A highway corridor in Charleston, SC displaces about 100 homes and businesses in a Black and Brown community. Sadly, this isn’t in reference to the 1969-built freeway in North Charleston, but another proposed in 2021 that brings the same destruction. When will cities learn?

Residents in Gum Springs and Fairfax County, VA are facing similar injustices due to a proposed road widening that would double Richmond Highway to 13 lanes, creating dangerous conditions for those walking or biking. In the spirit of a protest against highway expansion nearly 54 years earlier in the region, protestors marched down the road with a casket.

Minneapolis, on the other hand, just celebrated the reopening of a pedestrian bridge by featuring local art, music, theatre performances, and community outreach (in partnership with MNDOT) to celebrate the reconnection of Mexican and Black communities divided by the construction of Interstate 35W in the ’50s.

Uber drivers are now considered employees in The Netherlands according to a recent ruling by The Court of Amsterdam, which sets requirements for pay and benefits for the ridehailing company. Uber is appealing the decision and “has no plans to employ drivers” in the country.

Texas-based carpooling app Hitch is setting up shop in Polk County, FL to expand its presence in the state and “fill those empty seats” with discounted rides between 50 – 350 miles for up to three passengers.

Meanwhile, the higher price Kenyan women have to pay just for safety and security when hailing a ride is looking like just another “pink tax”.

Lastly Waymo, the autonomous vehicle unit owned by Google parent Alphabet Inc., is expanding in San Francisco—by subleasing office space from Uber. (The companies previously shared space in a courtroom over AV-tech secrets. They settled in 2018.) As for Waymo, it’s been offering fully driverless taxi rides in AZ for about a year.

Incorporating the sun, bikes, and a sustainable mission driven by data, the 6,000-mile SunPedal Ride is trekking across the US (even making a recent stop in Chicago) with a solar-powered e-bike and help from mobility analytics company StreetLight Data to show the power of emission-free transportation and how far it can go—and they’re already 1,500 miles in!

Mobility management company Blue Systems will lead the new dockless scooter pilot in the Bronx, in partnership with NYC DOT, that could bring up to 6,000 scooters by operators Bird, Lime and Veo in its second phase.

Ladies and Gentlemen, it’s almost markup time for the transportation and infrastructure title of the Build Back Better act, meaning almost $20.15 billion could be coming in 2022 for passenger rail and transit funding, higher education mobility research, local surface transportation priorities, and affordable housing access.

The East Village Transit Center in Kansas City is giving “blessings” to residents in the form of community services as RideKC, the local library, Metropolitan Community College and the Full Employment Council create monthly events for the community while showcasing the new resources available in the Transit Center.

How do you change what people think about public transport?  A new McKinsey study of 25 cities’ transport systems finds that expanding networks and infrastructure to keep travel options available and affordable, dedicated public-transit lanes and digitalization to increase efficiency and convenience, sustainable investment and policy, and better communication is needed to increase positive perception—and ridership.

A new study found that the rare metals used in electric vehicles and wind power require extraction that emits relatively large amounts of carbon dioxide—up to 29% of the emission reductions achieved through these clean technologies. The solution: resource efficiency and recycling.

Toledo, Ohio’s TARTA is about to get some much-needed technology upgrades after the transit system received $3 million in federal and state grant funds, some of which will go to implementing digital information screens, automatic passenger counting sensors and systems, and Enterprise Asset Management software.

Looking at our neighbors up north, Whitby, Ontario wants to make mobility history with plans for the longest driverless shuttle route in North America that will cover 6 kilometers (~3.7 miles) and integrate with public transit and smart city systems.