B5. Resilience, Third Nature, and Transition

In a few days, host cities across North America will welcome huge World Cup crowds by pedestrianizing major streets – and in some cases, entire neighborhoods – to keep traffic jams out of the fan parades and festivals associated with the international event.

Boston will not be among them.

On Tuesday, the City of Boston and MBTA announced a compromise plan for managing heavy crowds around South Station that would keep Summer Street open to vehicular traffic on some – but not all – World Cup match days.

Mayor Wu’s administration had been fighting the T to keep Summer Street open to cars and trucks amidst the thousands of soccer fans that are expected to converge at South Station as they wait to board trains to Foxboro.

In the compromise plan announced Tuesday, Summer Street will be pedestrianized between Dorchester Avenue and Atlantic Avenue for eight hours on four match days: Saturday June 13, Friday the 19th, Monday the 29th, and for the quarter-final match on Thursday July 9.

For matches held on Thursday the 16th, Thursday the 23rd, and Sunday the 26th, the city plans to keep the northern lanes of Summer Street open to cars for the convenience of people who desire to drive through thick crowds of soccer fans into one of the most congested districts of the city.

But drivers should be warned: “the direction of travel will be coordinated based on the demands of the respective day and time,” and the city and the T may add “additional temporary traffic restrictions and lane closures to accommodate crowd management,” according to a press release that the MBTA and City of Boston issued yesterday.

Summer Street will also be entirely closed for an indeterminate period on all seven match days “while the MBTA sets up the temporary security screening and queuing space” outside South Station.

Other cities have more serious game plans

Boston’s nearest World Cup peer city, New York, recently announced a major transit-focused transportation plan for match days that will ban private cars and truck deliveries from numerous busy streets around Midtown Manhattan, even though the actual games are happening six miles away in New Jersey.

New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani last week announced that on World Cup match days, the city will expand bus-only lanes throughout Midtown Manhattan and transform 42nd Street – a major cross-town connection – to a bus-only corridor.

In a striking contrast to Mayor Wu’s approach, Mamdani’s administration is also planning to create large car-free pedestrian zones on the streets around Penn Station so that thousands of soccer fans will have plenty of space as they wait for trains to New Jersey.

New York had also previously announced plans to transform 50 streets near schools into car-free “soccer streets” this summer.

In another contrast with Boston, Philadelphia is also coordinating its World Cup traffic planning with its preparations for a surge of tourism for the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

Philadelphia will close several Lemon Hill roadways to vehicular traffic for the duration of its World Cup fan festival, and it will also pedestrianize the outer lanes of Benjamin Franklin Parkway, the grand boulevard between Center City and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, for the entire summer.

The city is also pitching in $450,000 to subsidize additional PHLASH bus service between the fan festival in Lemon Hill and the central city.

Even the two World Cup host cities in Texas are taking a more enlightened approach to transportation.

Houston is pedestrianizing roughly 30 blocks of streets in its East Downtown district for daily World Cup “fan festivals” in June and July.

In Dallas, where games will take place in a suburban stadium about 17 miles from the city center, the city will close several downtown streets near its World Cup broadcasting center in the downtown convention center, and on several blocks around the city’s fan festival in the state fairgrounds.

Each summer, people in mosquito country slather themselves with DEET, or diethyltoluamide, the synthetic liquid widely seen as the most effective mosquito repellent around.

But in some situations, they might be turning themselves into mosquito magnets, according to new research published in the Journal of Experimental Biology.

The discovery makes for interesting insights into why DEET is usually so effective. It’s also a cautionary lesson about nature’s adaptability in the face of human ingenuity, and to not take for granted the promise of such seemingly bullet-proof inventions as DEET.

“We need to understand how mosquitoes keep outsmarting our control strategies,” said Clément Vinauger, a Virginia Tech researcher who took part in the research and has spent years plumbing the behavior of mosquitos.

The stakes are much more than a few scratchy bites. Mosquitoes can spread dangerous blood-borne illnesses including malaria, dengue and yellow fever, killing an estimated 1 million people every year.

The use of DEET has been a mainstay of dealing with these biting insects, usually by spreading it on people’s skin or clothes. But despite its widespread use since its invention in the 1940s, it’s not entirely clear why it works. Does it trigger some kind of irresistible physiological reaction in mosquitoes? Or can insects overcome that response and come to tolerate or even like the smell?

To figure that out, Vinauger and his collaborators took a page from the work of Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov, who famously showed that he could train dogs to salivate at the sound of a bell, because they had learned to associate it with food.

 

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In a sense, the new experiments took it even a step further. What of an animal could become so conditioned that it would seek out a disgusting physical sensation, such as a terrible smell?

To figure that out, the scientists took laboratory-raised Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, a species that spreads yellow fever and dengue. They enclosed individual insects in a plastic cylinder topped with wire mesh. They lowered a warm bag of sheep blood toward the mesh and watched to see how often a female mosquito tried to poke its proboscis into the bag. Some mosquitoes were tested in a DEET-free setting. Others were offered a blood bag while being perfumed with DEET. In a third version, mosquitoes were allowed to feed on the bag unmolested for 10 seconds, then had DEET wafted into the chamber while feeding for another 10 seconds.

For each version, individual mosquitoes went through their routine three times, to drive home the behavioral lesson.

Then the scientists exposed each trained mosquito to the smell of DEET minus the actual blood bag. Most of the ones that had never encountered DEET before or had a constant dose of the chemical while the blood was presented reacted as we might expect. They showed little interest in feeding.

But the ones that had started feeding and then encountered the DEET smell did the equivalent of Pavlov’s salivating dogs. They acted as if they were going to bite, even when there was no blood bag.

To see if this response could be replicated in a more realistic situation, mosquitoes were exposed to the two hands of scientist Ayelén Nally of the University of Buenos Aires in Argentina. Just one of her hands was doused in DEET. Mosquitoes without any special training all headed toward the DEET-free hand. But more than half the trained mosquitoes showed a preference for the hand covered in the insect repellent. (Nally didn’t shed blood for the experiment – there was a mesh barrier blocking the mosquitos.)

The startling results suggest that rather than a hardwired physical response, the repellent might work because it evokes the smell of natural occurring repellents such as chemicals from a plant, the scientists suggested. “What we are showing is that the mosquito’s brain can rewrite that response based on experience. What the insect has learned matters just as much as what the chemical does,” said Vinauger. “That, I think, is a paradigm shift.”

That doesn’t mean people should toss away their DEET. It’s still highly effective in many cases. “If you’re in tropical regions where disease risk is real, you should use it,” he said.

But people might need to use it more thoughtfully. “Instead of applying a lot at once, you may want to reapply regularly so it’s always active and providing continuous protection,” Vinauger said.

That way, mosquitoes won’t get close enough to take a bite and begin associating the smell with a snack. Because if they do, then you might just be putting on mosquito perfume.

Lazzari, et. al. “Associative learning switches DEET valence from aversive to appetitive in Aedes aegypti.” Journal of Experimental Biology. May 28, 2026.

Image: ©Anthropocene Magazine

Oil shocks, currency crises, refugee flows and rising geopolitical disorder: analyst and columnist Mihir Sharma explains why the consequences of war with Iran will be felt far beyond the Middle East.

Why do people with access to the same facts arrive at radically different conclusions about the future? Physicist Tom Murphy reflects on an impasse with Dave Murphy over modernity, ecological limits and humanity's place in the living world.

Is hypocrisy the one thing that can grow infinitely on our finite planet? When you learn that humanity’s fossil fuel burning, including your own, is contributing to climate chaos, what can you do?

• Cities should densify their inner-ring suburbs to reduce car trips and greenhouse gas emissions, according to the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. Another study of 15-minute cities found that, for every 10 percent increase in residents living in walkable neighborhoods, transportation-related carbon dioxide emissions fell by 5 percent. (Cities)
• Air pollution slows the lung growth of children, and even young adults up to age 24. (The Guardian)
• Financially, people who drive a lot and own an aging gas-powered car are better off buying an electric vehicle, which is also better for the climate. (NPR)
• From schedules to accessibility, transit agencies are not doing a good job of adjusting to an aging population of riders, according to a Chinese study of Asian and European cities. (The City Fix)
• The key to winning the PR battle over traffic enforcement cameras is to convince the public they’re not just a money grab by local governments. (CT Mirror)
• An Illinois law reforming Chicago transit governance and pumping $1.5 billion into the system took effect Monday. (Tribune)
• The transit agency in Montana’s capital city, Helena, is facing a $200,000 deficit and considering cutting service, primarily affecting the elderly and disabled. (Free Press)
• The Kansas City Streetcar is studying the feasibility of a third extension. (KCTV)
• Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson joined an annual mass bike ride through downtown to celebrate Wisconsin Bike Week. (WTMJ)
• What should Charlotte call its new transit-oriented, walkable arts and entertainment district? (Ledger)
• Riding e-scooters and other personal mobility vehicles has become a popular after-work activity in Canada. (CBC)
• Car Free America explains how Copenhagen built its famously excellent bike infrastructure.

On April 20, the Federal Highway Administration launched its “Freedom to Drive” initiative, asking governors to nominate their worst traffic bottlenecks for federal capacity expansion. On May 17, House transportation leaders released the draft BUILD America 250 Act — a $580 billion, five-year surface transportation reauthorization, which the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee marked up on May 21.

Taken together, the two announcements amount to the largest federal sprawl subsidy in a generation, proposed at exactly the moment American households can least afford it.

There is a real freedom in being able to drive. But the “freedom” the initiative actually delivers isn’t “freedom” at all, because it leaves households with no alternatives.

For roughly 30 percent of Americans — children, older adults, people with disabilities, and households without a vehicle — driving is not an option. For nearly everyone else, the built environment makes it the only practical way to reach a job or a grocery store. We have grown so used to automobile dependence that we no longer notice the shackles. The “freedom” on offer is pure car-dealer Americana — red, white, blue, and one more promise that the next round of expansion will finally clear the traffic.

Recommended Trump’s ‘Freedom Means Affordable Cars’ Rings Hollow As Gas Prices Surge Kea Wilson March 30, 2026

Start with the household ledger. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that American households spent an average of $78,535 in 2024 — 33.4 percent on housing and 17.0 percent on transportation, more than half of household spending. The Center for Neighborhood Technology’s Housing + Transportation Affordability Index sets the combined affordability ceiling at 45 percent of household income, and most U.S. communities routinely exceed it.

But the H+T Index measures only direct household costs. It does not capture the federal subsidy that engineered the sprawl pattern, which households absorb, and it does not show how that subsidy gets returned in degraded form. 

Federal, state, and local governments spent $626 billion on transportation and water infrastructure in 2023, with highways as the largest category. Federal capacity expansion is increasingly deficit-financed, and households pay it back through inflated prices, eroded wages, and higher mortgage rates.

The road bill never goes away. It just gets routed through the dollar.

Recommended Congress Gave States Enough Money to Fix Every Road in America; Some States Set It On Fire Instead Kea Wilson May 11, 2026

Beth Osborne at Smart Growth America has argued for years that the federal performance-measurement framework is structurally biased toward expansion: we count vehicle throughput, not access, and the incentives push state DOTs to build new capacity rather than maintain what they already own. Her organization’s Repair Priorities reports have tracked this misallocation for over a decade. 

Chuck Marohn at Strong Towns arrives at the same diagnosis from a different tradition. He argues that the postwar suburban development pattern is financially insolvent because its maintenance liabilities exceed the tax base it produces, which he calls the “growth Ponzi scheme.”

Different schools, same conclusion: we are buying liabilities and calling them assets.

BUILD America 250 is the diagnosis in legislative form. It does real work—bridges need repair, freight matters, road workers deserve protection. But the architecture is backward. The bill cuts Safe Streets and Roads for All by $1.25 billion, eliminates the Carbon Reduction and PROTECT resilience programs, and repeals the Active Transportation Infrastructure Investment Program — the only dedicated federal source for closing gaps in walking and biking networks, whose first grant round was oversubscribed forty to one.

It then channels new money into capacity expansion at the moment traffic deaths remain at 39,254 a year. In their recent update of the U.S. sprawl index, Shima Hamidi’s Johns Hopkins team ties those deaths directly to the development pattern federal road dollars keep subsidizing: more vehicle miles and higher speeds, which lead to elevated rates of fatal and pedestrian crashes.

Recommended New House Infrastructure Bill: Cuts To Transit, Mixed Bag for Active Transportation Kea Wilson May 20, 2026

The fiscal logic gets worse. The federal gas tax sits at 18.4 cents per gallon for gasoline and 24.4 cents for diesel — unchanged since 1993. Users should pay for the infrastructure they use; that has historically been the conservative position.

But even as Congress writes new revenue streams to shore up the Highway Trust Fund, Washington is floating a gas-tax holiday in response to another Middle East conflict. The Bipartisan Policy Center estimates a five-month suspension would cost the trust fund roughly $17 billion — 46 percent of projected FY2026 fuel-tax revenue.

So the user fee that funds roads gets suspended because of an oil shock to which the road system itself made us all vulnerable — while Congress fills the gap by borrowing, and households pay back the borrowing through devalued wages.

That isn’t conservatism. It’s debt-financed dependency with a flag decal.

Recommended Advocates Decry Proposed ‘Gas Tax Holiday’ — And Offer Alternatives to Ease Pain at the Pump Kea Wilson June 23, 2022

A serious conservative transportation policy starts from three principles: maintenance before expansion, pricing before subsidy, and access before throughput.

Roads, freight, emergency access, and rural connectivity all matter. The argument isn’t road abolition. It’s fiscal sanity — and a refusal to keep mailing U.S. households the bill for a development pattern that bankrupts it.

America is not underinvesting in roads. It is overbuilding liabilities and underpricing their true cost. “Freedom to Drive” isn’t a new vision. It’s the same old invoice — stamped urgent, mailed to taxpayers, and wrapped in red, white, and blue.

Not long ago, Bengaluru had a different identity. People called it the Garden City, a place of wide, tree-lined roads, quiet lakes, and a climate so gentle it earned the nickname Pensioners’ Paradise. That city still exists in the memories of older residents, in photographs, and in the stories people tell when they are feeling […]

By 2050, recycling could fulfill half of Europe’s demand for critical raw materials, according to a new analysis. The final report of the European Union-funded Future Availability of Secondary Raw Materials (FutuRaM) project provides the most comprehensive assessment yet of what the authors call Europe’s “urban mine”—seven different waste streams that contain materials necessary for green energy, digital technology, and modern industry.

Critical raw materials are a set of 42 elements identified by EU officials as key to the green transition but vulnerable to supply chain disruptions due to geopolitics. They include materials needed for batteries, electric vehicles, and solar and wind power infrastructure.

Today these materials are mostly sourced from outside the EU, including cobalt from China and the Democratic Republic of Congo, lithium from China and Australia, and platinum from South Africa. Such materials may be reusable in theory, but are often lost when products containing them are discarded today.

In the new study, researchers took stock of critical raw materials across all 27 countries in the EU, plus the UK, Switzerland, Iceland, and Norway. They mapped several waste streams containing these materials in greater detail than a previous iteration of the project had done, and added a few more.

The new analysis details critical raw materials in electrical and electronic waste; end-of-life vehicles; batteries; retired wind turbines; industrial slags and ashes; debris from building construction and demolition; and mining waste.

The researchers made their data available on the Urban Mine Platform, a website that helps visualize critical materials in waste streams across the bloc using a common and transparent methodology.

 

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In 2022, 5.2 million metric tons of critical raw materials were embedded in goods that entered the market, with 2.1 million metric tons embedded in discarded wastes and 1.4 million metric tons recovered, the researchers calculated.

A greater and greater mass of critical raw materials will be in circulation as electrification, renewable energy, and digital technologies accelerate. By 2050, between 8.4 and 12.2. million metric tons of critical materials could be placed on the market annually, annual waste generation could reach 5.2 to 6.4 million metric tons, and recovery could be 4.7 to 5.7 million metric tons.

More critical raw materials in circulation means more potential for recovery even in a business-as-usual scenario. On the current trajectory, recycling could replace about one-third of new critical raw materials needed by 2050. That figure rises to 47% with better recovery systems and up to 56% if strong efforts are made to develop a circular economy.

Currently, five critical raw materials including platinum and rhodium have well developed recycling programs and with recovery rates over 80%. But as many as 17 of the elements, including cobalt, lithium, and rare earth metals such as dysprosium and neodymium, could achieve recovery rates of more than 80% by 2050, the researchers assessed.

Recycling critical raw materials would improve the security of supply chains and enhance Europe’s technological and industrial independence, the report argues.

It would also save carbon emissions. Already, the net climate benefit of recycling critical raw materials from European waste streams amounts to about 39 million metric tons of carbon dioxide per year. By 2050, the emissions benefit could reach just over 200 million metric tons of carbon dioxide annually.

Unlike past assessments, the new report moves beyond quantifying the amount of materials present in waste streams and analyzes which ones are actually recoverable into usable secondary materials. The researchers adapted a UN approach to assess the feasibility of mining and energy projects to apply it to recycling. An online tool based on this rubric will help gauge which recycling efforts are most worth pursuing, reducing uncertainty for investors and aiding scale-up of recycling infrastructure.

Source: Iattoni G. et al. “Future Availability of Secondary Raw Materials: Project Final Report.” 2026.

Image: ©Anthropocene Magazine.

Eventos Próximos eventos Reflexiones sobre la seguridad en una época de profunda crisis civilizatoria Este es el primero de una serie de seminarios web que dará inicio al ciclo con un debate conceptual sobre la seguridad en una época de profunda crisis civilizatoria. Se analizará cómo se ha concebido tradicionalmente la seguridad a través del orden internacional, el Estado-nación, la soberanía, la militarización y la gestión de amenazas, al tiempo que se cuestionará cómo las comunidades y l…

Democracia radical: recuperando las raíces del autogobierno y la autonomía - Presentación de un folleto desde Indonesia Día y horario * Día: 15 de abril * Hora: 11am GMT * Formato: Evento híbrido Introducción Ante la escalada de crisis globales —el colapso climático, el agravamiento de las desigualdades económicas y el dominio persistente de los sistemas neoliberales—, la necesidad de repensar la democracia nunca ha sido tan urgente.

[ Tejedores] TGA es una “red de redes”. Cada una de esas redes actúa en diferentes partes del planeta identificando y conectando Alternativas. Son los Tejedores. [ Apoyos] Diversas organizaciones progresitas, post-desarrollo y/o anti-capitalistas apoyan esta iniciativa. Tambien lo hacen académicos, activistas y referentes.GTAGTAGTA

Global of [Weavers] GTA is a “network of networks”. Each of those networks acts in different parts of the planet by identifying and connecting Alternatives. They are the Weavers. [Endorsements] Many progressive, post-developent and anticapitalist organizations around the world endorse this initiative. Also many academics, activists and referents do so.GTAGTAWeaversGTAGTAalternativesAlternatives

The world’s most comprehensive disaster database – relied on by thousands of climate scientists and policymakers – is at risk of closing as a result of cuts to US foreign aid by the Trump administration.

The effort to open parts of the Superior National Forest to copper-nickel mining has become a test case for how far governments are willing to go in trading long-term ecological protection for short-term resource extraction.

How movements working for a life-affirming future can learn from history — and from each other.

A sidewalk is more than just a strip of asphalt. It’s a place where countless laws collide. Those laws govern our movement, our safety, our right to free speech and our economy. They dictate who exactly is responsible for shoveling snow after a blizzard. But most communities don’t have a single agency that manages all of these competing concerns — and maybe it’s time they create one. 

Today on The Brake, we interview sidewalk law expert Michael Pollack about his new book “Sidewalk Nation: The Life and Law of America’s Most Overlooked Resource.” And in that book, he untangles the dense web of policies that shape our pedestrian spaces, which might just change the way you look at sidewalks forever. 

For an unedited transcript of this conversation (with AI typos), click here.

The company that makes the illegal stand-up electric scooter used by one of the victims of last week’s deadly head-on collision on the Queensboro Bridge bike path has added a warning label on its website after reviewers alerted the manufacturer to Streetsblog’s coverage.

Teverun — which makes the Blade GT II on which Francis Delvalle was riding on May 28 when he smashed into Dmytro Stechenko, killing them both — has since added some fine print to its website:

“All TEVERUN scooters are shipped with a speed limit of 25 km/h [15 miles per hour] for public roads. Unrestricted mode is for private or off-road use only. Always comply with local laws and wear protective gear,” it reads (you can see the small warning at the top of the webpage … if you squint).

The disclaimer could be a move to shift liability from the company to the consumer in the aftermath of the high-profile crash, one lawyer suspected.

“It’s a bit of an acknowledgement that these scooters are dangerous on the roads at higher speeds,” said Peter Beadle, a bike lawyer and a safe-streets advocate.

The scooter maker’s website added a disclaimer that the Blade GT’s 53-mph mode is not street-legal. But it still markets it as an “urban wolf.”

After Streetsblog reported the make and model of the scooter and pointed out that the device is illegal to operate on all New York City streets and bike paths, people began flooding the comment section with links to our coverage.

“You will die and kill someone else too,” one commenter, Eric, wrote before giving the scooter one-star and linking to Streetsblog.

“Perfect killing machine,” posted “Tom Smith.” “Great for killing myself and others! Just wish it could go even faster so I could end more lives.”

Scooter companies commonly falsely advertise their devices as legal by offering buyers the option of shifting to a different “mode” to violate speed limits or city rules. Many online retailers sell scooters and e-motos with “off-road” modes, as Streetsblog reported last year.

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Sophia Lebowitz

October 21, 2025

The details of the state’s vehicle and traffic code don’t clearly draw a line on mode shifting. But another factor that affects the legality of an electric two-wheeler is the wattage of the motor. The VTL clearly states that bicycles with electric assist must have a motor with 750 watts of power or less. Vehicles that can be shifted into “off-road” modes with high speeds will inevitably have motors with greater wattage.

For example, the brand Ride1Up specifically calls its vehicles “moped-style e-bikes.” On its website, the company clarifies that a “moped-style e-bike” has “programming and motor capabilities that allow for a higher top speed than class 3 e-bike regulations allow. The company then adds a disclaimer that it’s only for a private course. Ride1Up markets it as a Class 2 e-bike, which legally can reach 20 miles per hour with the throttle. But the motor is 1,820 watts, which exceeds the 750-watt limit, making it illegal to ride regardless of mode.

Our Revv1 … is pre-programmed as a Class 2 e-bike, so you can ride most anywhere at 20 miles-per-hour with throttle and pedal assist. However, you can unlock the programming to reach speeds north of 28 mph. This is intended for private property only.

This agile and robust bike is tough enough to cope with the most demanding of rides. However, with its practical and sturdy design, it remains suited to any rider with a comfortable saddle, upright riding position and throttle forward use-case that provides a boost up to twenty-eight MPH or more when unlocked for “Off-Road Mode.”

The brand Ride1Up calls this a “moped-style” e-bike. Its motor is too big to be legal.

The state’s traffic code does not specify a wattage cutoff for e-scooters. But companies selling them must display maximum speed and wattage on a sticker for both scooters and e-bikes. Still, the city’s own educational materials state that the max speed capability for a stand up electric scooter is 20 miles per hour.

It’s very difficult for police officers to, at a glance, know which motorized two-wheeled vehicle is a legal electric bike or an illegal e-moto, though police agencies in Europe, where e-bikers are common and provided ample space where their riders do not have to compete with cars, don’t seem to have this problem.

Beadle pointed out that although the company added a small disclaimer to the site about its modes, the page still reads as an advertisement for the fastest settings.

“The problem is that, some of these bikes and scooters can have their modes changed so easily that of course users are going to change the mode, it’s part of the marketing,” he said.

The site still advertises the scooter as “built for street dominance” and focuses on the scooter’s max speed. The site also specifically addresses safety, saying “speed is thrilling but safety comes first,” before encouraging riders to wear a helmet (as both victims of last week’s crash were). The website also clearly markets the scooter for city use:

Its 11-inch puncture-resistant tires, high-torque motor, and stable suspension allow it to tackle uneven roads, steep inclines, and urban obstacles with ease. Whether it’s potholes, gravel, or curbs, this scooter maintains smooth, controlled performance.

“That’s not marketing to a 15-mph scooter. That’s marketing to the 53-mph,” said Beadle.

• Drunk driving kills more than 12,000 people a year in the U.S., mostly in car-centric places with little to no public transit. Studies show that there are far fewer DUI arrests in cities where imbibers can take a train home. There is a similar effect where rideshares are readily available. (Planetizen)
• People for Bikes breaks down its position on the BUILD America 250 transportation funding bill.
• Five years after the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act put $5 billion toward electric vehicle charging stations, only 98 have been built. (Government Technology)
• While raging against dangerous drivers can be cathartic, sustained activism is what actually gets things done, according to a streets.mn writer.
• Americans seem to love everything about trains except riding them. (USA Today)
• Active Towns interviewed Sara Lind, co-director of Streetsblog’s parent nonprofit Open Plans. (YouTube)
• California regulators changed the state’s cap-and-trade program in ways that will benefit fossil fuel companies. (Los Angeles Times)
• The Urbanist further explores Sound Transit’s recent vote to delay or cut back on future transit projects.
• Assaults on Charlotte trains and buses fell by 67 percent through the first three months of this year compared to the first quarter of 2025. (WFAE)
• The Utah Transit Authority further reduced fares for the elderly, but made them more complicated to pay. (Salt Lake Tribune)
• A new Maryland law opens up 300 acres of state-owned land near transit stations for developing 7,000 housing units. (Smart Cities Dive)
• Light rail on the I-5 bridge between Portland and Vancouver, Washington remains up in the air. (The Oregonian)
• The president of Cornell University backed his car into a group of students who questioned him about free speech. (The Ringer)
• Missoula won an award for best transit system of its size. (Metro)
• Backlash against bike lanes and low-emissions zones led Krakow voters to elect a new right-wing mayor. (Politico)
• Italian cities are trying to make public spaces more equitable toward women. (24 Italy)

The “data-centre boom” is driving a surge in gas investment in the US, pushing its fossil-power spending ahead of China, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).