Wednesday’s Headlines Take the Bus
A big transit roundup, the New Orleans vehicle ramming attack, and more in today's headlines.
By
Blake Aued
12:27 AM EST on January 8, 2025
- Yonah Freemark is out with his annual roundup of U.S. transit projects. Transit agencies completed just 18 miles of new light rail tracks in 2024, with a notable shift toward bus rapid transit. Eighteen more projects are under construction and expected to be completed later this year. (The Transport Politic)
- New Orleans exhibited “horrific negligence” in allowing a pickup truck driver to plow through Bourbon Street on his way to killing 14 people, an expert on anti-ramming infrastructure told Henry Grabar. But while proper bollards would have stopped the attacker, most such obstacles are not designed for 6,000-pound F-150 Lightnings. (Slate)
- The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened an investigation into flaws in a Tesla feature that allows drivers to summon their cars remotely. (Reuters)
- About 200,000 acres of solar panels could produce as much energy as 30 million acres of corn grown to turn into ethanol. (Need to Know)
- The Minnesota DOT is keeping I-94 between Minneapolis and St. Paul, scrapping plans to turn the stretch of urban freeway into a parkway. (Star Tribune)
- Congestion pricing or no, Vital City argues that car culture still holds sway in New York, and better transit is the only solution.
- Austin has chosen a consortium of construction firms to build its first light rail line. (Smart Cities Dive)
- With a portion of Houston’s downtown Main Street set to close to cars prior to the 2026 World Cup, Houstonia Magazine has a wish list of other streets that should go car-free.
- Seattle is installing speed cameras in 19 additional school zones. (KOMO)
- New Orleans is hoping to have all of its streetcars back up and running before the Super Bowl and Mardi Gras. (Times-Picayune)
- Connecticut should turn to transit-oriented development to help its passenger rail system’s branch lines recover, says the Mirror‘s editorial board.
- A new TOD in Decatur, Georgia includes 80 units of affordable senior housing. (Urbanize Atlanta)
- Southern Californians are trying to preserve Googie, the retro-futuristic architectural style of 1950s drive-throughs and roadside motels. (New York Times)
- Online sleuths have been unable to discover who left an urn in the back of a Kansas City Uber. (Gizmodo)
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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