Stories worth reading – June 18, 2015

Here are a few curated stories we’re reading and talking about this week:

New Smart Growth America report details why so many companies are moving downtown
From the T4America blog
Launched at a terrific event at Washington, DC’s Newseum just this morning, Core Values, a first-of-its-kind report, is stuffed with useful data on nearly 500 companies that have decided to either move from the suburbs to a downtown location, or that have decided to expand or open a new branch in a downtown core.

House takes first step in process to keep the nation’s transportation fund solvent
From the T4America blog
For the first time since 2012, the House of Representatives held a hearing focused on funding the nation’s transportation system. Today’s hearing focused on the elephant in the room: how to adequately fund a transportation bill that’s longer than just a few months. While it’s a relief to see the funding issue finally getting airtime in the House, keeping the nation’s transportation fund solvent is only half of the problem — we also need to update the broken federal program that isn’t meeting our country’s needs.

SC gas-tax opponents say fight just beginning
The State
When lawmakers return to work in January to finish out a two-year legislative session, proposals to raise the gas tax while providing tax relief will be at the top of the agenda.

Coastal officials want passenger rail service back on track
AL.com
“This isn’t about nostalgia or rail fans, it’s about economic development and it’s about commerce,” said John Robert Smith, chairman of the board with Transportation for America.

“It’s about security and evacuation and movement of goods in and out before and after tropical storms and hurricanes,” Smith, a former long-time mayor of Meridian, Miss., added. “It impacts southerner’s lives on many different levels.”

Did you get stuck in traffic this morning? They’re trying to find out why
Public Radio International
Wolshon is one of many traffic engineers to acknowledge our roads are inefficient. People sometimes ask him why it’s hard to improve something as low tech as a painted strip of asphalt. The truth is that traffic engineers already know pretty well why our roads are inefficient. The reasons are habit, design, and data.

Green Line LRT: Job Accessibility Impacts in Minneapolis and Saint Paul
Streets MN
Overall, we find that residents of Saint Paul experience the greatest increase in access to jobs: a year after the opening of the Green Line, workers in Saint Paul can, on average, reach over 2,000 more jobs than they could previously — a 5.3% increase. Because this city-wide average includes areas that are far from the Green Line, it can obscure the fact that in locations near Green Line stations and connecting transit routes, accessibility often increased by over 50%, and in a few locations more than doubled.

Sidewalk Labs, a Start-Up Created by Google, Has Bold Aims to Improve City Living
New York Times
The founders describe Sidewalk Labs as an “urban innovation company” that will pursue technologies to cut pollution, curb energy use, streamline transportation and reduce the cost of city living. To achieve that goal, Mr. Doctoroff said Sidewalk Labs planned to build technology itself, buy it and invest in partnerships.

U.S. is locked in to an aging highway system
MarketPlace
By now, it’s also become a cliché to point out that [America’s highway system is] falling apart. In fact, the massive size of the highway systems is also its weak link. We built it, we’re dependent on it, and like all things made by man, now it is breaking, crumbling, and in some cases, falling down.