Friday’s Headlines Tear It Down

• Removing urban freeways creates developable land and tax revenue for cities, but often it doesn’t benefit the communities those freeways originally displaced. (Next City)
• The cost of building highways outweighs the benefits, especially when taking into account that they sit on $4 trillion worth of land. (State Smart Transportation Initiative)
• The Federal Transit Administration finalized new safety training requirements for passenger rail workers. (Transportation Today)
• The Minnesota Reformer examines Tim Walz’s mixed record as governor on transportation, planning and environmental issues, including more funding for transit but also highway projects.
• New York City is considering building housing on city-owned sites where garages and parking lots now sit. (NY Times)
• Houston has made a lot of progress on becoming less car-centric, but now Mayor John Whitmire is stalling bike projects, and its transit agency has no plans to expand. (Washington Post)
• Almost 80 percent of Miami-Dade voters voted yes on a nonbinding resolution in favor of expanding transit (Herald). They also re-elected progressive Mayor Daniella Levine Cava (Axios).
• Construction has started on a new $160 million bus terminal in Detroit. (Axios)
• Greater Greater Washington looks at candidates for Baltimore mayor and city council through an urbanist lens.
• Austin found that upgraded left-turn signals reduced deaths and injuries from crashes by more than 47 percent at those intersections. (Monitor)
• A new report found that Philadelphia is the safest city for pedestrians. Philadelphians disagree. (WHYY)
• New wildlife crossings in Montana will save both grizzly bear and human lives. (Mountain Journal)
• An Albuquerque neighborhood started a Little Free Library to spread the word about Vision Zero. (KOB 4)

source https://usa.streetsblog.org/2024/08/23/fridays-headlines-tear-it-down