Every day, The Overhead Wire collects national and international news about cities and sends the links to their email list. At the end of the week they post some of the most popular stories to Greater Greater Washington, a group blog similar to Streets.mn that focuses on urban issues in the D.C. region.
Even the critics love (de)congestion pricing: Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is working to end New York City’s increasingly popular congestion pricing program, declaring the system “illegal,” despite lawyers within the administration advising the secretary he does not have a case. As travel times and air quality improve and commerce grows, the motivation for Secretary Duffy to continue his fight may lie in national politics. (Gabrielle Gurley | The American Prospect)
Dutch climate strategy changing: The Netherlands is behind schedule reaching climate goals; in a package of policies designed to close the gap and reduce emissions over the long term, the Dutch government is proposing vehicle taxes based on size rather than weight to promote the use of electric cars. This proposal faces criticism surrounding funding structure, as well as opposition from the current right-wing administration and its plans to increase speed limits and scrap measures to curb auto use. (Dutch News)
What makes cities more walkable: A study of Hong Kong’s streets combined a survey of more than 100,000 people and computer vision assessment of Google Street View images to determine the variables that improve walkability. The results show how simple things like trees, benches, windows and streetlights make areas more desirable for walking, and improve social and physical health. (Nate Berg | Fast Company)
Dallas makes building code changes: Dallas’ City Council, to promote construction of ‘missing middle‘ housing, amended a city ordinance, allowing buildings under 7,500 square feet to be regulated by residential construction standards. Previously, structures housing more than two units were regulated under the commercial building code, which inflated costs and regulatory barriers. The city council hopes this building code change will help alleviate the affordable housing crisis in Dallas. (Emma Ruby | Dallas Observer)
The ABC of mobility: New research modeled data from 800 cities in 61 countries to look at car use compared to city size and income. Findings show how large cities with longer distances and higher congestion trend away from car use, and how an increase average income correlates to increased driving. Although, within these relationships, different regions are likely to have different outcomes, with North American and Australian cities relying on cars, Asian cities using more public transit while Western European and East African cities are higher in active transportation. (Rafael Prieto-Curiel and Juan P. Ospina | Environment International Journal)
This week on the Talking Headways podcast, we’re joined by Kelly Porter, assistant director of transportation and public works for the City of Fort Worth. You can find a full unedited transcript here as well.
Quote of the Week
“The unsustainable costs of our highway system is bankrupting the Highway Trust Fund, and this leads to an ever-increasing share of general public funding to bail it out if nothing changes. Highways are a costly use of land, with one study finding that the costs of highway expansion outweigh the benefits by 3 to 1, even without factoring in external social harms like health impacts from added traffic pollution. Because the politics of dealing with the actual problem of funding our highway system is hard, there’s a desire to find a scapegoat. In this case, politicians have turned their attention to how much more efficient our vehicles are.”
— Dave Cooke at the Union of Concerned Scientists discussing Congress’ recent move to tax electric vehicles.