Colby Brown @colby@transportation.social

Last summer, the #Massachusetts legislature set aside $15 million in the state budget to fund fare-free transit. Now, 8 regional #transit authorities are suspending fare collection:
https://mass.streetsblog.org/2024/01/05/new-year-no-fares-beacon-hill-bankrolls-dozens-of-free-bus-routes-statewide #mapoli

San Francisco subway system still runs on 5¼ inch floppy disks

https://sfstandard.com/2023/02/02/sfs-market-street-subway-runs-on-reagan-era-floppy-disks/

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In addition to these projects, more than half a dozen new trail projects will break ground in the year to come.

https://mass.streetsblog.org/2023/12/26/new-trails-we-can-look-forward-to-in-2024

"Musk never had any intention of building the Hyperloop. He only needed it to help kill or substantially delay the high-speed rail project and the alternate vision of sustainable collective transportation it offered. It threatened his interests as an automaker and his elite vision of “individualized” mobility that simply worked better for him." https://www.disconnect.blog/p/the-hyperloop-was-always-a-scam

Cool, now everyone else in the automotive industry do the same

https://www.engadget.com/volkswagen-drivers-want-more-physical-buttons-instead-of-touch-controls-044931087.html

Bird, the poster child of the zero interest rate era, has declared bankruptcy.

Massive funding from Sequoia using PR to try and make "micromobility” a buzzword for what was mainly Uber for scooters. Except the business model missed the entire point of Uber which was not owning the vehicles.

Turned out the scooters wear out to fast to recoup investment especially when vandals dump them in lakes.

Yet it’s SPAC valuation hit $2.5 billion which has now dropped to zero.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/20/business/dealbook/bird-bankruptcy.html

Launching the Headline of the Year contest today. If you're not familiar, here are the first four winners (2018-2022)

#Train #Transit #Climate #CleanTransportation

#USA Federal employees take 33,000 rail trips per year, but 2.8 million flights (!!).

When I was first hired by #NASA and needed to travel between NYC and the mothership (DC/Greenbelt), they would make me travel by plane. I would have to write special requests to justify taking Amtrak (often more $$ than flights).

Now, looks like rail will be the default mode of transit for federal employees going <250 miles. (Woot!)

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/12/14/fact-sheet-biden-harris-administration-takes-action-to-accelerate-americas-clean-transportation-future/

#ClimateDiary - Writing research plans for postdoc applications -> anxiety and guilt about whether I am working on climate change to the extent that I could be.

Only real reassuring thing is remembering I am just one part of a whole community of people who care about this, especially on here. Thankful for that.

“In Finland, the number of homeless people has fallen sharply. Those affected receive a small apartment & counselling with no preconditions. 4 out of 5 people affected make their way back into a stable life. And all this is CHEAPER than accepting homelessness.” https://t.co/EH3reri9lz