You are reading our biweekly reading list focused on how new mobility can help build safe, sustainable, and equitable cities. In the comments section, you can let us know if this news summary adds value to your work and how we can improve it. Thanks for reading!
Integrated Mobility
🛴🤔 Are We Still Doing Scooters? [Bloomberg] Scooter sharing became an unlikely craze among venture capitalists in late 2017. The industry struggled during the pandemic. So today, with loosening Covid restrictions, are these companies profitable? Check out this great article by Ira Boudway.
🚍🗽 How New York City Plans to Speed Up its Buses [CityLab] Armed with new technology & redesigned routes, New York has restarted a service improvement campaign to lure riders back to the bus system.
🥇🚆 People mover, new bike paths and bus lanes: 2028 Olympics could fuel a transit boom in LA [LA Times] Are the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles the perfect opportunity to improve mobility for pedestrians, cyclists, and transit riders? What will be the legacy of the 2028 games when thinking about how people get around greater LA?
♿ 🏙️ Why Universal Design is critical to CNU [CNU] Too many architects, planners, transportation engineers, and urban designers reduce the ADA to some kind of onerous hurdle that must be leaped. This article by Steve Wright highlights the importance of people with disabilities having representation in the planning space.
🚲 🌴 7 L.A. cyclists share how to go car-free, ride safely and have fun [LA Times] At its best, biking in LA is a cost-effective, climate-friendly means of transportation, leisure, and exercise. Yet at its worst, biking in LA remains a dangerous errand of twisting through an incomplete network of fading white paint, miles of unprotected bike lanes that vanish into thoroughfares where cyclists compete with cars moving at high speeds.
🚶🚲 Walking or Biking to Work Could Make You More Productive [Bloomberg] New research shows that a bad commute can set the tone for the entire day.
EV Infrastructure
🚗⚡How the massive EV transition is starting in the car rental industry [CNBC] Hertz’s $4.2 billion deal to purchase 100,000 Tesla fully electric vehicles (EVs) by the end of 2022 set off a race among rental car agencies. Enterprise Holdings and Avis Budget Group have announced their plans to transition away from the internal combustion engine.
💰⚡EVs Now Average Over $60,000 as Tesla, Rivian, Ford Raise Prices [Bloomberg] With gasoline prices in America topping $5 a gallon for the first time, the one vehicle that can alleviate pain at the pump -- an electric car -- is experiencing its bout of runaway inflation.
🏎️⚡Ferrari will produce its first-ever SUV later this year and launch its first EV in 2025 [TechCrunch] Ferrari shared details on its plan to launch its first electric vehicle by 2025 as it aims to go carbon neutral by 2030.
Urban Air Mobility
🚁 🚕 Look! Up in the sky! It’s an air taxi. They’re coming to Los Angeles [LA Times] Los Angeles transportation officials are preparing for this new era and expect drone-like electric air taxis to be operational by the time the 2028 Summer Olympics roll around, if not far sooner.
🚁 🎉 Volocopter’s 4-Seater Aircraft Takes First Flight [Volocopter] Volocopter designed the VoloConnect and its other eVTOL aircraft to meet the highest aviation safety standards according to EASA (European Aviation Safety Agency). The prototype completed its first flight in May 2022.
🛬 🅿️ Advanced Air Mobility Plans for Vertiports [Space Daily] NASA's Advanced Air Mobility mission is researching where these vertiports or vertiplexes, which are multiple vertiports in proximity, will work into existing infrastructure like current airports and heliports.
Mobility Safety
🚶♀️🌴 Is L.A. Getting Serious About Safer Streets [LA Times] "LA's culture is still car-centric, and some drivers fight efforts to slow traffic, even if the project can save lives." claims this article.
🚶♀️🚚 More than 15,000 Stakeholders Call for Updating Misleading and Dangerous Federal Vehicle Safety Ratings [NACTO] "Vehicles that score poorly on pedestrian protection should be ineligible for 5-star ratings," claims NACTO on this powerful post.
🇫🇷🚲 As US Road Deaths Rise, France Is Safer Than Ever. Why? [Bloomberg] Today, the average US resident is around three times as likely to die while traveling on a highway or street than a French resident. Why did the US become a global outlier in its failure to improve road safety? Check out this article by David Zipper.
Digitizing Assets & Operations
🚦🚗 Michigan Plans Special Robocar/ADAS Smart Highway On I-94; A Dumb Highway Is Better [Forbes] The State of Michigan announced a special corridor on I-94 for Connected & Autonomous Vehicles. Check out this exciting analysis by Brad Templeton comparing the "smart highway" vs. the "dumb highway" approach regarding autonomous vehicles. Which one do you prefer?
Goods Movement
🚁📦 Amazon starting drone deliveries in California town later this year [Tech Crunch] Amazon today announced that Lockeford, California will be “among the first” locations in the U.S. getting access to the company’s burgeoning drone delivery, Prime Air.
🚲📦 UPS Is Testing Pedal-Powered Delivery Bike-Van-Thingies in NYC [Jalopnik] The UPS eQuad fits in a bike lane and has battery-assisted pedal power. The eQuad is, environmentally, a significant step past the old UPS vans. Human legs power it with battery assistance.