How Cities Can Learn From Paris’ Urban Transportation Policy

Every day at The Overhead Wire we sort through over 1,500 news items about cities and share the best ones with our email list. At the end of the week, we take some of the most popular stories and share them with Urban Milwaukee readers. They are national (or international) links, sometimes entertaining and sometimes absurd, but hopefully useful.

Japan considering underground freight system: Japan, facing a shortage of workers as the country ages and a booming e-commerce sector, is considering an underground package transportation system between Tokyo and Osaka. The system will be designed to take 25,000 trucks off the road daily. The idea is a trend that is happening in many countries as places try to make logistics more efficient in a new e-commerce environment. (Jesus Diaz | Fast Company)

Manufacturing boom for legacy cities: Multiple bills passed over the last few years have financed a trillion dollar industrial policy that has boosted manufacturing and investment in legacy cities in the Midwest and southeast. Tax credits and incentives from those bills are fueling growth in new industries such as renewable energy or energy storage. But there are hurdles including land use, a healthy jobs ecosystem, and regulatory barriers that could hamper a long term trend. (Anthony Flint | Lincoln Institute of Land Policy)

Texas bitcoin mine’s impact on health: A bitcoin mine outside of Granbury Texas has been generating 70 to 90 decibels of sound on a daily basis as server farms process cryptocurrency. Many residents and local doctors believe the noise is leading to health problems among local residents and their pets. But the mine is largely unconcerned by small fines and regulations and it will likely take a larger legal push to hold them accountable. (Andrew R Chow | Time Magazine)

Paris as a model: After New York Governor Kathy Hochul paused (de)congestion pricing in New York City, the hope for copying the idea by other cities has been also been paused. But Yonah Freemark offers another possible way forward to reduce automobile use and improve quality of life by following Paris’ lead. After implementing bike lanes and school streets, closing certain streets to cars and building new transit, and establishing car free zones, the city has seen a 50% reduction in auto use. (Yonah Freemark | Urban Institute)

First solar-covered canal in the US: The Gila River Indian Community in Arizona is completing work on a new solar project that covers a half mile of the Casa Blanca Canal. The projects are beneficial in that they don’t take up farmland or wilderness areas, but provide much needed shade that slows water evaporation from the canals they cover. They will also generate power for local tribes to use. (Yale e360)

Quote of the Week

The Times Square bowtie offered advertisers a perfect showcase — a generous physical space tailor-made for product ads — and it would not take long for the nation’s commercial purveyors to understand its potential, especially after electricity supplanted gaslit signs. Broadway was New York’s first electrified street (1890), and soon the dark, off-putting urban nighttime was being transformed into a sparkling environment of incandescent lights.

–Lynne B. Sagalyn in MIT Press Reader discussing how Oscar J. Gude transformed Times Square into the bright spectacle it is today.

This week on the Talking Headways podcast, I’m joined by SPUR’s Laura Tolkoff to interview Anna Zivarts about her new book: When Driving Is Not an Option: Steering Away from Car Dependency.