Thursday’s Headlines Have Ways to Save

  • Cutting gas taxes may be popular with the public, but it’s not a good solution for soaring tax prices. Tax rebates and fare-free transit offer relief in the short term, and the long-term solution is to reduce demand by driving less. (Governing)
  • Crime and transit ridership are intertwined in multiple ways. People feel safer in groups, so as ridership fell, the remaining passengers became uneasy. (New York Times)
  • Transit leaders are not representative of their agencies’ ridership, skewing heavily toward the white male demographic and often living in suburbia. (Transit Center)
  • Forty years after his death, Robert Moses’ way of thinking still dominates urban planning, with officials often placing property values before people. (The Baffler)
  • Car-sharing could, somewhat counterintuitively, promote transit use, walking and biking while also reducing the amount of space wasted on parking. (Protocol)
  • Massachusetts tops the League of American Bicyclists’ bike-friendly states, followed by Oregon, Washington, California and Minnesota. South Dakota, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Nebraska and Wyoming bring up the rear. (Planetizen)
  • A Los Angeles pilot program will give 2,000 residents $150 a month that they can spend on transit and scooter, bike and electric vehicle rentals. (L.A. Times)
  • California lawmakers are unlikely to halt a scheduled increase in the gas tax, but direct payments remain on the table. (Politico)
  • A 1 percent sales tax for transportation will be on the November ballot in Tampa, with 45 percent of the $342 million in revenue going toward transit. (Tampa Bay Times)
  • Downtown Pittsburgh cyclists are being squeezed between cars and sidewalk cafes. (WTAE)
  • Uber will pay a $19 million fine for misleading Australian riders about cancellation fees and competing taxi fares. (Fox Business)

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