News Roundup: ITDP Gold

• New York gives pedestrians a head start ($) at key intersections.
• New York City's Comptroller describes a bus system in crisis ($). Classic NYC finger-pointing ensues. Civic and business leaders describe a subway system and transit agency in crisis ($). Read Ben Kabak's take (and visit London) if you want to get really depressed.
• It fell to Albuquerque to open the first ITDP Gold BRT line in the US. Jarrett Walker discusses.
• More Jarrett, what it means for a transit agency to listen.
• TransLink pilots double-decker buses in Richmond.
• Chariot looks to roll out commuter van service in Q1.
• The city of Zhuzhou is testing an autonomous, rubber-tired tram.
• Envisioning an I-5 lid in the U-District.
• Olympia looks to forestall a missing-middle housing crisis by liberalizing small-lot development. Bravo to the city, and to Olympians for People-Oriented Places for being organized and having smart things to say.
• Vancouver already has a full-blown crisis, and they're discussing some radical ideas to address it. (Interesting tangent: the Vancouver Special. Perhaps in twenty years, we'll call the auto-court townhouse four-pack ($) the Seattle Special.)
• London's Mayor reveals plans to ban the construction of new car parking spaces.
• Nearly three decades of fighting and still no agreement ($) on Seattle's Burke-Gilman missing link.
• Doug at the Urbanist read the MHA rezone appeal filed by the inaptly-named "Seattle Coalition for Affordability, Livability, and Equity," so you wouldn't have to.
• Can private buses solve the Bay Area's commute woes? They won't, but they're still a net positive to the transportation system.
• LA timidly proposes more walkable density in the area around five Expo Line stations. Local council member promptly denounces the plan, saying "his district 'simply cannot support' more density without improvements to streets and other public infrastructure." Newsflash: you can never build enough infrastructure to satisfy the NIMBY concern trolls.
• There's a hipster Best Western coming to Capitol Hill.
• Portland's Southwest Corridor is lined with at-risk NOAHs.
• Minneapolis's Southwest Corridor is lined with historic Great Northern retaining walls.
• TNT gives a slightly ambivalent welcome to the Point Defiance Bypass, but an unambivalent smack down to the outgoing passenger hut.
• Portland City Council endorses congestion charging for Portland-area freeways.
• Curbs are the riparian zones of our cities.
• Anchorage will test a Proterra electric bus this winter.

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