Friday’s Headlines Keep Their Eyes on the Prize

Traffic engineers often think wide, straight roads are safe. Forget that. A few trees here, a few benches there is all it takes to make drivers perk up, slow down and pay attention.

By Blake Aued

12:01 AM EDT on May 2, 2025

The more stuff, the more careful drivers are.

|La Citta Vitta

Cluttered roads where drivers feel a little uneasy actually makes them safer because drivers will slow down (State Smart Transportation Initiative). In related news, all it takes is little things like benches and sidewalks to make drivers perk up (Fast Company).
House Republicans now want to drop a $20 fee for gas-powered cars and raise their proposed $200 fee on electric vehicles to $250 (Reuters), which is even worse, because what's draining the highway trust fund is Congress' lust for more highway lanes and unwillingness to raise gas taxes, not EVs. (Streetsblog USA)
Pittsburgh Regional Transit riders testified for seven hours about why a 45 percent service cut would devastate their lives. (Union Progress)
St. Louis Mayor Cara Spencer paused a north-south MetroLink line out of concern that the project won't be able to compete for a piece of a shrinking federal pie. (St. Louis Public Radio)
The fast-growing D.C. suburb of Montgomery County, Maryland is shifting toward a multimodal future. (Greater Greater Washington)
The Federal Transit Administration is allowing the West Seattle Link Extension to move forward. (Westside Seattle)
At least some Texas legislators are behind high-speed rail, with one pushing an Austin-to-San Antonio line. (Texas Public Radio)
Philadelphia's carbon emissions dropped 31 percent between 2006 and 2022, but the low-hanging fruit is gone, and tough decisions are ahead. (WHYY)
More than 100 volunteers set up tactical urbanism projects in three Indianapolis neighborhoods. (WFYI)
If Uber does leave Colorado due to pro-driver regulations, worker-friendly local alternatives are ready to fill the void. (KGNU)
Pensacola set a Vision Zero goal of 2035. (WEAR)
A Melbourne professor helps keep the trains on time for some of the world's busiest transit systems, from Dubai to Hong Kong. (The Guardian)
Fifteen-minute "eco-districts" in France would put American transit-oriented developments to shame. (The Urban Condition)
Ikea is opening a new store in London, and it wants Mayor Sadiq Khan to go through with a controversial plan to close Oxford Street to cars. (CityLab)