omaha is collecting from a special tax district around a future streetcar line is higher than projected. (3 News Now)
- Durham’s central bus station is undergoing a $26 million renovation. (WRAL)
- New Urbanism has finally made its way to upstate New York. (CNU Public Square)
- Congestion pricing has worked in some overseas cities, but in others faster-moving traffic has simply induced demand. (Governing)
- Pedestrian Observations pushes back against Ben Hopkinson’s notion (Works in Progress) that Madrid was able to quickly and cheaply expand its transit system because of Spain’s decentralized system of government.
- If you love the idea of a 15-minute city, get ready for Copenhagen’s five-minute neighborhood. (The Guardian)
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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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