Friday’s Headlines Back the Bikes
Setting aside the fact that bike lanes don't make traffic worse, resisting bikelash on busy roads is essential to creating a useable network.
By
Blake Aued
12:01 AM EDT on April 18, 2025
- Protected bike lanes on high-traffic arterials often attract the most backlash from drivers, but they’re also the most vital for bike networks as a whole. (CityLab)
- Momentum Mag explains that road diets involve removing unneeded car lanes, slowing speeds and reducing crashes without making traffic worse.
- Bus ridership rose 9 percent in the last quarter of 2024, building off 16 percent growth in 2023. (Mass Transit)
- A federal audit found that the Federal Highway Administration could do a better job of protecting pedestrians at railway crossings. (Transportation Today)
- People for Bikes lists five ways businesses can encourage employees to bike to work during May Bike Month.
- With fewer cars, less noise, less pollution, shorter commutes and money for transit rolling in from tolls, after 100 days congestion pricing in Manhattan is working even better than supporters imagined. (Curbed)
- Pennsylvania Democrats continue to push for state transit funding as transit officials in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh predict dire service cuts without it. (City and State)
- Portland officials are considering a bond issue to pay the rapidly rising cost of fixing thousands of ADA noncompliant sidewalk ramps. (Oregonian)
- Austin’s Cap Metro is planning to triple the size of its bikeshare system. (KVUE)
- Bend, Oregon has decided to keep its bikeshare after a two-year pilot project. (Bulletin)
- Watch Washington, D.C.’s new bike lane street sweeper in action. (NBC Washington)
- After Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo built hundreds of miles of bike lanes, closed 100 streets to cars and removed thousands of parking spaces, air pollution was cut in half. (Fast Company)
- Toronto transit riders took 420 million trips last year. Nice! (Progressive Railroading)
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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