Waymo Means Way More Cars on Streets

Waymo self-driving car. Photo by Daniel Ramirez from Honolulu, USA, (CC BY 2.0), via Wikimedia Commons.

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. Each 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.

What if cities onboarded like companies: People who move to new cities are looking for connections but not always sure how to find it. Research has shown that corporate onboarding processes make new hires feel very connected with a new company so what if cities did something similar in bringing in new residents. Cities are positioned to take the lead on bringing people into the community, but the process must be intentional. (Aaron Hurst | National League of Cities)

No free range parenting in the US: Stephanie Murray believes that when she moves back from the UK to the United States the “free range” style of parenting she currently enjoys will likely make way for more protectionism. Safetyism or helicopter parenting is often seen as a negative, but given bad urban design that encourages speeding and reckless driving, and an increasing amount of urban disorder, Murray believes the extra protection is warranted. (Stephanie Murray | The Dispatch)

City vibration stopped during eclipse: During the 2024 solar eclipse, researchers wanted to test whether the hush that came over people during the eclipse was reflected in seismic data. What they found was that similar to the first two months of the pandemic, sounds from people, moving vehicles, and construction were limited for the short period of time the sun passed behind the moon and the change was easily detected by seismic monitoring. (Seismological Society of America | ScienceDaily)

A parking enforcement legend: Grant Nakamura has emerged as the most ruthless parking enforcement officer in Sacramento history. His 21,700 citations in 2025 bested the next best officer by 5,000. On his most legendary day, Nakamura handed out a whopping 107 citations. Drivers in Sacramento may not know his name, but they feel his presence if they try to break parking laws. (Ariane Lange | The Sacramento Bee)

Waymo means way more vehicles on streets: New York City has 80,000 app based taxis on the streets and a recent Uber earnings call suggests that the more vehicles on the streets, the more people seek ride hail services. Even as Waymo enters the market the other companies don’t see that as a problem because trips have been increasing despite the claims of Waymo. The result is more traffic and the need to ask ourselves “what is a city for?”. (Sophia Lebowitz | Streetsblog NYC)

Quote of the Week

We’re not looking to just continue to grow at all costs, but to really create communities and environments where people and wildlife and ecosystems can thrive long term. What we’re striving for is to create something that can last.

–Miles Cottom, planning director for Chafee County Colorado, in bioGraphic discussing planning for larger wildlife movements and human development.

This week on the Talking Headways podcast, we’re joined by Calvin Thigpen of Toole Design and Ysabel Hoogeveen of Upway to discuss a report entitled Refurbished E-bikes: An Affordable Transportation Solution for Cities and Consumers.

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