Along for the Ride #275
Beyoncé, Brussels, and Besties
Heya friends, happy Friday!
I am writing to you from the Istanbul airport, during a layover on my way to Dar es Salaam, opposite my friends Max and Al. The past two weeks have been very whirl-windy, between having friends visit, attending and speaking at conferences, and winding down my time at work (!). Starting this week, I’m taking a few months off from working to travel and write and reflect on the big ole “what do I want to do the minutes and hours of my life” question. Leaving my job is (1) a privilege, and (2) a very hard decision, and one I’m sure I’ll opine on at some point here. I’m excited to be taking a break and (hopefully) finally getting around to some fun collabs for this newsletter. There is much more to come in terms of reflections, but all in due time.
This week’s newsletter is going to be a series of links about relevant happenings in the mobility space. While in Dar, I (likely) won’t be sending out editions of the newsletter, but I’ll be taking notes of the trains, ferries, and hopefully bikes I’ll be riding! I am really excited about taking some BRT while I’m here too!! So look out for a very fun edition on the flip side of this trip.
Before we get into the news, I want to relish in a lil moment of joy. I was glued to the NYC Mayoral Democratic Primary this week, after being (easily) targeted by Mamdani’s campaign for many months. I love every Mr. Cardamom video and sound bite, and am so happy he won. (One thing I love about Mr. Cardamom specifically is that it shows how many multitudes we can all contain, and honestly it makes me want to be friends with the guy??). A free bus king getting his flowers warms my heart, and also gives me a morsel of hope that good people can still get ahead. Big phew.
OK onto the news!!
Transit ridership in LA has dropped by 10-15% since the ICE raids began and people fear deportation, which is so infuriating and heart-breaking and fucked up (LA Times)
How NYC’s voters choices mirror car ownership throughout the city (Jalopnik)
Sadiq Khan and Anne Hildago co-wrote* an article in the Guardian about not backing down to climate backlash (The Guardian)
Cambridge launches a free, autonomous bus trial (BBC) and Detroit is relaunching their AV shuttle pilot (Mass Transit)
How a mural welcoming all bike(r)s in Arkansas led to a culture war (Cycling Weekly). Thanks to AFTR reader Adam for the share :)
The UN has issued another warning about AVs being used for terrorist activities and is calling them “slaughterbots” (UN Counter Terrorism Report). This was first brought up in 2021 (CNBC), and isn’t news, it’s just not really spoken about publicly.
* We all know this was ghost-written… but I appreciate the commitment to the ruse 😂
Tesla launched their robotaxi service in Austin and it was as erratic as we all knew it would be. NHTSA is now investigating Tesla due to sheer breadth of issues. Turns out using innocent road users as guinea pigs actually isn’t a great way to run a business (BBC)
Must suck for Elon Muck to fall out with his your best friend the cheeto puff and then have to deal with NHTSA regulators again
Here’s another article about how Texas’ lax regulations left a gap for Tesla to come in and launch such a subpar service (The Verge)
The good people of reddit have made a list of Tesla incidents in Austin if you’d like to read through em
An Austin newspaper put out an article questioning if the city can survive the autonomous vehicle revolution, subtitled “our streets are being used as robot’s first rodeo and we're looking both ways” (Austin Chronicle)
Waymo starts to operate in Atlanta (Axios), and will start to conduct tests as it applies for a permit in NYC (CBS, The Verge)
I always go back to the question of “will AVs make [insert city] traffic safer, more efficient, more sustainable and more accessible than a well funded public transport system?” and I always return to the same conclusion “nope”, paired with a “only if operated in more suburban / rural communities at a significant loss” (which isn’t really what the private companies are aiming for, is it?).
Time Magazine also has named Waymo one of the “100 Most Influential Companies of 2025”, a title I don’t disagree with. The article even highlights that Waymo’s advancements don’t mean much if they can’t create a sustainable business model, but the article entirely overlooks that in order for Waymo to make money, we need more people in their vehicles and the entire question of mode shift isn’t addressed (Time)
Remember when taxi drivers protested Uber drivers? Well now Uber drivers are protesting AVs. Ah, the circle of life (CBS News)
OpenAI is getting into AVs (because ChatGPT wasn’t burning carbon emissions fast enough) (NYTs)
Zoox is building an AV plant in the Bay Area (which will build 10,000 vehicles a year…. which doesn’t sound like we’re shooting for fewer cars and less traffic, does it?) (Quartz)
Uber might help Travis Kalanick (yes, their old Co-founder and CEO forced out in 2017…….) purchase the US subsidiary of Pony.AI. As somebody who wrote my dissertation on AVs in 2017 and has been paying attention to industry gossip ever since, I am lowkey shooketh at this news (NYTs)
Accessibility of third-party transit apps and the role of transit agencies and their open data (Journal of Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives)
McKinsey published a report about the future of AVs in Europe, that was written in partnerhips with tech CEOs, so it naturally it paints an overly rose-y picture.. which is to say read with many a grain of salt (McKinsey)
Transit-driven resilience: Unraveling post-COVID-19 urban recovery dynamics (Journal of Transport Geography)
Santa Monica residents are (still) complaining about Waymo (CNN)
I was in Brussels last week eating waffles and speaking on a panel at Micromobility Europe. It was really wonderful to catch up with old friends and meet some new ones along the way. Grateful to Ali Griswold, fellow newsletter writer and friend, for inviting me along. It was also ✨ fantastic ✨ to take the Eurostar there and back (yay trains 5ever).
The last two weeks have been London summer at its best. The weather is a lil too warm, such that all the East London honeys are out and about, biking through London Fields and drinking white wine in any attempt to cool off. At the start of the summer sizzle, my friends Rosie, Bridget, Hari and I went to see Beyoncé’s last concert in London and she delivered a phenomenal performance.
My long-term bestie Viet is visiting London this week and we got to overlap (too briefly), and it was special to have him in town. We ate pastries and went to an Irish pub and consumed one too many bevvies.
While I’m away my reading list consists of: Detransition, Baby, My Year of Rest and Relaxation, Outlander, and Crooked Plow! Will let you know how I enjoy..!
That’s all from me. Have a beautiful weekend friends.
Sarah
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