Every day at The Direct Transfer we collect news about cities and send the links to our email list. At the end of the week we take some of the most popular stories and post them to Greater Greater Washington, a group blog similar to streets.mn that focuses on urban issues in the DC region. They are national links, sometimes entertaining and sometimes absurd, but hopefully useful.
Lofty goals for San Diego: San Diego’s leaders have some aggressive goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Part of the plan is to get more people to travel by some mode other than a single-occupancy vehicle, the hope being that 50% of the workforce is out of cars by 2050. But that idea clashes with existing land use patterns and plans. (San Diego Union Tribune)
Rent prices, nationwide: 11 million Craigslist housing listings from the summer of 2014, studied by researchers at UC Berkeley, say a lot about what rents were like around the country. True to what you’ve likely heard, the coasts are expensive and the sunbelt is cheap. If you want the most space for your money, move to Memphis. (Next City)
Uber footing the bill: Uber posted a $100m loss inside the United States for the second quarter of the fiscal year, bringing its grand total of losses for the first half of the year to $1.2 billion. Most of the losses are basically subsidies to keep Uber’s large stable of contracted drivers on the road. Market analysts expect the company to continue to lose money at the expense of keeping its market share. (Bloomberg Technology)
Urban cow tipping: Vandals in St. Paul have decided to push over car2go vehicles, which some observers are calling “Urban Cow Tipping.” The Smart Fortwo model is a tiny vehicle that’s easily tipped. Similar incidents have occurred in Denver, Columbus, and Kansas City. (Minneapolis Star Tribune)
No grid in Dallas. But a super-grid? Dallas doesn’t have a traditional grid network outside of it’s historic post-war neighborhoods. But it does have a “super-grid” of arterials that could be the key to the cities transit future. (D Magazine)
Rental Glut: Major housing construction of over 7,500 units in Brooklyn is likely to lead to a glut, analysts say. While prices probably won’t have huge drops, it’s likely that the upper end of the market is saturated to the point that rents will flatten out. (New York Times)
Transit Trends Episode 6 with Lukas Neckermann
This week on Transit Trends, my YouTube show, my co-host Erica and I chat with Lukas Neckermann of NEXT Future Transportation Inc. We discuss the timeline for autonomous vehicles and whether we’re ready for them.
Cross Posted at Greater Greater Washington