Hope your week is off to a great start. Below are the most notable stories that came across my inbox this past week…
It’s about freedom: This wonderful opinion piece very clearly expresses why poorly crafted anti e-bike laws should be framed as nothing less than tyranny and government overreach that robs people of basic freedoms. (WSJ Opinion)
Child seats banned on transit: Interesting story from San Francisco where transit agency Caltrain says crowded cars have forced them to crack down on cargo bikes with child seats. The new rules banning them are being vociferously opposed by some riders. (SF Chronicle)
New leader at Metro: In news that many local transportation reformers will not be mad about, Metro President Lynn Peterson could be leaving early. (Willamette Week)
Bike to birth: A Minneapolis lawmaker is making headlines after she hopped into a cargo bike to get the hospital where she gave birth. She credits protected bike lanes for giving her and her husband the confidence to make that choice. (Fox News Minneapolis)
A new alliance: Very effective nonprofit Seattle Neighborhood Greenways has officially rebranded as the Seattle Streets Alliance, a move that shows our friends up north have a healthy advocacy ecosystem we’d do well to emulate. (The Urbanist)
Rad’s next chapter: The company that bought Rad Power Bikes through bankruptcy, Life EV, says it will honor warranties and provide a path to service for existing owners. As for new Rads? They say they’ll open a U.S. assembly plant. (Electrek)
Are we over streetcars? Streetcars were a big part of Portland’s progressive transportation brand back in the Obama era; but times have changed and given the transit budget crisis we face, this transit booster thinks it’s time to question their existence. (Urban PDX)
Wrenching: I still miss having United Bicycle Institute in Portland, but I’m glad to know they’re going strong and finding a new niche in training folks on how to work on all the weird, non-standard parts on today’s high-tech bikes. (Oregon Public Broadcasting)
Thanks to everyone who sent in links this week. The Monday Roundup is a community effort, so please feel free to send us any great stories you come across.
Thanks for reading.
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Streetcars (trams) in the USA were never built for ridership – they were always built to spur economic development, that is, to encourage overpaid developers to put in higher-density land uses in poorer low-density neighborhoods using federal Small Starts public transportation dollars in public-private partnerships. It’s a form of development-oriented transportation (along with subway’s bastard stepchild Light Rail) – slow, visible, and touristy. People have called it “Viagra for developers”. The basic concept was that it would be built by developers with federal subsidies then the resulting expanded tax base would pay for its maintenance and operating costs, but of course it never quite works out that way, the local government that built it then uses the resulting increased tax base to pay for other unrelated expenses such as police, fire, parks, and so on, and the streetcar system quickly goes to s**t. Moving people was never important in streetcar projects. Once the development reaches a certain density, it was always assumed the jurisdiction would either replace the streetcar with light rail (and add more ballast to support the heavier vehicles), or else expand the existing subway system.
I think you mean “modern streetcars (trams) in the USA were never built for ridership”.
The original streetcars that were in every major city in the USA pre-WW2 where, in fact, design for ridership.