Along for the Ride #241
greetings from london 👋
Heya friends, happy Friday!
I am writing to you from London, my spiritual home. I’ve been here just shy of a week, but it’s been a busy one which means most of the content today is in bullet point form and my only real thoughts in “bits and bobs” is that croissants are great 🤣. I mentioned in my last newsletter that this trip is jam-packed, so sadly not meeting up with newsletter folks this time around.
All right, time to bullet point this week’s news!
Waymo could face 100% tariffs on Chinese EVs imports under Biden’s new trade policy [The Verge]
How your commute can harm your health—spoiler alert, driving isn’t good for you [The City Fix]
I like that this article references out to numerous research studies!
More and more cities in Canada are pedestrianizing their streets in the Summer (we looove)[NYTs]
As China releases more and more permits for robotaxi programs, ride-hailing drivers worry about their livlihoods [Fast Co]
Uber’s CEO takes a dig at Elon Musk’s vision of a $30k payday for Tesla owners who rent out their cars as robotaxis (I love CEO on CEO hate lol) [Fortune]
A parking lot of Waymo vehicles in San Francisco is honking its life away at 4am and neighbours are not very happy [The Verge]
Waymo also has plans to start testing their vehicles with no safety driver on San Francisco’s freeways…….. can’t say I’m too optimistic that that will end well [TechCrunch]
A review of Stanley, the SUV that won the DARPA grand challenge in 2005, and how the competition set the course for autonomous vehicles as we know them today [Smithsonian]
WeRide gets approval to carry passengers in California, and in a small dose of good news, this company also has robobuses (!), so maybe just maybe, we’ll at least get some type of shared vehicle? [TechCrunch]
This might be some of the dryest research encountered yet, but I thought it might rock some of your socks, so including anyways!
“[Researchers] predicted the amount, share, and value of land dedicated to roadways within and across 316 U.S. primary metropolitan statistical areas. Despite the amount and value of land dedicated to roadways, our study provides the first such estimate across a broad range of metropolitan areas.. We found that a little less than a quarter of urbanized land—roughly the size of West Virginia—was dedicated to roadway. This land was worth around $4.1 trillion in 2016 and had an annualized value that was higher than the total variable costs of the trucking sector and the total annual federal, state, and local expenditures on roadways. Conducting a back-of-the-envelope cost–benefit analysis, we found that the country likely has too much land dedicated to urban roads.”
When I landed in London on Sunday, I immediately went on a walk—affectionately referred to as a “bop” to all my Strava peeps—to Broadway Market, then along Regent’s Canal and back through Shoreditch. Jolene’s wasn’t open, but I did proceed to go the next three mornings in a row to grab to my fav pain au chocolate. Other honourable mentions for London pastries: Popham’s, Pavillion, and the Dusty Knuckle.
Current read is All Fours by Miranda July. It has rave reviews but I am honestly finding it a bit slow out the gate. I think my opinion will change because I tend to be easily entertained by literature 😅 but not fully convinced.
My friends Sarah (I know, I know) and Viet are in London and we are seeing Miss Swift on Tuesday and I am le stoked. Might be another short edition next week as my soul recovers from that!
That’s all from me. Have a beautiful weekend friends.
Sarah
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