The Hub 4/13/18: 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: Drexel’s Fry: Fix Northeast Corridor Transit or say goodbye to jobs– John Fry, President of Drexel University, testified before the House Appropriations Committee’s Subcommittee on Transportation and Housing imploring them to fund much needed improvements to the northeast corridor’s rail infrastructure. The corridor from Boston to Washington D.C. is home to 30% of all the jobs in the country. The Amtrak route that serves the corridor carries 820,000 passengers and generates $100 million in economic impact daily.

 

Mobility Lab: How can transit agencies make their facilities safe from sexual harassment? – The #metoo movement has brought into the public eye the widespread issue of sexual harassment in general, including in transportation. For female transit users and cyclists, sexual harassment occurs far too regularly.

 

Curbed Philly: SEPTA announces changes to Key Card price – May 4th, SEPTA will begin charging for SEPTAKey cards. The smart fare cards, which are currently free, will soon cost $4.95 a pop. This price increase is scheduled to happen just days after SEPTA plans to stop selling tokens all together.

 

CityLab: Uber Pivots to On-Demand Everything – Uber is diversifying their portfolio, recently acquiring Jump, a dockless bike-share company.  Uber is also embarking on new partnerships with car-sharing and transit ticketing companies. Uber claims to be working to alleviate single occupancy vehicle trips, therefore improving congestion and air quality. The evidence shows that the opposite is currently true, with ride hailing vehicles exacerbating congestion in many cities.

 

Next City: The Missing Link in Seattle’s Streetcar System – The Emerald City’s Amazon fueled boom has come with some big investments in transit, however, the infrastructure improvements have not been equally allocated city wide. Seattle’s mayor has decided to pause construction of a streetcar extension called the Center City Connector which would connect low income and immigrant neighborhoods to the main employment center downtown.

 

Image Source: PlanPhilly