Wednesday’s Headlines Are Burning Up

  • More on that UN climate change report: It’s here, it’s “unequivocally” manmade, it’s already causing extreme weather like hurricanes and wildfires, and the only question at this point is, how bad will we let it get? (CNN)
  • The infrastructure bill passed the Senate. (New York Times)
  • Amtrak is allocating almost half its $66 billion in funding from the infrastructure bill toward the Gateway project in New York and New Jersey alone. (Slate)
  • Thanks to decades of deregulation, freight haulers are latter-day robber barons standing in the way of Amtrak improvements and better passenger rail. (Washington Monthly)
  • During the pandemic, people found comfort in owning a car even if they didn’t use it much. (Smart Cities Dive)
  • Transit agencies’ workforces are strained at a time when they’re working to rebuild ridership. (Metro Magazine)
  • Cities need more than sidewalks, crosswalks and safer streets to get people walking. They need denser housing, places to walk to and inviting places to walk past. (Saporta Report)
  • Houston residents continued to push back against a proposed I-45 expansion right up until the close of public comment. (Houston Public Media)
  • Portland elected officials are pushing for congestion pricing and want to make sure any real-estate windfalls from a Rose Quarter cap accrue to Black property owners and not the Oregon DOT. (Willamette Week)
  • As Sound Transit wrangles with a projected budget shortfall, a West Seattle group is pushing gondolas as a cheaper alternative to light rail. (My Northwest)
  • Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf’s plan for a vehicle-miles-driven fee is running into trouble. (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
  • Las Vegas is using federal COVID funds to expand transit service. (Review-Journal)
  • Denver is turning over some of its shared streets back to cars. (CBS 4)

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