The School Bus Crisis

File Photo by Jonmaesha Beltran / Wisconsin Watch

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.

Processes that created a housing crisis: Many of the processes people go through just to add a small unit or build new housing are tedious and were likely well intended attempts to be more democratic. But instead as Jerusalem Demsas argues, they have created more veto points for bad actors to succeed at blocking new development at all turns. But we should not focus all of our efforts on the effects and people using the system, but rather fix the underlying system itself. (Jerusalem Demsas | The Atlantic)

A school bus crisis: The humble school bus has suffered a number of setbacks in recent years with drivers shortages and budget cuts. In some cases the extreme cuts to the school bus network have led to massive car lines outside of schools that snarl traffic, waste parents’ time, and pollute the air. In Cypress Texas, the school district saved $4 million but set off a chain reaction that caused a line more than a mile long to drop kids off at a local middle school. (Henry Grabar | Slate)

Why US night life is so bad: Nightlife in many cities in the United States pales in comparison to its counterparts around the world. Darrell Owens notes that there are a number of factors that cause a lack of good options, including driving culture that doesn’t allow for drinking and staying safe, strict residential zoning that excludes commercial uses like bars and hangouts and makes small business creation less likely, and a stigmatization of night time activities. (Darrell Owens | The Discourse Lounge)

Inside the plan to save Denver’s downtown: Denver Union Station’s revitalization created a swell of redevelopment and momentum for Denver. So much so that it will pay off its bonds 14 years early. But the area around it and Denver’s downtown was hit hard by the pandemic with increasing crime and increased office vacancies. Now a new plan would take the Union Station model and extend it to the rest of downtown as the mayor pushes for a new 15 year plan to reimagine the region’s core. (Robert Sanchez | 5280 Magazine)

Richmond CA makes Chevron pay: Richmond California reached a quick $550m settlement with Chevron after the city threatened to put a tax on the ballot that would have taxed every barrel of gasoline produced by the refinery inside of the city limits. The city’s win could be seen as a playbook other cities with polluting industries and large corporations can follow to extract concessions for outsized impacts of local pollution. (Will McCarthy | Politico)

Quote of the Week

This study demonstrated that adults in the United States hold disparate attitudes toward private property, rule-bending, risk, consequences, and externalities when those issues concern automobile use. The terms “windshield bias” and “motornormativity” describe this phenomenon and how a system built around private automobiles not only creates automobile dependency, it also engenders further demand for autocentric ways to fix its problems.

-Professor Tara Goddard in Findings Press sharing her research on the phenomenon of windshield bias.

On this week’s Talking Headways podcast, we’re joined by Move Minnesota director Sam Rockwell to talk about climate bills Minnesota legislators have passed that could reduce highway and road building emissions in the state by not building new roads.

Want more links to read? Visit The Overhead Wire and signup.