Wednesday’s Headlines Wonder What If?

• Congestion pricing could have been one of those momentous decisions that changed a city’s trajectory forever. (New York Times)
• London’s experience with congestion pricing show that it would become popular in New York if paired with a massive expansion of public transportation. (Jacobin)
• Are traffic engineers really complicit in road deaths? Planetizen examined the claims made in Wes Marshall’s new book and found that they hold up.
• Governing makes a case for paying for roads and bridges with tolls rather than federal tax revenue.
• Since the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration won’t act, Congress launched an investigation into the recent surge in traffic deaths. (Streetsblog USA)
• Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is seeking to halt a lawsuit over whether Austin can issue bonds to fund light rail, arguing that the AG’s office has the sole legal authority to decide. (American-Statesman)
• NPR does a deep dive into the David-and-Goliath battle between rideshare drivers and Uber and Lyft over a minimum wage in Minnesota.
• Instead of asking voters to let it build a sprawling new city on farmland that’s only accessible by car, Silicon Valley tech billionaires have already assembled enough appropriately zoned land for a smaller version. (San Francisco Chronicle)
• In North Carolina, public health advocates are at the forefront of efforts to make roads safer for cyclists and pedestrians. (NC Health News)
• Aging infrastructure means large swaths of metro Pittsburgh are hard to get around on foot, bike or even by car. (Post-Gazette)
• A California bill would restrict the sale of devices allowing e-bike riders to bypass speed governors. (Electrek)
• A San Diego e-bike charity is facing allegations that it misspent millions of dollars in public money. (Union-Tribune)
• Salt Lake City police issued citations at a recent critical mass ride, but said they were targeting motorcyclists doing donuts and popping wheelies rather than trying to break up the event. (Tribune)
• Washington, D.C.’s traffic cameras have cut speeding by 95 percent. (Post)
• One D.C. resident spent two years biking to all 790 Capitol Bikeshare docks. (Washingtonian)

source https://usa.streetsblog.org/2024/06/19/wednesdays-headlines-wonder-what-if