Recent Streetsblog USA posts about Today’s Headlines

Jacobin offers a convincing argument that Uber is a scam: It’s losing billions with no end in sight, susceptible to PR hits, undercharging customers, susceptible to regulations that would increase costs and admits autonomous cars are unlikely to save the day. Plus, most “unicorn” IPOs wind up failing. In other words, the demands of Uber […]

Uber drivers are planning a strike Wednesday — the day before the company’s initial public stock offering — to protest low wages (CNN). A recently passed law in New York City sets their minimum wage at about $17 an hour, but drivers there want greater job security. Other cities where strikes or protests are planned […]

The common 30 percent standard for what people should pay for housing doesn’t account for transportation costs. Owning two cars and commuting might take up another 20 percent of a suburban family’s income. (City Observatory) A new CDC study found that an alarming number of people involved in e-scooter crashes in Austin, Texas, suffered head […]

President Trump’s acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, is skeptical his boss will reach a deal with Democrats on infrastructure, despite Trump agreeing with Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi to spend $2 trillion (Salon). In fact, as always, nobody really knows what Trump’s going to do (Roll Call). Reminder: “Infrastructure” is not just some magical […]

More on Tuesday’s big infrastructure meeting among the powers that be: Politico, Washington Post, McClatchy, Streetsblog. Sidewalk Labs, Google’s sometimes-creepy sister company, has a common-sense plan for designing modern city streets: Recapture the space for the public, while separating modes and speeds. (Fast Company) Uber and Lyft have stopped hiring drivers in New York City, […]

Is “Infrastructure Week” no longer a joke? Axios reported Monday that President Trump hated his own public-private infrastructure proposal and secretly wanted to spend $2 trillion in actual tax dollars. Sure enough, when Trump left a meeting with Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer on Tuesday, they’d agreed to $2 trillion in spending to […]