Every day at The Overhead Wire, 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 D.C. region. They are national links, sometimes entertaining and sometimes absurd, but hopefully useful.
People who hate people: Jerusalem Demsas writes about a certain type of NIMBY (you know, “not in my backyard”) who complains about their neighborhood being too crowded and that housing supply should be limited to keep populations from growing to “save the environment.” But this argument is neither new nor novel and has been made, inhumanely, over the past century to argue against immigration, the growth of countries in the Global South and housing interventions that ultimately would benefit the environment. (Jerusalem Demsas | The Atlantic)
TXDOT wants to bury I-345: In Dallas, the Texas Department of Transportation (TXDOT) has released its preferred alternative for replacing Interstate 345, which splits downtown from the Deep Ellum neighborhood. They believe that burying the road is the optimal solution rather than removing it completely and replacing it with a surface boulevard, claiming that traffic models are telling them that a 50 percent increase in congestion would ensue if the highway weren’t there. (Matt Goodman | D Magazine)
Regulating brake particles: In Europe, ultra fine particles created by braking will be included in the next round of emissions regulations. Previous regulations didn’t include these particles which include coarse dust (PM10) and fine dust (PM2.5) that can penetrate deep into the lungs. Although a switch to electric vehicles will remove tailpipe emissions, brake dust will still be created, especially with vehicles made heavier by batteries. (Sean Goulding Carroll | Euractiv)
LA County’s river plan: Los Angeles County has released its final master plan for the troubled Los Angeles River. The plan — meant to help with community revitalization and ecological restoration along the multi-faceted urban river — will go before the LA County Board of Supervisors in mid-June. The plan, which began in 2016, considered 77 parcels along the 51-mile waterway. (Josh Niland | Archinect)
Germany introduces 9-euro pass for summer: Germany is set to introduce a monthly 9-euro transit pass to help residents offset the high costs of fuel due to the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine. The program, which will cost the government 2.5 billion euro, would last until August and be an incentive to get more people riding transit by dropping commute prices. (Denis Balgaranov | The Mayor.eu)
Quote of the Week
“[Lawmakers in Florida] do not understand how they fit into nature or how nature works. Perhaps they just don’t care. Many hold the belief that there is no ‘value’ to nature. … If it isn’t ‘improved,’ it’s worthless. There is a lack of recognition of the ecosystem services that conserved lands can provide; therefore it is easy to claim that more conservation lands are not needed, or that they are too expensive.”
— Marjorie Shropshire in Current Affairs discussing how lawmakers don’t understand how road expansion in Florida impacts the environment
This week on the podcast, Alix Gould-Werth of the Washington Center for Equitable Growth and Alex Murphy, assistant professor of sociology at the University of Michigan, talk about their transportation security index.