Tuesday’s Headlines Man the Barricades

After the deadly New Year's Eve truck attack in New Orleans, how can cities better protect pedestrians from increasingly heavy and powerful vehicles?

By Blake Aued

12:07 AM EST on February 11, 2025

City of New Orleans|

A rendering of new bollards planned to keep vehicles off of Bourbon Street.

After the Bourbon Street truck attack, cities are looking for ways to protect pedestrian-heavy areas from vehicles, and there are ways to do it without making those areas look like militarized zones (CityLab). But stronger barriers are needed to stop heavy and powerful electric vehicles. (Transportation Technology Today)
Add an air safety crisis, in addition to traffic-choked cities and flying's high emissions, to the list of reasons why the U.S. needs a high-speed rail system. (Current Affairs)
Following a U.S. DOT memo and an executive order from President Trump, Amtrak is canceling its diversity, equity and inclusion programs. (Trains)
How are transportation grants supposed to promote getting married and having kids? Maybe the new Trump administration policy is really meant to funnel funds to red states and the suburbs. (New York Times)
Reframing traffic deaths as a public health issue might stop people from thinking they're inevitable. (Harvard Public Health)
Milwaukee County adopted a plan to address safety on its 25 most dangerous corridors. (Urban Milwaukee)
Hours after Miami Beach agreed to obey a court order forcing it to remove a pedestrian plaza and return Ocean Drive to two-way traffic, an appeals court granted a stay, so the road can remain one-way for now. (Miami Herald)
The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating a Boston train crash that injured five people. (Boston Herald)
As 17,000 federal employees returned to work in person on the Trump administration's orders, the Washington, D.C. DOT warned of heavy traffic and urged people to take transit, walk, bike or carpool. (Fox 5)
Many Minnesotans don't get the health benefits of walking because they don't have anywhere to walk safely. (Twin Cities Pioneer Press)
Transit agency SEPTA honored Philadelphia's first Black trolley operators. (KYW)
Kansas City's streetcar is new, but in advance of the Super Bowl KMBC had a story about New Orleans', which date back to 1835.