Stories worth reading – June 11, 2015
Here are a few curated stories we’re reading and talking about this week:
Louisiana legislature makes a paradigm shift to better prioritize transportation dollars and restore public confidence
From the T4America blog
Louisiana passed a bill through the state House and Senate by unanimous votes last week that will make the process for spending transportation dollars more transparent and accountable to the public — a smart first step to increase public support for raising any new transportation funding.
Worth checking out: NYTimes’s Bits column’s special section on transportation
Virginia in the midst of making an important decision about how to measure and weight congestion in their project selection process
Greater Greater Washington
When Virginia chooses transportation projects, should it narrowly look only at what makes cars move faster? Or should it consider how each project will transform the region, and pick the ones that do the most for residents, the economy, safety, and quality of life? A state board will soon tip the scales one way or the other.
3 Key Developments for Autonomous Cars
The Motley Fool
As the mobility revolution gains momentum, the average investor is not aware of the magnitude of the change bearing down on the automotive industry — a pillar of American manufacturing. The resulting landscape will deliver outsized returns to a few companies as others fight for survival. Here are recent stories that deserve closer watching.
Salt Lake City success
Railway Age
Now that its FrontLines 2015 program, a group of five Utah Transit Authority rail projects that added 70 miles to the existing 64-mile rail network, has been completed $300 million under budget and two years ahead of schedule, UTA’s main focus is on increasing frequency of service and better connections. And it’s well on its way.
7 Cities Get $375,000 to Work on Bike-Share Equity
Next City
Since modern bike-share’s introduction to the United States in 2008, the nonprofits, the departments of transportation, advocacy organizations and businesses behind the systems have been asking two key questions: How do you make bike-share financially sustainable and how do you make it equitable?
How our cars, our neighborhoods, and our schools are pulling us apart
The Washington Post
The shared experiences and communal spaces where our lives intersect — even if just for a ride to a work, or a monthly PTA meeting — have grown seemingly more sparse. And all of this isolation means that the wealthy have little idea what the lives of the poor look like, that people who count on private resources shy away from spending on public ones, that misconceptions about groups unlike ourselves are broadly held.
One Iconoclast’s Blunt Message on Transportation Funding
Governing
What the system needs, Marohn says, isn’t a big infusion of cash, but a thorough examination of what it ought to be doing in the first place. Barring such an examination, he wouldn’t give the transportation system a dime.