The latest streets and transportation news from Streetsblog USA.
We’re back at it on this Monday morning! Here are today’s top stories:
A lawsuit in New York is raising important questions about how Uber’s in-app navigation system works after a driver hit a scooter rider after making an illegal u-turn that was ordered by Uber’s own GPS. When drivers (who Uber makes pains to point out are NOT employees of the company) fear getting “deactivated” from the app for not following the navigation to a T, who shoulders the blame? Streetsblog NYC’s Sophia Lebowitz explores this contradiction, in print and on video.
And as the Trump administration is getting ready to send federal troops into their latest targeted “urban hellhole” (Portland, Oregon), the Put-a-bird-on-it city is fighting back with a plan to file a “land use violation notice” about ICE’s alleged zoning violations in the southwest part of the city. Given its usual scorched-earth approach to everything, the Trump administration will undoubtedly continue to ignore Portland’s land-use conditions – and most likely challenge them in court. The question is what the challenge will look like. The administration could simply claim the feds are not subject to local control even though the facility is on leased property from a private property owner. And/or it could challenge Portland’s whole land-use regulation regime, most likely in federal court. And that would be where this whole thing gets interesting.
Centennial events downplay the violent history of one of America’s most “iconic” highways, and obscure how that violence persists to this day.
The U.S. is becoming a dying petrostate, while China leads the world in renewable energy.
“Affordable travel is not a fallback. It is what makes broad mobility possible.”
Dabney Sanders explains how Greensboro’s Downtown Greenway came together.
The best way to celebrate the nation’s birthday might not be a road trip to a national treasure; it might be just a few steps outside your front door.
