Want all your hottest urbanism, delivery, mobility and tech policy news in audio form?! Well you’re in luck, because Greg Lindsay and I are back with a new podcast — The Courier — now live. Listen in with the player above.
In episode one we dive in to some spicy topics: can the Olympics be car free, what does it mean for delivery and automation that the Chipotle CEO has hopped to Starbucks, how can cities keep cool, and more. Plus, I chat with Gary Chaglasyan about how PizzaBox AI’s new subscription platform is giving local restaurants a new tool to fight back against rising costs.
Think of this as a bit of a preview episode… we’ll be pushing The Courier to all your favorite podcast platforms shortly. In the meantime, Greg and I are on the hunt for great guests working on interesting projects; if you know someone we should talk to, please reply to this email with your suggestion! (And if you want some more inspo for what our past topics of interest have been, check out our earlier appearances together on the CoMotion Fast Forward podcast.)
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HOT INDUSTRY NEWS & GOSSIP
Car-free Olympics? With the Paris Olympics all wrapped up, all eyes are now on LA, where local leaders are promising a games sans automobiles. That may sound daunting, but SoCal pulled off a similar feat back for the ‘84 Olympics, and that was before the region had built hundreds of miles of new transit infrastructure. Check out the transit Service Guide to the 1984 Olympics here.
How does your nearest station stack up? There’s a hot new trend on the internet, where folks map out the number of riders making use of each station in a given public transit system. Here’s DC — looking not too shabby. And here’s LA — where 7th/Metro Center at this point may be the busiest American station outside NYC. Here’s SF BART — which hasn’t recovered too well from the pandemic. But BART looks amazing compared to San Jose’s VTA, where some stations get 24 riders per day (twenty four, not a typo.) Finally, gander at Vancouver’s ridership for a reminder of how much more sensible our neighbors to the north are.
Service cuts might only drive those numbers lower… A number of American transit operators are staring at bleak budget forecasts. Philly’s SEPTA has a $187 million shortfall starting in June ‘25. Boston’s MBTA may be short as much as $900 million by 2029. (And though the article blames transport woes for the city’s population loss, it’s not like the places people are moving to have great transit…) Not wanting to be left out, suburban towns surrounding Dallas are looking to cut their funding to DART, hoping to make the region’s paltry transit even worse.
Beantown bikes: The City of Boston just launched a new initiative to subsidize ebikes, using ARPA dollars to slash the cost of an electric bike or e-cargo bike by $800 to $1500. This comes hot off the heels of CargoB, the nation’s first shared cargo bike platform, launching in the region.
More pedestrian plazas, please! LA’s finally breaking ground on a project that will pedestrianize Broxton Avenue, in Westwood. With tens of thousands of UCLA students just up the street and a subway station under construction, Westwood Village is so close to being an urban oasis.
Cool curb partner news: Congrats to our friends at Itselectric for bringing their curbside chargers to Alameda, CA, right after a big win in Boston. Meanwhile, Automotus is taking its curbside analytics to Lincoln, Nebraska.
Shade inequity: A new study shows that the 400 hottest bus stops in NYC are a whopping 14.5 degrees Fahrenheit hotter than the coolest 400. No surprise that the chill and leafy stops are generally in Manhattan and other wealthy neighborhoods, while the outer boroughs are left to bake. Maybe it’s time to bring La Sombrita to the Bronx?
Speaking of hot… Cities across the country aren’t just getting hotter, they’re getting particularly warmer at night. Towns like Vegas, Austin, Raleigh and Orlando have seen the number of hot nights spike, accelerated by the paving over of permeable surfaces to make way for new roads and SFHs. If you showed the pattern below to a radiologist, she’d scream.
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Now for some thoughts on economic mobility: A new study charts the diverging outcomes for the young adults born to low-income parents. In 38 of America’s 50 largest metro areas, 27 year olds born in 1992 are worse off than were those born in 1978. (Although on the positive side, white-Black earnings gaps for children from low-income families fell by 30%.) Play around with the interactive Opportunity Atlas to see how your region does; Tampa Bay, DC, San Diego, Las Vegas and Philadelphia all seem to have had the roughest economic fall in the past quarter century.
A big part of the change is of course due to our devolved Federalism, which has seen states with weaker labor laws poach jobs from those with more stringent protections. If a job paying 50k in Philly moves to Atlanta and now pays 45k, that may look like a “win” for Georgia, but the country as a whole is still worse off. When you factor in that these numbers don’t consider rising expenses for essentials like housing and transportation, you’ll remember why it’s all so important that we keep fighting the good fight. :)
A few good links: Indian p2p carsharer Zoomcar starts new distribution method: physical fulfillment centers. NJ Transit takes over abandoned bus routes after Coach USA bankruptcy. For sale for all you foamers: one gently used Caltrain locomotive. NYC curbs to get big new trash bins. Colorado Springs, military mecca, set to get new downtown bike lanes. Sign of the times — EV leaser Autonomy pivots to SaaS. Russian startup Whoosh looks to reintroduce micromobility to Brazil. MBTA service delayed due to cute baby whale. Flytrex hits 100K drone deliveries. Starship and Serve score new partners. Atlanta mayor questions budgetary feasibility of long-promised rail on Beltline. New Passport data shows curb activity heating up in summery beach towns.
Until next week!
- Jonah Bliss & The Curbivore Crew
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