Wednesday’s Headlines

By Blake Aued |
  • Biking is affordable, healthy and zero-emission. That’s why it should be added to the Green New Deal. (Mobility Lab) The plan, in its current version, is also a missed opportunity to rethink the suburbs. (City Lab)
  • Data collected by University of Waterloo researchers can help urban planners choose the best places for bike lanes. (Phys.org)
  • With the Federal Highway Trust Fund depleted, South Carolina should prioritize transit funding, opines the Charleston Post and Courier. Currently the state spends just $37 million on buses and bike and pedestrian infrastructure.
  • Republicans will face a “tough vote” if Democrats send a gas-tax hike to the floor. (Politico)
  • Raising tolls, adding tolls to more roads, fees on electric and hybrid vehicles, raising registration fees and charging drivers per mile are among the alternatives to raising the gas tax in Ohio. (Plain Dealer)
  • Fort Worth’s new TEXRail commuter train is so popular that residents want to see it expanded. A combination of lack of right-of-way and busy freight lines make expansion difficult, though. (Star-Telegram)
  • New York lawmakers are seeking $100 million to upgrade Buffalo’s Metro Rail system. (News)
  • Related to Tuesday’s headlines on transportation equity, Lyft and the city of Oakland are bringing discounted transit passes and a “bike library” to underserved areas. (Curbed)
  • Students at Atlanta’s Grady High School held a rally for safer streets on the anniversary of a driver killing a student who was crossing the street on her bike. (Intown Paper)
  • Forbes assures us that autonomous cars won’t increase congestion by just driving around the block over and over rather than paying to park. That’s a relief.

Tuesday’s Headlines

By Blake Aued |
  • Cycling deaths are up nationwide — especially in the Southeast — but cities like New York, Portland and Washington, D.C., are bucking the trend by investing heavily in bike infrastructure, according to a new study. (Bicycling) The League of American Bicyclists report, also covered by Streetsblog, suggests that encouraging walking and biking could help solve the nation’s obesity crisis, too. (Forbes)
  • Bike facilities could be a powerful tool for equity, but they’re not being used that way. Although workers who make less than $10,000 are the largest bloc of people who bike to work, and the majority of people who bike in low-income neighborhoods are non-white, urban investment in bike infrastructure tends to neglect them in favor of wealthy riders, says one Harvard expert. (WTOP)
  • Poor people and people of color on foot or on bikes are the most likely to be hurt in a traffic crash in Minneapolis, according to the city’s new Vision Zero study. (City Pages)
  • Des Moines is dramatically increasing its sidewalk construction, spending $60 million over the next 20 years to fill in 180 miles of gaps. (Register)
  • After spending the past five years or so disrupting the cab industry, Uber is disrupting itself by investing in scooters and bikes. (Bloomberg)
  • Philadelphia will never eliminate traffic deaths without more help from the Pennsylvania DOT, which controls the majority of the city’s most dangerous streets. (Inquirer)
  • By rejecting Prop 6 and opting not to repeal a gas-tax hike that funds transit as well as roads, California voters chose mobility over gridlock. (Mobility Lab)
  • Canada’s Globe and Mail kicks off a series on urban mobility with a piece on microtransit. (H/T to Streetsblog Denver)
  • After the Super Bowl debacle, Atlanta’s streetcar is the laughingstock of the nation. (Curbed)

Monday’s Headlines

By Blake Aued |
  • It lives! President Trump’s zombie infrastructure bill has been reanimated once again. (WaPo) But the real kickstart for infrastructure, according to Curbed, could be Sen. Ed Markey and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal, though it’s only a resolution for now, as Streetsblog reported.
  • With a federal deadline fast approaching, supporters of a Research Triangle light rail line continue to fret that Duke University’s opposition could kill it. (Raleigh News & Observer, Durham Herald-Sun, Duke Chronicle)
  • A Brookings Institute expert tells the Las Vegas Sun that a light-rail line could help that city avoid L.A.’s sprawling, traffic-choked fate.
  • Phoenix voters will decide the fate of 26 miles of proposed light rail in August. (3TV/CBS 5)
  • Taking the bus or a train is still a cleaner option, but Lyft’s “Green Mode” gives drivers and passengers the option to choose a hybrid or electric vehicle. (Smart Cities Dive)
  • A Maryland state senator wants a study on a light-rail line that would chop up to 24 minutes off commute times to Washington, D.C. (Independent)
  • Other bills in the Washington state legislature would jack up fines for drivers illegally using HOV lanes. (The Stranger)
  • A cycling group reports a big uptick in the number of tickets Philadelphia police are handing out to drivers who park in bike lanes. (KYWN)
  • This Baltimore resident’s car-free commute involves a train ride, a sick joke of a transit-oriented development, climbing two fences, walking through a field and jogging along five-lane roads with no sidewalks or crosswalks. (Greater Greater Washington)
  • Much like Waze helps drivers avoid police checkpoints, a new app aims to help them dodge parking regulations. (Forbes)

Friday’s Headlines

By Blake Aued |
  • The global explosion of shared bikes and scooters since 2017 is just the tip of the iceberg — the industry could be worth $300 billion by 2030. But one thing Silicon Valley hasn’t considered much is safety. (City Lab)
  • Speaking of which, Memphis’s public Explore Bike Share is adding 300 bikes and 50 new stations, thanks to a fees paid by privately owned Bird and Lime. (WMC) The Springfield, Ill., city council has approved a bike share (ABC 20), and the same company, Gotchya, is also bringing 800 bikes to Baton Rouge, La. (WAFB) Portland, Maine, is looking to add one this spring, too (The Forecaster), as could Asheville, NC. (WLOS) And Phoenix, where e-scooters are currently banned, is mulling a pilot program. (State Press)
  • Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer says she’s working on a transportation funding plan and wants to broker a deal for regional transit in Detroit, where suburban voters shot it down in 2016. Look for more details next month. (Crain’s)
  • Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser continues to push for restoring late-night service on the Metro over the MTA and Federal Transit Administration’s objections. (Curbed)
  • San Diego’s Bicycle Advisory Board is calling for more protected bike lanes. (KUSI)
  • San Antonio biking advocates want improvements on a street with no bike lanes where a DUI driver killed a cyclist earlier this week. (News4SA)
  • Step on a crack, break your mother’s back: Little Rock parents are worried that a grated sidewalk designed to filter rainwater runoff could wind up injuring children. (KARK)
  • And a cop tackled a cyclist in a ticket blitz — against cyclists! — four days after a cyclist was killed in a hit-and-run in New York City. (Streetsblog)

Thursday’s Headlines

By Blake Aued |
  • Omaha is the latest city that will have to decide if a streetcar is a frivolous amenity or an important transportation tool. Backers point to the success of Kansas City’s streetcar, while others fret about gentrification and whether it will serve minority communities. (Next City) Vancouver is also studying potential routes for a future downtown streetcar. (Daily Hive)
  • Voters in suburban Gwinnett County, Ga., are sharply divided by age and race on whether to join the Metro Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority. A referendum is scheduled for March. (AJC) Metro Atlanta’s other big suburban county, Cobb, will host town hall meetings next month to discuss an upcoming transportation tax referendum and its inclusion in The ATL, metro Atlanta’s newly formed regional transit authority that oversees MARTA and others. (Marietta Daily Journal)
  • Increased frequency, bus-only lanes and charging at park-and-ride lots could push more Seattle-area residents to use transit. (Everett Herald)
  • After a freight train derailed onto a Pittsburgh light-rail line in August, the Port Authority is reconsidering a plan to allow double-stacked train cars on tracks near the city’s busiest bus route. (Post-Gazette)
  • Transit is not a high priority for Ohio’s Republican House speaker. (WVXU)
  • Fort Lauderdale taxpayers will get refunds for the canceled Wave streetcar project. (Sun Sentinel)
  • Toronto Mayor John Tory is fed up with drivers who block streetcars by parking illegally and wants the city to do a better job of clearing snow off sidewalks. (Sun)
  • The Rails to Trails Conservancy is planning a 4,000-mile cross-country bike trail that will run through 12 states. (Curbed)
  • Our Streetsblog NYC colleagues broke a huge story about how Google is now tipping off drivers to the locations of speed cameras.
  • Forget flying cars. Uber users in Mumbai can dodge traffic by hailing a boat. (Fortune)
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