A Community Hub for Smart Mobility in Austin, TX, is advancing to stage 2 of the National Science Foundation’s Civic Innovation Challenge, bringing greater transportation equity along with it and providing a framework applicable to transit agencies across the U.S.

When transit is underfunded, derailment and delays occur, jeopardizing the livelihoods of underserved communities that use trains and buses the most—snowballing to yet more inequity.

The injustices of the digital divide deepened as a result of COVID-19, proving that “technology is an essential service.” Appropriately, Smart cities like Dallas and Boston are looking towards data to show gaps and how technology and transportation can better serve everyone.

Making smart choices, using shared mobility, and getting rewarded for it? Sign us up. Uber is partnering with Colorado’s Department of Transportation to give riders a $15 credit when using the service during the holidays to keep the roads safe from impaired driving.

In landmark ridehail news, Lyft and Motional announced plans to launch a driverless public ridehail service in Las Vegas in 2023. The fleet will be comprised of Motional’s all-electric Hyundai IONIQ 5-based robotaxi.

When school buses stopped showing up, community members stepped up and turned to a basic form of shared mobility: carpooling. Even with these temporary solutions, districts are scrambling to fill the bus driver shortage across the country.

Which one of you wrote this opinion piece for the New York Times? (Kidding) The article offers up, “why can’t everyone get a free e-bike?” With the positives outweighing the negatives and the budget being reasonable, free e-bikes for all could be the planet’s saving grace.

A new study shows that bike activity is up 10% in 2021 compared to 2019. And it’s not coming from big cities—midsize cities like Little Rock, Arkansas, and Jackson, Mississippi had gains of 50% or more, and the future looks bright to continue the trend.

The USDOT’s RAISE grant program is opting to fund car-free transportation over new roads and wider highways. In fact, 85% of the $1 billion grants will go to active transportation infrastructure, transit, and railway improvements.

E-scooters have been on Windy City streets for five years now and have filled gaps in transportation deserts. However, safe infrastructure and environmentally friendly production still need to be addressed.

Addressing safety on Chicago’s ‘L’, explains Streetsblog, will take much more than increasing law enforcement on trains and stations. Comprehensive solutions aimed at helping people experiencing homelessness, including unarmed ambassadors, and setting up better fare evasion policies, would be more effective than relying on police or other inherently-violent institutions.

The PATH to College Act, a provision led by Members of Congress from Pennsylvania, set priorities for college students to have better access to public transit services, and now the Build Back Better Act is including a similar package that would make higher education institutions eligible.

Over on the healthcare transportation front, a new study shows how the opening of Metro Transit’s Green line in the Twin Cities in 2014 led to “a meaningful reduction in the number of no-show appointments among patients”, by as much as 4.5% for all patients and up to 9.5% for Medicaid recipients.

Not all public transportation is seeing such positive action. London’s Underground is facing a £1.9 funding shortfall, and Mayor Sadiq Khan warns that this could cause Transport for London to shut down one of the system’s lines, with possible bus route disruptions too.

Accessibility tech company WeWALK, famous for its smart cane product, has announced a collaboration with Moovit to use Moovit’s intelligent software and data integrations to give people with visual impairments a better urban navigation and transportation experience using WeWALK’s smart cane.

Since range anxiety for electric vehicles contributes to the US’s low sales numbers (currently at 4%), universities and DOTs are rallying around wireless inductive charging, which embeds charging technology into the highway itself without using stations.

Looking at the driverless scene, the Darwin Innovation Group just started trials for its autonomous shuttle program to keep people moving around the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus in Oxfordshire—using satellite communications in place of Wi-Fi to test rural or remote area operation.

A shortage of oil worldwide has led to higher-than-normal gas prices, so President Biden has authorized the release of 50 million gallons of emergency reserves (part of a joint effort with other nations) to lower costs. Contrary to his climate-focused agenda, this action will only exacerbate our climate crisis and keep emissions high.

Cities across the US are creating resiliency plans to withstand current and forthcoming environmental disasters that result from climate change. While infrastructure planning for bridges and roads can save drenched and stranded communities, CO2 levels need to be cut drastically to prevent the problem from worsening.

In Chicago, a widening project slated for the Eisenhower Expressway will further drive the disastrous effects of car-centric transportation planning in the region, potentially raising, not lowering, CO2 levels for decades to come.