The Hub 3/30/18: Clean Air Council’s Weekly Round-up of Transportation News

“The Hub” is a weekly round-up of transportation related news in the Philadelphia area and beyond. Check back weekly to keep up to date on the issues Clean Air Council’s transportation staff finds important.

 

PlanPhilly: New bike lanes coming to Fairmount Park and West Philly – City Councilman Curtis Jones has proposed an extension of the well-used bike lane along Parkside Avenue. As always, opponents of the bike lane cite traffic flow and slowed commutes. The studies show that bike lanes make roads work better for all road users.

 

Architectural Digest: What’s Behind the Uptick in Hostile Architecture? – Hostile architecture has been popping up in cities around the world. Benches designed to keep you moving and prevent you from laying down. Spikes on flat surfaces that could have otherwise gotten a cold, homeless person a place to rest off the ground. Unused bike racks where there used to be tent cities. Philadelphia has employed its fair share of hostile architecture along the subway lines.

 

City Lab: Former Uber Backup Driver: ‘We Saw This Coming’ – After last week’s tragedy in Arizona, in which an autonomous vehicle struck and killed a cyclist crossing the road, drivers who had been part of Uber’s autonomous vehicle testing program seemed unsurprised this had happened. They described unsafe work conditions, including driving the same loop alone for hours.

 

Next City: Dockless Scooter Company Wants to Start on the Right Foot with Cities – Bird is a company piloting dockless scooter programs in several U.S. cities. Learning from the follies of the dockless bike shares in China, Bird is taking an intentional and cautious approach to expansion.

 

StreetsBlog: People take great communal joy in complaining about U.S. transit – Commiserating about transit woes connects commuters and creates productive conversations that transit agencies can learn from.

 

Image Source: Next City