Streetsblog USA

This week we’re finally doing it! We’re going to Kingwood, Texas, and talking about the greenbelt trail system I’ve been telling everyone about for years. This is a storytelling episode, featuring guests John Walsh, Jerry Lunow, and Bill Neuhaus, so I hope folks enjoy hearing about NASA, timber companies, bike trails, and Houston’s bayous. But also, stick around to hear how a suburban development in Texas from the 1970s mirrors and pre-dated Dutch bike planning with special guest, Steve Vance from Streetsblog Chicago.

Now, as you know at Talking Headways, we offer you three ways to enjoy our fine content:

• Read the full transcript (with a few AI typos) by clicking here.
• Reading an edited segment below the player on this page.
• Or simply putting in those AirPods and clicking the audio player below to get the full dulcet tones of our host and his guests:

Here’s the partial excerpt:

Steve Vance: I did not think about the benefit of living in Houston when we moved there. It only came to light when we moved away from Kingwood in 1996 to Batavia, Illinois.

And then my perspective and appreciation for the design of Kingwood changed again when I visited Houten in the Netherlands in 2011, where I recognized some of the design principles in Houten were actually present in Kingwood. And I was shocked that somebody in the ’70s had this idea that has been replicated 4,000 miles away at around the same time, but also I think in Davis, California, there are some parallels between Kingwood and their bike path system and Davis’s bike path system.

Jeff Wood: Throughout the production of this episode, I couldn’t shake thinking about how the United States and the Dutch diverged in the 1970s. In 1973, an oil crisis hit and prices spiked. To many people, this is a line of demarcation. Gary Nelson notes that 1973 is the year that petroleum killed America, and auto-oriented sprawl clearly won out over communities designed for active transportation like walking, biking, and transit.

Some countries, such as the Netherlands, made deliberate choices, moving towards less energy-intensive modes as the United States shifted further towards auto dependence. In 1979, with more oil embargoes and the election of Ronald Reagan, auto dependence and urban sprawl were set in stone for another generation.

Steve and I enjoyed a rare Texas bubble, a place where you could bike everywhere if you wished.

Steve Vance: Growing up there, I was a free-range kid before that phrase even existed. And I had a bicycle, and I was able to ride my bicycle to any of my friends’ houses in other subdivisions and ride it to the grocery store, which I think was called Randall’s at the time, and the library and school and the pool in my subdivision or in my friend’s subdivision because there was a greenbelt trail system, a network that was grade separated through the forest.

And then when I moved to Batavia, like, I was put on lockdown. I was not allowed to bike to certain parts of Batavia or Geneva. There’s a road in that part of Illinois called Randall Road. It probably has a state highway number. But I was not allowed to cross that road. And the thing is, the grocery store was on the other side of that road, and thus I was severely restricted.

Things that were normal for me to do in Kingwood, I was not allowed to do in Batavia because Batavia had very little bike infrastructure, had almost no on-street bike lanes, although Kingwood didn’t have any because it had such a robust trail network. And then the middle school that I attended in Batavia was built on a greenfield site at the edge of town, and so I either had to take a bus or one of my parents had to drive me

Jeff Wood: Steve wanted to bike and walk. But as kids, we didn’t know why we couldn’t or what was really different aside from the fact that one place had accessible transportation and the other really didn’t.

Steve Vance: So later the Dutch Consulate sent planners to come to Chicago to work with the Chicago Department of Transportation’s bike lane designers and planners.

And some events were open to the public, and so I attended one where one of the Dutch planners explained this layered network system. So there’s a network of roads for cars and vehicles, and there’s a separate network for biking, and they will intersect at certain points and you make certain treatments so that those intersections are safe.

But between points, you have completely separate networks. They don’t have to be the same network with the bike path and the road in the same alignment. You can separate them. It was neat to learn in like 2010 that there was a name and a concept and a process for doing what I had experienced as a child in Kingwood for five years.

These Dutch planners would say, “Get a map out. Mark the points of interest that you’re trying to promote cycling to, and draw straight lines between them.” So you can see the beginning of a network. Obviously, you can’t build bike trails in a straight line because there are buildings and natural resources in the way, and so then you try to draw the straightest line possible between the two points.

And so if you look at a map of Kingwood and you mark all the playing fields and the schools and the pools, it’s, it’s basically the whole bike path or multi-use path, the Greenbelt Trail, was designed to just connect all of those things. It hit every point that someone like me or my sister needed to go to frequently on our bikes.

The network was there for that.

A recent study from Open Plans and the Transportation Research Program at Hunter College argued that AVs will generate excessive “deadheading,” or empty vehicle miles, in New York City. The concern is fair, but the conclusion was based on a false equivalence: it treats the density of California as directly comparable to New York City. The literature is clear that deadheading depends on demand density. There are fewer empty miles when cars don’t have to travel far to find their next passenger.

Nonetheless, the report raises an important question: how can AVs avoid creating more congestion? It’s a fair question, given the rapid introduction of tens of thousands of personally owned for-hire vehicles more than a decade ago was a shock to the system. While AVs will have a much smaller footprint, there are lessons we all can learn from mistakes made by companies such as Uber and Lyft.

I walk and bike everywhere and I want the same for my kids. That’s why I was thrilled that after a year of advocacy and organizing, the City of Oakland is redesigning one of the city’s most dangerous streets to prioritize bicycle and pedestrian safety. It’s also why I work at Waymo. In my personal advocacy and in my role as the Policy Development and Research Manager at Waymo, I often think about the trade-offs required to build a safe, vibrant, and efficient transportation system. Whether it is bike or bus lanes, curb management, or parking, there is rarely a perfect solution. The conversation about how to most effectively deploy AVs is no different, and curb management is an important place to start.

Cities become more delightful when there are fewer cars circling and less curb space devoted to vehicle storage. Right now, roughly 40 percent of ride-hailing miles are empty, a figure that generally holds for AV fleets. But as a fleet operator, Waymo is incentivized to minimize deadheading because we bear the cost of every single empty mile driven. Every unnecessary mile means additional operating costs, energy consumption, vehicle wear, and risk exposure. Traditional ride-hailing platforms don’t internalize these costs; they are pushed onto the drivers. Waymo, like cities, wants to reduce empty miles as much as possible.

One solution to reducing empty miles is parking between rides. Taxis do this at taxi stands, and the San Francisco County Transportation Authority found ride-hail drivers park an average of 10 minutes between hails. When Waymo asked researchers from UC Berkeley and UC Irvine to model the impact on VMT from AVs staging at the curb, they found that it reduced empty miles by more than 60 percent. And the magnitude of the reduction was striking, particularly because the model strategically accounted for moving empty AVs into off-street lots during low-demand periods.

Staging is also a highly productive use of curb space, according to the researchers. Because AVs spend much of their time providing trips, the cumulative value generated by staging far exceeds that of a curb space occupied by a privately owned vehicle. For a commercial district, this means that local businesses could receive eight to 10 times as many potential customer visits than if the space were designated for private vehicle storage only.

None of this means AVs should have unrestricted access to the curb. Waymo already prioritizes parking in off-street lots, limits itself to one staged vehicle per block face, and avoids cycling through the same spot repeatedly. In a recent report, Open Plans and the Transportation Research Program at Hunter College argued that New York City’s “constrained curb space” makes staging infeasible, leaving AVs with little choice but to drive empty between trips. But the curb isn’t constrained by the laws of physics, it’s constrained by policy. As the Berkeley and Irvine researchers suggested, establishing permitting standards can formalize curbside staging. Deadheading can never be zero, so the real question is how many empty miles will we accept in exchange for the safety, accessibility and other benefits of AVs. Curb management is exactly how cities can organize that tradeoff with clear rules.

Encouragingly, New York is having these conversations at the highest level. Mayor Zohran Mamdani created an Office of Curb Management this year to bring more order to how the city allocates curb space. Officials are weighing ideas from metered spots to residential permits to dynamic pricing. Each plan differs, but the premise is one we agree with: curb space is valuable, and managing it inconsistently doesn’t serve anyone well.

Waymo, city officials, and urbanists have common cause, and we don’t have to wait to start having these conversations. Open Plans has in fact been a leader on reimagining curbs. New York is the first and only city in the nation to implement congestion pricing, which has been a resounding success. Though controversial, there is renewed interest in more visibly holding drivers accountable for blocking street cleaning.

At Waymo, we believe AVs can play a valuable role in making transportation safer and cities more livable. Conversations about curb management and other policies that help responsibly deploy AVs are key to our work with the city officials, advocates, and communities we hope to serve.

• Congressional Democrats are accusing the Federal Transit Administration of intentionally stonewalling transit projects. The Trump administration has yet to issue any grants from a multibillion-dollar capital investment program since the president’s second term started. It’s also tried to cut off funding for already-approved projects in blue states, like the Gateway Tunnel. (New York. Times)
• Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy believes bike lanes cause traffic congestion. In fact, the opposite is true. (Bloomberg Government)
• Despite tariffs, demand for new transit buses in North America remains strong as agencies replace their aging fleets. (Smart Cities Dive)
• Safety and comfort are just as important as distance when it comes to walkability. (The Conversation)
• The privately owned cross-country passenger rail line AmeriStarRail has yet to materialize because the company hasn’t been able to reach an agreement with Amtrak. (USA Today)
• Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass’ campaign promise to make the L.A. Metro free would cost $1 billion and possibly prevent the agency from improving service. (LAist)
• A Washington, D.C. cycling group is pushing for better walking, biking and transit access around the new RFK stadium. (Greater Greater Washington)
• Portland residents who bought an e-bike using the city’s rebate program say the purchase changed their lives. (Mercury)
• Kansas City is using water-spraying trucks to keep extreme heat from warping streetcar tracks. (Axios)
• The Metro Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority has three finalists for CEO. (Saporta Report)
• A Vision Zero plan in the Seattle suburb of Lynnwood is getting pushback from people who say the city doesn’t need to spend money on traffic safety because it already has relatively few road deaths. (The Urbanist)
• Ann Arbor transit agency The Ride is starting a shuttle service for University of Michigan football games. (MLive)
• Heavy electric vehicles are tearing up China’s roads. (Techy 44)
• A proposal for high-speed rail in Australia would save a lot of jet fuel and help solve Sydney’s affordable housing crisis. (B1M)
• Japanese cities are so livable because everyday needs are within walking distance, and there’s an excellent transit system for longer trips. (BBC)

The year is 2036. Connected Autonomous Vehicles comprise 25 percent of the cars on the nation’s streets and roads and fleets of robo-cabs crisscross cities. But after one such CAV blows a stop sign and kills a pedestrian, federal cybermarshal Dana Grant starts asking questions — but can Grant get to the bottom of the “accident” … or undercover a plot to use these connected AVs to kill thousands? That’s the plot of “Autokill” (Open Road Media) by “Gridlock” Sam Schwartz and playwright Cary Pepper. To purchase the full book, click here. But for now, curl up with Chapter 3, “What Was Wrong?” in this exclusive excerpt.

After staring at the computer screen for several minutes, Dana Grant sat back and slowly shook her head. She wasn’t happy and she didn’t know why.

The case seemed simple enough. Last week, a Connected Autonomous Vehicle killed a 35-year-old woman in California. She was sitting in a park, set back from the road some 50 feet, when she was struck by the vehicle. According to local police, the car ignored a stop sign, which was one reason the case landed on Dana’s desk. That, and of course, the fatality.

Dana Grant was a federal cybermarshal assigned to the National Transportation Safety Board’s Portland-based CAV unit, Western Sector. With thousands of robo-cabs, trucks, and buses on the nation’s roads and streets, the National Transportation Safety Board had created a new branch to investigate CAV-related accidents. It was similar to the division that investigated aviation incidents, but only two offices had been opened so far (Eastern Sector was head-quartered in Boston), its operating budget was smaller, its staff had not been provided with the in-depth training that allowed agents in the aviation division to effectively probe air-transport events, and, unlike the aviation division, the CAV unit had no NTSB Training Center.

The marshals had been promised such expertise, but the agency, despite being in existence for six years, was still getting “up to speed” and Congress (swayed by the powerful CAV lobby) had repeatedly failed to adequately fund it, leaving many marshals to obtain any special training they felt they needed on their own, at their own expense. Dana had overheard several of her colleagues proudly vowing not to “go all tech” as long as they had to pay for it themselves.

Not Dana. If she were doing the job, she wanted to be as good at it as she could be. Just as she’d gone the extra distance as a cop in Phoenix. Since joining the unit, she’d been taking workshops and reading as much as she could to educate herself on the intricacies of CAVs. When she needed help, she didn’t hesitate to reach out to the small network of advisors and consultants she’d slowly assembled around her during the five years she’d been on the job.

Influenced by those advisors and consultants, Dana had stopped using the word accident when talking about her cases. She investigated crashes.

An accident is an unfortunate incident that happens unexpectedly and unintentionally, an event that happens by chance or that is without apparent or deliberate cause. But CAVs, obeying algorithms designed for maximum safety and free of road-rage-inducing ego, didn’t do things unexpectedly or take potentially-dangerous risks. So when a CAV collided with anything, it wasn’t an accident. It was a crash.

Dana also quickly learned that crucial to investigating and understanding any incident involving a CAV meant knowing how to read and interpret the information gleaned from its black box, which included every decision, maneuver, and change the vehicle made during a trip. It included interactions with passengers. It included everything the car did, saw, and heard. And because this data was all in computer code, it required knowing how to understand what you were looking at.

Even with all the time Dana had spent learning about this arcane corner of the universe, she still had large gaps in her knowledge of it. But she was light years ahead of every other agent in her office, and she knew it.

Now Dana sat pondering why the CAV ignored the stop sign. Programming error? Software failure? Faulty sensing equipment? If any of those were the issue, did the problem lie with Relyable, the company that manufactured the car? Or was it a matter of a repair, similar to fixing the brakes on a human-driven car? And if that were so, was the root cause a failure by the company that operated the vehicle to properly maintain it?

Or, if it was a programming or software error, did that signal a failure by the engineers at the company that made the car? Which would mean Dana had to see if the same company created both the computer code and the software, because it was possible that correct computer code had been negated by faulty software.

A third possibility was that someone tampered with the stop sign, which happened often in the 2020s, when kids defaced traffic signs or anti-AVers tried to demonstrate the weakness of autonomous infrastructure. Then came the 2029 Topeka School AV bus crash. A couple of teenagers out for kicks turned a 30-mph sign in to one reading 80 mph by making the three an eight. The bus raced around a sharp curve doing 80, left the road, and plunged 35 feet down an embankment, killing 21 children and the bus attendant.

For the next three years, all AV school buses had to have a human driver. Meanwhile, every inch of roadway in the United States was minutely mapped: every traffic sign, signal, lane marking, and channelization. And the federal government required any change, no matter how small, to be immediately entered in the central Geographic Information System Command file, the huge database where all this information lived. Failure to do so resulted in states and cities losing as much as billions in federal highway dollars. Now, any discrepancy between what an AV saw and what was in the GIS database, was detected by the CAV’s Command Center (all the companies that operated CAVs had command centers that controlled their fleet) in a nanosecond, and the GIS Command Center threw the vehicle into fail-safe mode, choosing the safest available option for its next action.

If a vehicle saw “80 mph” but the database listed “30 mph,” the GISCC would send an alert, slow or stop the vehicle, and a remote driver would take over the CAV. In addition, all other vehicles from that company would be alerted and a post-mortem would be conducted.

The system worked almost flawlessly in cities and on state roads; the only gaps now were the small towns and rural areas that didn’t have the ability to update the GIS files, or the few places where locals believed that routinely updating their files was an infringement by an overbearing government. Since 2033, there had been only nine instances of minor crashes due to un-updated traffic devices, and none due to vandalism. Could this be the first?

Maybe. Yet Dana had a gut feeling it was something else. There were thousands of Relyable delivery robos operating in the county and there hadn’t been similar incidents. Which suggested that the computer code, the software, and pretty much everything else in the vehicle was operating properly. So what else could it be?

Relyable had already responded to the police-finding that the car went through the stop sign. Company spokespeople maintained that the sign had been defaced with both a hole and grafitti, so the fault lay not with the vehicle and its sensing equipment, but with the town for not repairing the sign. Relyable also noted that the town had been cited four times for not complying with GIS Command. The company could not be held responsible, it reasoned, for signage or traffic signals that were not repaired or replaced in a timely manner.

Dana studied pictures of the sign; there was no question that it had been vandalized. A tagger had gone to work on it, and there was a hole dead center in the middle of the O. If it was a bullet hole, someone was quite a shot.

Did that mean the CAV had not seen the sign? Or had it seen the sign but was no longer able to identify it as a signal to stop, perhaps interpreting it as nothing more than a lamppost or structure designating street parking? Why did the Topeka fail-safe protocol fail?

“Oh, you caught that California thing.”

She hadn’t heard Kyle coming up behind her. But now there was that soft wheezing through his seemingly-always-clogged nasal passages. Perhaps if he lost some weight… The thought ran through her head almost every time she saw Kyle. He wasn’t obese. Just unnecessarily overweight, all in his belly, which hung over his belt in a loose fold.

Kyle Beaumont would always be overweight, always breathe heavily through his nose, always be, in Dana’s mind, one nasal breath away from a heart attack. Which of course she hoped would never happen. She didn’t hate Kyle or wish any bad would come to him. She just wished he wasn’t her boss.

Not because he was overweight and breathed through his nose. Because he was always hovering, and he wasn’t thorough. He’d been with the NTSB 20 years to her 5, and was more interested in clearing cases than conducting competent, thorough investigations.

So, rather than encourage his people to spend as much time as they needed to properly run a case, he’d be satisfied with a preliminary finding, even one still open to questions, if it added to the “Case Closed” log he submitted weekly to the head of the Portland bureau.

As a result, Dana’s unit had a high closure rate, which Kyle was determined to maintain. But given how they were achieving it, she wasn’t sure that was something to be proud of.

Their findings tended to hold the vehicles or companies blameless, and Dana sometimes wondered about that. But the truth was, in crashes involving CAVs and human drivers, it was almost always the human driver at fault. CAVs had proven themselves to be more consistent, more stable, and less erratic than human drivers. They were not distracted as easily or as often, never tried to beat a changing traffic light or speed past an approaching train, and had no interest in pushing themselves to test their power, speed, or endurance.

So the fact that Kyle’s long list of closed cases often found in favor of the CAV wasn’t surprising. Nevertheless, Dana often found herself wishing he didn’t reach that conclusion quite so fast.

Standing behind her looking over her shoulder, he’d moved closer. She knew, without turning, because the heavy breathing was now only inches from her ear.

“New perfume?” he asked.

“Nope.”

“You smell different. New shampoo?”

“Nope.”

“Different soap, maybe?”

She pictured him sniffing the air around her. Or, worse, sniffing her.

“Same soap.”

“Something about you is different. Are you …?”

It was time to end this. She shifted in her chair, sending it backward into his foot, then turned around and was “surprised” to see the wheel of the chair pressing on his shoe and the edge of her seat against his leg.

“Oh, sorry! I didn’t realize you were that close.”

“No harm done,” he assured her, reaching down to lightly rub his knee. “You still working on that?” he nodded toward her computer.

“Hmm-hmm,” she muttered, studying the screen again to indicate she was too distracted to talk.

“Stop sign was vandalized. The town didn’t update its GIS records. Like the company says, it’s their fault. Can’t you close it?”

“I’m not sure yet,” she started. “I—”

“You have ‘a feeling,”’ he finished for her. “Here we go.”

She hated when he did that. But it had been years since she took him seriously when he said those things in that tone of voice. That had stopped after working with him for two months, when she almost caved in the wake of his response to her first “feeling.”

That first time, still new to the unit and trying to find her way, she’d almost let him intimidate her because she was half-doubting herself: Had she really been on to something, or was it more an attempt to prove she could do the job?

But she stuck with it, and it paid off. Driver vs. CAV, and the driver swore the robo had swerved into his lane. There was activity to the right of the CAV that might have made it swerve toward the driver, but a check of the black box showed it swerved no more than a foot and did not cross the double yellow line that separated the vehicles.

On a hunch, Dana checked the driver’s cell-phone records and found that he’d been on the phone at the time of the accident. It was him, not the robo, that had swerved across the
double yellow line.

Two lessons learned: Always trust her gut, and never listen to Kyle about such matters.

It took her a while to stop railing at herself for letting him come as close as he did to shutting her down, but she finally landed in place of self-understanding: she was navigating new territory with insufficient training. She was allowed a few missteps; she could forgive herself. Afterward, she did more than that, using the episode to redefine their relationship.

Never one to be intimidated (easily or otherwise), not even as a child, she would never again be bullied by a bureaucrat now that she was 35, carried a badge, and believed (knew) that she was better suited for this work than he was.

“Here I go,” she corrected him. “It’s not gonna affect your life much.”

“Except what it’s gonna do to our clearance rate.”

“You mean my clearance rate?”

“Ours includes yours. You slow up, we slow up.”

“I’ll work this extra fast.”

“Work what? The cops confirmed the CAV went through the stop sign. No one’s contesting that. The cops confirmed the stop sign was vandalized. No one’s contesting that. The town didn’t update its GIS file. You wanna blame the robo? It’s like, someone blindfolds you, then blames you for walking into something. How much more open-shut can you get?”

“Looks that way.”

“Except you know better.”

“I just want to leave it open a little longer so I can—”

“You can have a little more time on this. But don’t take too long. And don’t neglect your other cases.”

“I never do,” she answered, fingers busy on her keyboard, focusing on her screen, as a way to end the conversation.

Finally sensing their talk was over, Kyle walked away, triggering a new train of thought for Dana: What kind of ratings was he getting on his quarterly evaluations? But why go there? For years he’d been part of a federal bureaucracy that valued meeting quotas and demonstrating its own skewered sense of “efficiency.” She knew exactly the kind of evaluations he was getting. And he knew exactly how to keep getting them. And keep his job.

She peered at the screen for real now, hoping to find something new. Kyle was right about one thing: It did seem like an open-and-shut case. The CAV had functioned perfectly until it encountered the vandalized stop sign.

So what was bothering her? What was wrong?

• Even accounting for manufacturing, swapping out a gas-powered vehicle for an electric one results in 50 percent fewer greenhouse gas emissions. The break-even point is about 18,000 miles, which the average person drives in a year and a half. The benefits are greater for older cars built under less stringent environment standards and in places with green electric grids. The only exceptions are for plug-in hybrids that run mostly on batteries or a second car that isn’t driven much. (Grist)
• Rail projects are still moving forward despite the Trump administration’s animosity toward them. (Quartz)
• Robotaxis seem to be getting glitchier as Waymo grows, and the cities it’s expanding into are unprepared. (New York Times)
• Cities too often ignore medium-density “missing middle” development that encourages walking. (CNU Public Square)
• Walking to school has gotten a lot harder than many adults remember. (Upworthy)
• A town just outside Boston prioritized safety over speed, and the result has been zero traffic deaths over the past three years. (Christian Science Monitor)
• Richmond announced plans for quick-build safety improvements at 700 intersections as part of its Vision Zero program. (WRIC)
• Gov. Mike Braun may have been on shaky legal ground when he extended Indiana’s gas tax holiday. (Indianapolis Star; paywall)
• A Houston developer is building a 12-story, 2,000-space parking garage that takes up an entire city block. (Chron)
• The increasing popularity of giant U.S.-style trucks and SUVs in Australia has led to an uptick in pedestrian deaths, even as driver and passenger fatalities continue to decline. (The Conversation)
• In Bogota, bike advocates are fighting back against the gender stereotype that cycling is only for men. (The Guardian)
• The massive Grand Paris Express metro expansion will feature 68 new architect-designed transit stations. (Arch Daily)

• If the chicken is biking and the egg is building bike infrastructure, new research shows that the egg comes first. Bike lanes and bike parking both lead more people to cycle to work, according to a French study in the journal Transport Policy. (Momentum)
• Road usage charges like Hawaii’s that rely on annual odometer readings are simple and non-intrusive, but they don’t take into account where and when those miles were driven. (Traffic Technology Today)
• Modern, connected urban transportation systems commonly leave out parking garages, resulting in a lot of unnecessary cruising around looking for parking. (Route Fifty)
• Planetizen is running a three-part series on traffic congestion.
• European right-wingers are just as in love with cars as their American counterparts. (The Loop)
• A bike- and pedestrian-friendly extension of 15th Street in Midtown Atlanta is set to open by the end of the month. (Urbanize Atlanta)
• The Atlanta Beltline, often blamed for gentrification, is building more affordable housing and starting a down payment assistance program. (WABE)
• Indiana Gov. Mike Braun is opposed to a lane reduction on a bridge connecting the state to Louisville. (WDRB)
• Cuyahoga County, Ohio is considering raising parking rates for the first time in a decade. (Cleveland Plain Dealer)
• Signal Cleveland has lots of details about pending transit cuts.
• A pickup truck driver intentionally ran down two people on a Memphis sidewalk. (News 3)
• A Philadelphia state representative is introducing a bill to ban self-driving buses. (Billy Penn)
• A public transit YouTuber exposed massive cost overruns on the L.A. people mover project. (Hollywood Reporter)
• A Denver man is tracking down all of the stamps left by his grandfather, who poured the concrete for many of the city’s sidewalks. (Rocky Mountain PBS)

Donald Trump’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) rolled into Santa Monica today to hold a hearing on the federal government’s plans to open up California’s coastal waters to oil and gas drilling, floating nuclear power plants (really!), rocket testing, and other questionable uses. Trump is using NOAA to challenge California’s – and only California’s – right to protect its coastlines.

Needless to say, California is not taking this lying down. Tribal leaders, environmental groups, local political leaders, and others gathered in the courtyard for a noon rally before the 2 p.m. meeting to tell the Trump Administration that California’s coast is not for sale.

“We know what is best for Los Angeles County, for California, and for our nation,” argued Los Angeles County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, after arguing that the Trump Administration is intentionally pushing policies that hurt Californians. “If they wanted to really help our communities, they would release billions of disaster aid to help our coastal communities desperate to rebuild their lives after the Palisades Fire.”

At the rally before the hearing, speaker after speaker took to the podium to denounce not just the idea that politics is clouding California’s environmental regulations, but just the opposite: that political concerns were pushing the administration’s attacks on California to the benefit of Trump’s political donors.

“We’ll keep fighting, but we know what’s going to happen today,” stated Congressman Dave Min (D-Irvine). “A bunch of you are going to go in and give your testimony, and this rigged review is going to come to the conclusion that has been preordained.”

Trump’s Plan

The Trump administration is reopening a federal review of California’s Coastal Management Program, raising the possibility that the state could lose some of its longstanding authority to protect its coastline should he succeed.

The program, which has been federally approved since 1978, operates under the federal Coastal Zone Management Act. It gives California a role in reviewing federally regulated projects that could affect the state’s coastal resources, including projects in federal waters. The California Coastal Commission, State Coastal Conservancy, and San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission all play roles in implementing the program.

That authority has allowed California to challenge or modify projects ranging from offshore oil development to pipelines, desalination facilities and rocket launches. Despite Trump’s claim that the state should lose its rights because of “environmental extremism,” the Coastal Commission has reviewed thousands of federally regulated projects over the decades, but has opposed only a small percentage of them.

NOAA is conducting a new review of the state’s coastal program after Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick accused California of using its coastal authority to obstruct projects favored by the administration for political reasons.

Among the examples cited by federal officials is California’s opposition to expanded SpaceX rocket launches from Vandenberg Space Force Base. SpaceX has been firing test rockets from the base for the last half dozen years. But, the state has asked for more oversight of all rocket launches marines from Vandenberg accidentally fired 155-millimeter artillery shells over a major freeway in Southern California.

State officials, however, argue that the review is part of a broader effort to remove obstacles to the Trump administration’s plans for the coast, particularly its push to expand offshore oil and gas drilling.

Speaking at today’s hearing, Wade Crowfoot, California Secretary for Natural Resources, noted that after states were given greater purview in enforcing environmental standards for projects nearly six decades ago, the states participating in the Coastal Zone Management Act have approved 95% of the federally requested projects. In that same time, California had approved 96% of the projects.

Crowfoot continued with the theme that the federal review is more about politics and Trump’s feelings towards California than about policy.

“Americans across the country share the concerns we do about the health and safety of our coasts. The Trump Administration proposed expanded offshore oil drilling in the states of Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, and California. When leaders of three states expressed strong concerns on behalf of their constituents, the federal government backed off those proposals…Yet they continue to target California,” he testified. Florida, North Carolina, and South Carolina all voted for Trump in 2024.

The administration has proposed opening federal waters off California to new oil and gas leasing, something that has not happened in decades. It has also sought to restart the Sable pipeline, which has been shut down since the 2015 Refugio oil spill. Recently, the government spent billions of dollars to stop wind farms and other renewable energy projects from being built.

California’s coastal program was already reviewed under the previous administration. NOAA’s 2024 review included public meetings and stakeholder input, and a draft report completed in 2025 found that California had successfully implemented and enforced its federally approved program. The Trump administration nevertheless ordered another review.

If the federal government ultimately determines that California’s program does not comply with federal requirements, it could seek changes to the program or move toward decertification. That could weaken the state’s ability to challenge federal projects and put federal funding connected to the program at risk.

The confrontation is unusual enough that legal experts told the Los Angeles Times they were unaware of another instance in which the federal government had stripped a coastal state of its rights under the Coastal Zone Management Act. What happens in California could therefore establish a precedent for the relationship between the federal government and coastal states elsewhere.

Gabrielino Tongva & Chumash activist and singer Tina Orduno Calderon sings a welcome song at the Rally to Protect the California Coast. To listen to the song, click here. You Can Still Submit Comment

Californians who want to push back against the Trump administration’s effort to weaken the state’s coastal protections have a relatively simple place to start: tell the federal government what you think. You can submit your own comment electronically, here.

While the only in-person meeting was held (or is being held depending when you’re reading this) today, there are virtual meetings tomorrow and Wednesday, August 11 and 12. For more details on those meetings, click here.

“Trump is threatening California’s coast in pursuit of reckless offshore oil and gas extraction to pad the wallets of his corrupt oil cronies,” Newsom said in a statement. “We won’t stand by while Trump sidelines the people who rely on and care for California’s coast. Now is the time to make our voices heard. Give the Trump administration an earful.”

You can read the state’s official comments, here.

A woman was killed on Market Street on Friday. A recent report shows a higher number of severe and fatal crashes in San Francisco than when the city first took its Vision Zero pledge over a decade ago.

A new study from a coalition including the Vision Zero network and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety concludes that the core problem is that cities take the pledge to reduce traffic fatalities and serious injuries to zero, but then don’t integrate it into all aspects of planning. The “Safe System Success Stories: Proactive Injury Prevention in Transportation” evaluates projects in 13 cities by their ability to reduce crashes. It’s a template for how all cities should look at all projects.

“Across the board, across the city, cities need to make changes and align decision-making and all their funding decisions, all policy decisions, with traffic safety priorities,” explained the Vision Zero Network’s Leah Shahum. “Most cities are not doing that yet; San Francisco is not alone in that.”

More from the study:

Put simply, speed kills. Kinetic energy is the central driver of injury in road collisions. As the amount of kinetic energy in a crash increases, whether through higher velocity or greater mass, the human body is less able to tolerate the forces released. Kinetic energy risk can be managed by reducing how often and how far people drive (exposure), limiting operating speeds and vehicle mass (severity), and reducing how often road users are placed in conflict (likelihood of a crash).

The three levers from the study

According to Shahum, those three safety levers need to be considered in every bit of planning. New York City’s congestion pricing was one successful planning example cited in the study. By charging drivers to enter the city’s most congested area, it reduces the number of cars and vehicle miles traveled, reducing exposure. It encouraged a switch to bicycles. And of course it reduces how often users are placed in conflict “by enabling street space to be repurposed for bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure. Such infrastructure separates pedestrians and cyclists from motor vehicles, reducing opportunities for conflicts.”

Closer to home, San Francisco’s Van Ness BRT also pulled all three levers because it created…

…dedicated, center-running transit lanes, reduced general-purpose lanes from three to two in most segments, narrowed lane widths, added median pedestrian refuges, programmed signals with leading pedestrian intervals, and restricted left turns for private vehicles at most intersections. These changes reduced conflict points, shortened pedestrian crossings, improved transit operating speeds and increased person throughput without roadway expansion.

Projects that don’t meet the safety criteria, she explained, simply shouldn’t be built. Shahum cited an example from Santa Rosa, which nixed a long-planned road-widening because it clearly increased exposure. “It’s not just about a project there or a project here, it’s about changing how we make decisions about widening,” she said. “If a project fails on delivering on safety, you can’t use it as an excuse that something’s been in the pipeline for a long time.”

Shahum confirmed there’s a parallel with equity-based planning, where cities require themselves to ask whether a project exacerbates disparities before it can proceed. Unfortunately, Caltrans and county departments of transportation continue to build projects that are in conflict with Vision Zero goals. Think of all the ramp widenings, which increase speeds and exposure to wrecks.

“City planners need to be unafraid and unapologetic about taking things off their plan and off the funding cycle if it’s not going to improve safety,” said Shahum.

Be sure to check out the report.

• Flock had a plan to turn hundreds of thousands of Uber, Lyft and delivery vehicles into rolling, easily hacked surveillance cameras to collect data that it could turn around and sell to repo agencies. (404 Media)
• A study published in the Journal of Transport and Sustainability came to the surprising conclusion that places where people drive less have fewer traffic deaths.
• Transit agencies should be more willing to take on loans to met pent-up demand for service, particularly automation and electrification, which save money in the long run, says the Center for Public Enterprise.
• On a party-line vote, U.S. senators approved four of the Trump administration’s transportation appointees before leaving town for their August recess. (Eno Center for Transportation)
• Ride-hailing services grew GDP in cities where they launched in the 2010s, but the gig-economy jobs created mostly replaced more traditional permanent jobs, according to a Carnegie Mellon study. (Smart Cities Dive)
• Debate is reopening on Reddit about whether cyclists are safest with protected infrastructure or riding with cars, as the late John Forester believed. (The Cool Down)
• A 12-year, $90 billion Pennsylvania infrastructure plan includes $13 billion for transit in the first four years. (PennLive)
• Utah’s Frontrunner light rail double-tracking project took another step toward receiving a $1.3 billion federal grant. (KSL)
• With gas prices of more than $4 per gallon, few Utah drivers even noticed that the state’s six-cent gas tax was suspended. (Salt Lake Tribune)
• The downtown Oklahoma City streetcar will remain fare-free indefinitely after a pilot program boosted ridership 74 percent. (Free Press)
• An Oregon transportation committee is looking to other states for inspiration on how to fill a $200 million funding gap. (Capital Chronicle)
• Dozens of countries are using the video game Minecraft to educate children about urban design. (New York Times)

• Albuquerque and a bunch of other Sun Belt cities are the most dangerous for walking, according to an analysis of walk scores and pedestrian death statistics. The study shows a regional divide between the car-dependent sprawl and wide streets of the South and Southwest, and the rest of the country. (Momentum)
• Breaking news: The data is at odds with the Trump administration’s claims that transit is dangerous. (Washington Post)
• Speed traps are an ineffective way of slowing down drivers, writes Beth Osborne. If you want drivers to stick to 25 mph, don’t just lower the speed limit, design the road differently.
• A study out of California suggests that Flock cameras misread license plates 70 percent of the time. (CNET)
• A combination of social service outreach and law enforcement cut homelessness on L.A. transit by more than half. (Metro Magazine)
• In addition to a referendum in Wayne County that stops inner-ring Detroit suburbs from opting out of transit service (Bridge Michigan), Spokane voters narrowly renewed a sales tax funding transit (Spokesman-Review).
• Asthma rates in Philadelphia are measurably higher near freeways and industrial areas. (The Conversation)
• Amtrak is adding a second train connecting New York City, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. (Patriot-News)
• King County is adjusting bus lines in a way that will add a net 3,000 bus trips each week for the Seattle area. (The Urbanist)
• Twin Cities officials are scrambling to find $200 million for the Blue Line. (KSTP)
• San Francisco has already outpaced last year’s number of serious injuries from car crashes. (SFist)
• Nashville is considering banning right turns on red. (WSMV)
• Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett announced eight new sidewalk and other transportation projects. (WRTV)
• West Memphis — a separate city in Arkansas across the river from Memphis — is starting a new transit system. (Local Memphis)
• Almost 90 percent of Kansas City streetcar riders are satisfied with it. (KCTV)
• A Los Angeles man is trying to bike all 7,500 miles of L.A. public streets, and he’s about three-quarters of the way there. (L.A. Times; paywall)

As if we didn’t need another case for building more homes — turns out, it reduces driving.

New planned housing is expected to cut the number of miles driven in California, according to a new study released on Thursday.

Researchers from UC Berkeley and UCLA analyzed the state’s housing plans to understand how changes in supply affect vehicle miles traveled. They found that building more homes can eliminate up to 1 percent of miles driven statewide, inching towards California’s official goal of a 25-percent drop by 2030.

Recommended Letter From Bogotá: How A Great World Capital Puts Housing, Transit and Public Space First Sophia Lebowitz July 29, 2026

Transportation researchers agree that decreasing vehicle miles traveled minimizes pollution, eases traffic congestion, and mitigates roadway fatalities. In some studies, less driving has brought money-saving and public health benefits, too.

“Many existing neighborhoods do have opportunities for people to be able to drive less,” said Zach Subin, one of the study’s researchers and an Associate Director at UC Berkeley’s Terner Center. “There’s very clearly an opportunity to … solve the housing shortage by directing new housing to these places.”

Now, research confirms that the benefits of reducing driving are achievable through building more housing. By growing the neighborhoods where public transit is reliable, walking is convenient, and shorter drives are possible, more Californians can enjoy car-light and car-free living.

The results are an encouraging sign that the state is making material progress towards ending car dependency. They don’t, however, capture its full potential, nor reduce driving to a livable standard.

Recommended California Climate Funding Fight Pits Transit and Housing Advocates Against Oil Industry Giveaways Damien Newton May 26, 2026

More strategic housing placement could reduce vehicle miles traveled by as much as 6 percent per capita, well-above the 0.9-percent currently expected. To reach that more ambitious goal, the study claims that cities would need to locate new housing with the sole intent of reducing driving, which they do not currently do. 

They may not be fully equipped to do so, researchers suspect.

California uses a top-down process in planning for new housing, with mandated growth goals for each city and county. First, state officials conduct a Regional Housing Determination, an eight-year projection of needed housing growth in every region. Regions are then on the hook for their allotted number of homes.

Each region then divides its target number amongst its municipalities based on current supply and expected demand. Finally, every municipality must then pass a state-approved Housing Element that demonstrates how they plan to build new housing, and where it will go.

California requires its cities to build housing, but cities decide where and how to build.

Cities are the focus of the state’s struggle to more dramatically reduce driving. Regional governments, the study finds, are sufficiently investing in housing production in cities and counties where residents drive less on average. But local governments aren’t paying the same attention to their car-light neighborhoods.

Subin theorizes that competing priorities and insufficient state support could both curb cities’ ability to plan more strategically. He notes that the study did not conclude a primary rationale for slowed local-level improvements, and that each municipality had its own unique struggles. However, he still sees clear opportunities for improvement.

“[Cities] can’t just do it on their own,” Subin stressed. “The state really needs to step up in terms of, not just guidance, but high quality data and technical assistance.” The study also recommends a prioritization of state-issued goals to help local governments stay on track.

California has long charted the nation’s path for climate action. To reach its ambitious carbon reduction goals, and to reduce other pollutants, traffic, and roadway fatalities, the state must continue to build. It won’t succeed, however, if cities can’t get with the program.

• The stopgap spending bill recently passed by the U.S. Senate would allow $38 billion in transportation funding to expire Oct. 1, because it does not extend the Biden administration’s infrastructure act. (News From the States)
• Vision Zero is a natural extension of the car-safety legislation the U.S. government passed in the 1960s. (Vox)
• Uber’s defense in sexual assault lawsuits is to blame the victims. (New York Times)
• Past EPA data made it clear that electric vehicles greatly reduce carbon emissions compared to gasoline, even when generating the electricity is accounted for. Now the EPA has stopped collecting that data. (The Equation)
• The Urbanist rounded up all the insane things the Trump administration has been doing lately regarding transportation.
• Street design is as important is zoning in encouraging more housing. (Planetizen)
• Sound Transit is installing fare gates at its busiest stations to boost revenue collection. (KOMO)
• The L.A. Metro is expanding a program that incentivizes households to drop down to one car. (The Source)
• Pittsburgh is stepping up enforcement against drivers blocking sidewalks and bike lanes. (WPXI)
• City of Pittsburgh employees who work downtown will receive free transit passes. (WESA)
• Omaha launched a $5 million relief fund for businesses affected by streetcar construction. (WOWT)
• As places with temperate climates get warmer, there’s a lot they can learn from cities in Southern Europe and the Middle East, such as the need for shade and shelter instead of wide-open paved spaces. (Building Design)
• Brisbane may not be the most walkable city, but it is “permeable,” meaning it’s inviting to explore on foot. (Architect)
• Ontario is a test case for what happens when automated traffic enforcement cameras are removed — speeding there surged. (CityLab)

Unregistered high-speed motorcycles are illegal, but a deceptive and widespread marketing tactic has tricked families into purchasing the dangerous vehicles, with deadly results, and fooled lawmakers into pushing laws that would make streets even less safe.

Gabriel Nacato, 17, died last week in New York City after a crash with an SUV while riding his Deepower e-moto. The vehicle’s top speed of 30 miles per hour is illegal in New York, but the uncle who purchased the wheels for Nacato told the media he had no idea. It’s hard to blame him: Deepower’s website advertises the e-moto as an e-bike — a common practice for misleading and endangering consumers.

An illegal e-moto by Tuttio advertised as an “Electric Bike” with a top speed of 46+ mph. Click to expand.

Deepower’s deception is not anomalous. Days before Nacato’s death, a 14-year-old died in Seattle after his e-moto plummeted down a set of stairs. Another 14-year-old outside of Chicago met the same fate.

The deaths come as manufacturers continue to dodge basic safety requirements. Several popular brands design their bikes with a speed cap override, or operate above legal limits by default. Many of these companies target their advertising towards children and teenagers, even though their products can reach speeds up to 50 mph. They list the vehicles as e-bikes, misleading consumers on the risks and legality of their products.

E-moto manufacturer Tuttio Sport markets its illegal, 50 mph-capped bikes to children.

Thrill-seeking youth and well-meaning family members aren’t the only targets of the e-moto scam. Lawmakers are getting duped, too.

In January, New Jersey’s then-Gov. Phil Murphy signed a bill requiring e-bike riders to possess a drivers’ license, registration and, in some cases, insurance. The bill went after legal e-bike users — not the illegal e-moto market.

“The final bill places unnecessary and burdensome restrictions on low-speed e-bikes while leaving higher-risk vehicles like electric mopeds and motorcycles without additional regulations,” PeopleForBikes said in a statement.

New Jersey’s convoluted series of requirements that restrict and deter e-biking. Click for full-size version. Photo: New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission

California legislators introduced a similar bill one month later. Their proposed statute, which would have required riders of most e-bikes to register their bike and attach a license plate, has stalled in committee. Separately, the state’s attorney general advised consumers to be wary of falsely advertised e-motos, and emphasized the danger to children in particular.

“California should focus on regulating, educating, and enforcing laws against deceptive advertising and illegal use of e-motos, rather than creating new barriers for people riding legal e-bikes,” statewide bike advocacy organization CalBike said in a statement.

States vary in how they define e-bikes, compounding consumer uncertainty over what is and is not legal. Some states classify e-bikes as bicycles. Others define them as car-like vehicles. All but eight states and Washington, D.C. follow a three-class system based on speed and wattage. Most states cap unlicensed e-bikes at 28 mph, designating anything faster an e-moto. And without meeting stricter safety rules such as registration, a license, and a helmet, those e-motos are illegal.

Federal officials are beginning to take note of the good, the bad and the outright scapegoating. In March, a bipartisan group of House representatives introduced the Safe SPEEDS Act, which would codify a federal e-bike class system and prohibit merchants from marketing e-motos as e-bikes.

If passed, the bill would empower regulators to curb the illegal e-moto market and keep consumers safe — without punishing law-abiding e-bike riders.

Recommended New Calif. Legislation, Backed by Bike Safety Groups, Proposed to Regulate E-Motos/E-Bikes Damien Newton February 23, 2026

Its sponsors urged regulatory action in a letter sent to the US Consumer Product Safety Commission last month.

“While e-bikes remain an affordable and essential mode of transportation for millions of Americans, federal safety rules have struggled to keep pace with a rapidly evolving marketplace,” the letter said. “Bad actors abuse regulatory loopholes to sell electronic motorcycle-like vehicles to consumers as if they were ordinary e-bikes.”

Amidst Republican-led attacks on bike and pedestrian safety, other members of Congress may be less eager to shield safe alternatives to cars and follow the New Jersey route.

Scapegoating, however, is not an effective legislative strategy. Restricting low-speed, legal e-bikes will not stop e-moto riders from dying in the street. Addressing the illegal, deceptive, and dangerous e-moto market will.

• Flock license plate readers are useful in enforcing traffic laws, but they can also be traffic safety hazards. Some cameras are just a couple of feet from the road, perched atop black metal poles that are hard to see and a lack a breakaway plate allowing them to easily snap when hit by a car. And they’re rarely inspected by city or state transportation officials. (The Guardian)
• Transit agencies are boosting their own ridership by developing land around stations, which has the added benefit of creating more housing where residents don’t need expensive cars. (Metro Magazine)
• The Trump administration’s isolationism is leaving the U.S. behind other countries that are rapidly adopting electric vehicles, according to climate activist Bill McKibben. (New Yorker)
• An Amtrak restructuring could create conflicts within the agency and does not address its biggest problem, funding. (Trains)
• Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey and Rep. Ayanna Presley introduced a bill allocating $25 billion to help transit agencies go fare-free, but some would prefer to spend that money on improving service. (Boston Globe; paywall)
• Not even Dulles officials think the Washington, D.C. airport needs the 32,000-space parking garage President Trump is proposing, especially since it’s now on a D.C. Metro line. (NOTUS)
• Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson is pitching a proposed small tax hike to fund transit as an affordability measure, pointing to the high cost of owning a car.
• Nashville is rolling out more raised crosswalks and concrete dividers protecting bike and scooter lanes as part of its Choose How You Move initiative. (Axios)
• Oklahoma City is an example of a booming city that’s trying to deal with growth by expanding transit rather than highways. (Streetsblog USA)
• A Wayne County, Michigan transit tax referendum looked like it would pass easily Tuesday night. (Detroit Free Press)
• Honolulu Civil Beat reported on a dangerous crosswalk, and lo and behold, the Hawaii DOT actually fixed it!
• To accommodate increased ridership after going fare-free, Iowa City is building a new $20 million transit center. (Press-Citizen)
• Some rural counties in Alabama still have more dirt roads than paved ones, but the state ignores them because not many people live there. (Alabama Political Reporter)
• Business Insider has some tips for traveling overnight on Amtrak.

• A new Gallup poll found that Americans’ No. 1 fear is car crashes. When asked about the greatest risk to their safety, 34 percent of respondents said car crashes — almost twice as many as the second-most popular response, violent crime. (Jalopnik)
• Beth Osborne blasted Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy for implying that people who ride bikes or live in apartments are unworthy of safe streets.
• Cities are using robots to evaluate sidewalk conditions and find out where improvements are needed to meet ADA requirements. (Government Technology)
• The new book “Transportation and the Shape of Cities” examines the spatial needs of various modes of transportation. (Forbes)
• Florida wants to use $198 million the federal government earmarked for electric vehicle chargers to build helipads for flying taxis instead. (The Next Web)
• The Federal Highway Traffic Safety Administration is letting robotaxi company Zoox deploy up to 5,000 vehicles in San Francisco. (The Verge)
• A Wayne County, Michigan transit funding referendum would no longer let communities opt out of the tax. (Detroit Free Press)
• Idaho’s Valley Regional Transit is shutting down a program that takes people to medical appointments due to lack of funding. (Capital Sun)
• Leaders in Philadelphia’s Chinatown neighborhood are fighting to restore federal funding for an expressway cap. (Inside Climate News)
• A Nashville city council member is considering restricting cars on Broadway after a driver hit four pedestrians. (WSMV)
• The Portland city council is considering banning right turns on red on more streets. (KGW)
• Volunteer docents on a Pacific Coast Amtrak line are getting passengers to look up from their phones and check out the scenery. (Oregonian)

With great growth comes great responsibility … to give residents better transit alternatives.

That was the message coming from Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt in his recent 2026 State of the City Address introducing a proposed sales tax to fund the region’s vision for transit expansion.

Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt

He wants to avoid the mistakes of peer cities like Austin and Nashville that have grown precipitously in recent decades without accommodating additional travel capacity, resulting in hellish levels of congestion. 

He also knows that highway expansion isn’t an acceptable long-term solution. 

“The metro has pretty much reached the point of saturation with highways,” said Holt. “New highways or adding significantly more lanes is just not feasible for most of our existing system. Adding lanes is not the panacea you may think it is.” He then showed the crowd a photo of a jam-packed 12-lane Interstate 405 in Los Angeles. 

Instead of that carmaggedon, Holt is pitching a transit improvement sales tax aimed at giving residents alternatives to the car-based transportation planning that dominates the U.S. 

“We can learn from their mistakes. The time to make a commitment is now,” he added. “That commitment must give us the resources we need to strengthen our existing system of city streets for those who remain in cars, and it must provide public transit alternatives that take some cars off the road and, at the very least, give each of us a choice.”

Oklahoma City has been able to facilitate growth in large part because of its Metropolitan Area Projects initiatives. The first iteration coming in 1993, the one-cent sales tax has funded numerous capital improvement projects aimed at transforming the city’s infrastructure and strengthen cultural amenities.

Past uses of that tax funded what is now the Oklahoma City Thunder’s arena, the revitalization of the historic Bricktown district, the OKC Streetcar, and bus rapid transit projects that are currently in the works. 

Three-quarters of the proposed transit tax would go to bus and rail infrastructure and improvements, with the remaining quarter going to maintenance of existing infrastructure. 

Oklahoma leaders knew that growth would necessitate building for the future. That’s why, in 2019, they formed the state’s first regional transit authority that would oversee this expansion, now known as ONE Transit. 

The agency is comprised of Oklahoma City and its two most prominent suburbs, Norman and Edmond. All three of the cities have experiencede remarkable growth in the past 20 years. The population of Oklahoma City, for example, increased by 17.4 percent between 2010 and 2020 and is on track to increase another 11.4 percent by 2030.

That’s on track for a population of more than 750,000, plus another 130,000 in Norman and 100,000 in Edmond — which are both growing.

The backbone of ONE Transit’s transit expansion plan for the region includes commuter rail that will connect all three cities with key stopping points along the way. The line would be created along an existing BNSF rail corridor. 

This rendering was partly made with AI, according to ONE Transit.

The hope is that the commuter rail line will enable those in the suburbs to feed into Oklahoma City’s more robust transit options in the downtown area, which already includes the improving bus network and the OKC Streetcar.

Future plans also include more robust bus rapid transit lines, including a western route, a route to Will Rogers International Airport to the southwest, and a route to Tinker Air Force Base to the east. A light rail line to the airport would be the final piece of the plan.

ONE Transit understands the value that transit can provide for a local economy, citing an APTA study that shows a five-to-one economic return produced by long-term investment in public transit.

“Collectively, this plan will preserve our quality of life by alleviating traffic congestion, it will preserve the mobility necessary to keep our economy strong and growing, and it will spur commercial development, among other benefits,” Holt said in his address, aligning with ONE Transit’s vision.

There are signs of a growing appetite for transit alternatives in the area. The OKC streetcar recently announced that its free fare pilot program was being extended until Aug. 20 due to increased ridership. The program kicked off in January of this year and brought 37 percent more ridership between January and April versus the same period last year.

The city’s first and only bus rapid transit line also saw a record month this year, with over 60,000 rides in May. 

Levels of support for the tax remain uncertain. Hope in the region certainly took a hit when riders learned that Oklahoma lawmakers failed to include 2027 funding for the Amtrak Heartland Flyer, the line between Oklahoma City and Fort Worth.

The measure is sure to meet a challenge in car-oriented and fiscally conservative Oklahoma, but there is hope that residents will see past success with Metropolitan Area Projects in boosting the health of the city. Holt is calling on Oklahomans to rise to the occasion.

“The resources we have today are not sufficient to meet the challenges of growth,” he said. “Meeting this new transportation challenge is going to require a new commitment from each of us.”

The proposed sales tax would need approval from Oklahoma City, Norman, and Edmond and then could be put up for a vote in 2027.

• Under the BUILD America 250 Act, House Republicans’ transportation budget bill replacing the Biden administration’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, funding for transit would plunge by 23 percent, adjusted for inflation. That includes a loss of $2 billion for California and New York alone. The share of funding for highways would grow from 63 percent to 70 percent, according to the Urban Institute. (Governing).
• Cities like New York, Paris, Berlin and London that invested in bike infrastructure during the pandemic and didn’t stop are now reaping the benefits. (Momentum)
• As the war with Iran rages on, driving up gas prices, oil companies are raking in massive profits. (Associated Press)
• Too much overlapping bureaucracy is delaying American infrastructure projects. (Government Tech)
• Automated traffic enforcement cameras make streets safer, but Flock surveillance is giving them a bad name. (Streetsblog USA)
• After a driver killed a Boston transportation official while she was riding her bike, Mayor Michelle Wu, who largely abandoned her pro-bike stance during the recent mayoral campaign, has flip-flopped back to bikes. (WBUR)
• Widening Houston’s Katy Freeway to 26 lanes only made traffic worse — proof of induced demand. (Space Daily)
• Atlanta’s transit system performed well during the World Cup, but will MARTA build on that success or fall back into complacency? (AJC)
• The Ballard light rail line in Seattle is not dead and could be built by 2042. (My Northwest)
• Las Vegas is installing its first protected bike lane. (LV Sports Biz)
• Kansas City set speed and age limits for e-bikes and e-scooters. (KCUR)
• Building sidewalks is a good thing, but in Milwaukee the construction is temporarily forcing vulnerable pedestrians and people with disabilities into the street. (TMJ 4)
• Costco parking lots are a war zone. (USA Today)

Streetsblog is, officially, dubious on autonomous vehicles because our coverage focuses on all of the deleterious effects of cars on cities, not just the safety effect. As a media outlet devoted to presenting news about how to reduce car dependence, we are skeptical that AVs will move the needle on that. But our recent coverage has spurred many AV boosters to demand the space to make their arguments. Today, we present one such piece.

Roughly two New Yorkers die in traffic crashes every three days. The state’s own comptroller traced most of those deaths to the same preventable causes: speeding, distraction, impairment. So when a technology promises to take human error out of the driver’s seat and save lives, New Yorkers should pay attention.

Autonomous vehicles have incredible potential to save lives and prevent injuries. Waymo’s own safety data shows a remarkable record. Compared to a human driver over the same distance and environment, Waymo’s autonomous vehicles had 94-percent fewer serious injury crashes, 93-percent fewer pedestrian crashes with injuries, and 82-percent fewer injury-causing crashes.

Critics often point to a recent Hunter College analysis to argue autonomous vehicles are less safe than advertised. But even the study’s lead author acknowledged the limits of the evidence, saying Waymo is like “a rookie hitter who goes two for five in his first game and claims to be a .400 hitter.”

Meanwhile, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, an independent group with no stake in the outcome, once again found that autonomous vehicles were far safer than human drivers: 68 percent fewer police-reported crashes, 85 percent fewer single-vehicle crashes, and 81 percent fewer injury crashes.

Even if you believe the evidence on autonomous vehicles is mixed – which it is not – should embrace a measured rollout built around pilot programs, public reporting, and clear safety benchmarks.

A responsible autonomous vehicle policy for New York would be to target the exact risk of distracted, drowsy, and impaired driving.

The case for autonomous vehicles is also a mobility one. Residents of transit deserts, seniors, people with disabilities, and overnight shift workers could all gain from transit options that don’t depend on owning a car or staying awake to drive. A Chamber of Progress poll shows that residents believe AVs can benefit seniors and residents with disabilities. In addition, AV deployment is already creating manufacturing, maintenance, and fleet-operations jobs, most paying above the national median wage and requiring no college degree. We should embrace this shift, not slam the brakes.

New York is right now in a pause after allowing Waymo’s testing permit to expire in March. Two pilot programs — a supervised AV program on New York City streets with trained safety drivers and a cold-weather test upstate in Buffalo — should not be one-offs. City Hall, the Taxi and Limousine Commission, and the New York City Department of Transportation should expand the city pilot with more vehicles, a longer timeline, and public reporting to let the data speak for itself. State legislators should also turn evidence from these pilot programs into a statewide framework for testing, insuring, and deploying AVs, which would replace the patchwork of waivers currently in place.

New York already has the mechanisms in place to measure safety, mobility, and the economic benefits of AVs. Let’s not let skewed studies halt a technology that saves lives.

• The Trump administration’s designation of bike lanes as woke is drawing a lot of ridicule from the likes of Rolling Stone (paywall), which calls Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy’s war on whatever he considers DEI “monumentally stupid.” Despite calling bike projects “hostile to motor vehicles” (The Guardian), the U.S. DOT’s own data — now scrubbed from its website — says bike lanes reduce crashes by 53%, including both cars and bikes (Fast Company).
• States are falling further and further behind on road maintenance, according to the Pew Charitable Trusts. (Governing)
• Uber is investing $1.2 billion in electric automaker Rivian and could purchase up to 40,000 robotaxis. (Motley Fool)
• The D.C. Metro has reached an agreement with the Washington, D.C. government to fund transit improvements around the new Commanders football stadium. (ABC 7)
• A day after the head of the Maryland Transit Administration stepped down, Gov. Wes Moore appointed a former state delegate to replace her. (Maryland Matters)
• Work is advancing on Amtrak’s replacement of a 150-year-old Baltimore rail tunnel. (Smart Cities Dive)
• MIlwaukee’s Bublr Bikes opened a new lakefront bikeshare station. (WTMJ)
• Philadelphia is expanding its automated speed camera program. (NBC 10)
• The public is mostly opposed to an Asheville proposal to add frequency to busy bus routes while cutting those with low ridership. (Mountain XPress)
• Wannabe architect-in-chief Donald Trump is overseeing plans to renovate Dulles Airport, including a massive 32,000-space parking garage. (Politico)

Give them liberty … and give us death.

A forthcoming federal bill proposes to outlaw speed- and red-light cameras under the cover of legitimate, but unrelated, mass surveillance fears.

Flock Safety, which operates more than 120,000 surveillance cameras across the country, is under fire for a growing number of data breaches, stalking incidents, and wrongful arrests. Police have been caught 28 times abusing their system access to stalk romantic interests in the past several years, according to public interest law firm Institute for Justice. In one case this year, a Milwaukee police officer pleaded guilty to using the system to stalk an ex-partner 124 times.

Now, Republicans may be using Flock opposition – and confusion – to advance their war on safety. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) announced earlier this week that he is introducing legislation to “withhold federal money from municipalities and police departments that deploy Flock (and other style) cameras to surveil law-abiding citizens.” (Emphasis added.)

I’ll soon be sponsoring a bill to withhold federal money from municipalities and police departments that deploy Flock (and other style) cameras to surveil law abiding citizens. pic.twitter.com/FGzE69psxS

— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) July 25, 2026

Should that “other style” include speed- and red-light cameras, the bill would effectively ban traffic enforcement on local roads nationwide and lead to hundreds of fatalities. (But, then again, people caught on such cameras are not “law-abiding…”)

Speed- and red-light cameras prevent hundreds of road deaths every year, but they collect far less data, and under more-strict regulations, than Flock’s devices. For instance, traffic enforcement cameras do not collect data except when prompted to do so by an active violation. A transgressing driver sets off a trigger, either by running through a red light or traveling above the speed limit, which prompts the camera to take one to two photos.

Drivers who do not violate the law are not photographed by traffic enforcement cameras. But libertarians like Massie still object to speed cameras, which are derided as a “money grab.”

Recommended This Data Proves that Speed Cameras Improve Safety John Greenfield March 5, 2025

This form of automated enforcement technology was developed in the 1980s. In San Francisco, speeding dropped by 72 percent at key locations after cameras were installed last year. Boulder Springs, Colorado reduced red light-running violations by the same percentage in its first year of enforcement. In New York City, which has the largest automated camera system, collisions declined by 30 percent and injuries by 16 percent in the the seven months following the introduction of a camera, the local Department of Transportation reported.

Traffic enforcement cameras deter reckless driving by capturing specific illegal behaviors. Flock cameras watch everyone, everywhere, all of the time.

The company operates a national network of Automated License Plate Readers that scan for, and log, every plate that comes into view. Every vehicle in frame is sent to a broader database that anyone to whom Flock grants access can see.

Recommended Report: Speed Cameras Working in San Francisco, Floundering in Bureaucracy in L.A. Damien Newton December 11, 2025

Last year, the company introduced FreeForm, an AI search tool enabling its clients to parse data using plain language searches. A law enforcement officer could search “red SUV with dent on rear bumper” and find every image of a specific vehicle captured by Flock. Police could then compile that information into a detailed history of the vehicle occupants’ location.

“We’re making it easier than ever for investigators to track down vehicles of interest,” the company said in an announcement.

Automated traffic enforcement and plate reading systems differ enormously in the quantity of data they collect and what can be done with it. Few Americans can actually tell the difference – and many are taking their frustrations out on the wrong cameras.

One enraged X user tagged Fox News in a post: “I received a speeding ticket as a result of a flock camera! I was going ONE MILE over the speed limit. ONE!!!!!”

@FoxNews I received a speeding ticket as a result of a flock camera! I was going ONE MILE over the speed limit. ONE!!!!!

— Vera Allen (@AliCat203) July 27, 2026

Under differing state laws, speed cameras don’t issue tickets until violators are driving many miles per hour — in New York City, it is 11 mph — above the limit. Even more puzzlingly, Flock does not issue speeding tickets.

The company itself has blurred the line between its plate readers and traditional speed enforcement. Its website used to claim that it does not “perform facial recognition, does not store biometrics, cannot be queried to find people, and is not used to enforce traffic violations.” Sometime after Dec. 2, 2025, it quietly removed that last commitment.

Just three weeks later, Flock had already gone back on its commitment. A Georgia State Patrol officer used a Flock license plate reader to ticket a motorcyclist for holding his phone, as first reported by 404 Media.

Georgia State Patrol used a Flock camera to cite a motorcyclist in December 2025.

Massie’s legislation is not the Republicans’ first attempt this term at enacting The Purge on US roads. A bill by Rep. Pat Harrigan (R-N.C.) would ban speed cameras by withholding federal highway funds from states.

Increased conflation between privately operated license plate readers and standard traffic enforcement could increase public support for anti-speed enforcement bills – including the ones that won’t rein in Flock at all.

Whether by panicked confusion or targeted destruction, automated traffic enforcement is under attack. That attack won’t disarm mass surveillance, but it will cause thousands of Americans to die on the road.