Lyft Sketches a Future for City Streets with Fewer Cars

CNN

As Lyft's core ridehail business is pummeled by the pandemic, the company has taken a seemingly surprising step, paying urban planners to sketch out how street space can be shifted from cars to buses, bikes and pedestrians.

The plans detail how streets in Chicago, New York City and Washington, DC could have wider sidewalks, plus more bus and bike lanes. Some of the plans include details that would clearly benefit Lyft, such as adding more of its bikeshare stations and lanes for those bikes to ride in. (Lyft operates bikeshare systems in all three cities and scooters in Washington, DC.)

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2021 VW ID.4 Buyers Will Get 3 Years of Free Fast Charging

The Drive

It's impossible to launch a mainstream-aimed electric vehicle like the 2021 Volkswagen ID.4 without attracting comparison to EV segment leader Tesla.

Unafraid of being measured alongside the Tesla yardstick, however, VW will mirror Tesla's early-adopter incentive scheme, and offer three years of free fast charging to everyone who buys its electric crossover.

Drivers of the ID.4 will be able to cash in on this perk at Electrify America stations; a growing network of fast-charge kiosks backed by multiple automakers. Nationwide, Electrify America has 470 operational stations with over 2,000 chargers, many of them along a recently completed route between Los Angeles and Washington D.C.

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NAFA Panel: The State of Fleet in the Time of COVID-19

Budgets, safety tech, telematics and sustainability

By Mark Boada, Executive Editor

September 2020

One of the highlights of last week’s virtual NAFA Institute and Expo 2020 was a wide-ranging panel discussion on the current state of the fleet industry.

The panelists were Stephen Carey, president and CEO of NTEA, the association for the work truck industry; Patti Earley, president of NAFA and fleet fuels specialist at Florida Power & Light; and Katie Keaton, president of AFLA, the Automotive Fleet and Leasing Association and fleet manager at Siemens. The panel was moderated by long-time fleet journalist Mike Antich.

Plug-in Hybrids are a ‘Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing’

BBC

Carbon dioxide emissions from plug-in hybrid cars are as much as two-and-a-half times higher than official tests suggest, according to new research.

Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) are sold as a low-carbon alternative to traditional vehicles and conventional hybrids - which cannot be recharged from an external source - and are proving increasingly popular.

But analysis from pressure groups Transport and Environment and Greenpeace suggest they emit an average of 120g of CO2 per km. That compares with the 44g per km in official "lab" tests

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A Growing Pedestrian Safety Crisis: Speed, Short Lights and SUVs are Worsening a Health Epidemic

USA TODAY

The nation is grappling with a pedestrian safety crisis that has worsened in recent years: The number of pedestrians killed in the U.S. hit a 28-year high of 6,283 in 2018, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. That figure was up 46% from 2010.

While the crisis stems from many factors, a new book brings it into sharper focus. Former Streetsblog USA writer Angie Schmitt's "Right of Way: Race, Class, and the Silent Epidemic of Pedestrian Deaths in America" is an exposé drawing upon comprehensive reporting to articulate the root causes of a public health crisis.

"If we analyze these patterns, they tell us very clearly that pedestrian deaths are not just random acts of God or bad luck, nor are they the result of individual decision-making or laziness (although both bad luck and bad decisions often play a role)," Schmitt writes. "

Read the article at USA TODAY