The final swipes have come for the 40,000 SEPTA Key card that will go dead on July 31. If you were one of the 39,386 early adopters who picked up a newborn card three years ago and haven’t already spent or moved your balance, this is the time to call the SEPTA Key magicians at Conduent (855-567-3782). Ask to transfer your balance over to a fresh card before the credit vanishes. But old Key cards aren’t the only SEPTA passes passing into obsolescence. Now that weekly and monthly passses work on the Key card for all four Regional Rail zones, SEPTA is phasing out its paper monthly and weekly trailpasses. SEPTA will convert all TrailPasses to Key card purchases over the next few months. Per SEPT

Spin has unveiled a new scooter design, including extended battery life and features to increase durability. The third-generation scooter will launch in seven cities in August and more to follow, part of the company's expansion. The new scooters will have a battery range of 37.5 miles per charge, farther than both Bird and Lime. The vehicles also have a larger frame, bigger tires and rear drive to improve acceleration and uphill performance. Spin is now active in 47 cities and college campuses, including 11 markets where it is the exclusive operator. The seven cities that will get the third generation scooters are Los Angeles; Denver; Washington, DC; Kansas City, MO; Memphis, TN; Portland, O

An ambitious agenda brought local officials and state representatives from near and far to Lower Providence Township Building. They heeded the call of state Rep. Joe Webster, D-Montgomery, who hosted what was referred to as a community policy hearing on Revitalizing the Ridge Pike-Main Street Corridor. Webster, who was joined by Policy Committee Chairman Mike Sturla of Lancaster, as well as many state representatives and experts in development, said his goal with what he said was, in essence, a meeting of the Democratic Policy Committee, was to bring the community together to discuss any and all issues related to prospective development along Ridge Pike, embracing four municipalities. “My v

I'm not sure who needs to hear this right now, but if you are stuck in traffic, just remember that you are not alone… But know this, you are the traffic. If you are reading this and live in the US, it is likely you spend about 42 hours per year stuck in traffic. If you live in cities like Los Angeles and commute every day (and I pray for you if you do), its likely you spend twice that amount of time in gridlock. It is also quite likely that you have your own car and drive alone to work, as do 76 percent of all workers. The map below from CityLab shows where the greatest percentage of commuters drive alone to work. This obsession with individual car ownership and the tendency to commute alone

Why are some mobility experts spooked by this plan to develop a data standard that would allow cities to build a real-time traffic control system? Imagine driving through Los Angeles in the year 2040. There’s a mix of self-driving and human-controlled vehicles on Santa Monica Boulevard. A serious collision slows traffic to a crawl. But then a special orchestration of traffic signals flips on, parting the sea of cars for an ambulance to throttle through the streets. This traffic engineering fantasy may be inching to reality, as companies such as IBM, Microsoft, Google, and HERE Maps develop what’s known as “digital twin” technology. The term describes a virtual simulacra of something in the p

Safety in the self-driving car realm is a top concern and one that I wanted to discuss with Karl Iagnemma, President of AptivAutonomous Mobility and founder of NuTonomy, when we met recently. We were both at the TechCrunch TC Sessions: Mobility summit in San Jose, California this month, and carved out some riveting moments to collegially chat and engage in an energetic dialogue on the all-important topic of safety of autonomous cars, doing so among the noisy hubbub and frenetic activity that’s a hallmark of these kinds of gatherings. Dovetailing into our discussion was the recently released white paperentitled “Safety First For Automated Driving,” which many are referring to as SaFAD as a ha

A new study finds that new business startups are choosing cities with good public transportation options over the traditional suburban locations. During the late 20th century, startup companies were quintessentially suburban, in standard-issue office parks dubbed “nerdistans.” Think of Silicon Valley, the North Carolina Research Triangle, and the suburbs of Seattle where Microsoft is located. But high-tech startups have become increasingly urban in the past decade or so, gravitating to dense neighborhoods in downtown San Francisco and Lower Manhattan, which have supplanted Silicon Valley as the nation’s leading centers for such startups. Now a new study finds a close connection between trans

Spring Garden Street through Center City may only be 2.1 miles long, but it represents an opportunity for the cycling community — in Philadelphia and across the entire east coast. In 2009, the street was selected through a Center City Greenway Feasibility Study conducted by Pennsylvania Environmental Council as the East Coast Greenway alignment through Philadelphia. As a recognized greenway, the corridor would act as the city’s official east-west trail connection between the Delaware and Schuylkill River Trails, completing the city’s segment of the 3,000 mile long traffic-separated bicycling and walking path that runs from Calais, Maine to Key West, Florida. Already, Spring Garden Street alr

No more searching for a place to return that bike. Bike-sharing is a convenient way to get around a city, but with so many schemes operating concurrently it's sometimes tough to know where the nearest station with available bikes is. Now, Google can tell you Bike-sharing is a convenient way to get around a city, but with so many schemes operating concurrently it's sometimes tough to know where the nearest station with available bikes is. Now, Google can tell you. In selected cities, Google Maps will now show bike-sharing stations and display how many bikes are available at each one. Or, if you're using a bike and you need to return it, you can see whether there is an empty space at a nearby

One of the newest pieces of public art in Rochester, N.Y., is right in the middle of Main Street. Or, more accurately, it's on the street. Outside the Eastman School of Music, a group of volunteers repainted the crosswalk to look like three-dimensional piano keys in advance of the international jazz festival that happens here each year. People walking by have been commenting on the artwork, but there's more here than meets the eye. Intersections have had a pretty standard look in the United States for decades. The blank square of pavement, the white lines of crosswalks. Increasingly, urban designers and transportation planners say colorful crosswalks and engaging sidewalks lead to safer inte

Populus added a new tool to its Mobility Manager platform, called Populus Routes, to ingest data from shared bike and scooter operators and present visualizations that enable cities to easily understand where trips are taking place. This adds to other tools in the platform, which are largely focused on device parking. "It takes much more complex data — GPS data for every single trip and every single point along a route — and turns that into trip volume data so cities can think about longer range improvements, such as expanding bike lane infrastructure," Regina Clewlow, Populus CEO and co-founder, told Smart Cities Dive​. The ability to gather and analyze scooter data could be a game changer

For the past decade, about 13 people per day have been killed while walking in the U.S., a number that remains troublingly high even as other roadway deaths go down. Now a new federal bill intends to address the country’s increasing pedestrian deaths as a national crisis. The Complete Streets Act, introduced yesterday in both houses of Congress by Sen. Ed Markey, of Massachusetts, and Rep. Steve Cohen, of Tennessee, would require states to aside five percent of federal highway funds for complete streets programs. Complete streets are defined as corridors that are redesigned to give all users of the street equal access to the roadway, with a special emphasis on safety for the most vulnerable

SEPTA wants to add some color to your trip. The authority is preparing to release a new transit map that combines subway, bus, regional rail — even the PATCO lines — all in one place. It’ll also indicate the frequency of the lines. Officials say the goal is to simplify travel planning for riders. “Our hope, really, is that they are intuitive enough that someone who’s not very familiar with the network can show up and start to figure out how to quickly and efficiently plan a trip on SEPTA,” said Lex Powers, long-range planner for SEPTA. The new map uses color coding and line weight to indicate frequency throughout the system. For example, the bus lines that run most frequently — every 15 minu

In a widely anticipated move, Ford and Volkswagen announced Friday their plan to expand their seven-month-old alliance to include autonomous and electric vehicles. In January, the two auto industry powerhouses announced they would join forces to build pickup trucks and commercial vehicles, but today’s announcement is a much riskier step: it broadens that partnership to include two technologies — autonomy and electrification — that are seen as having the potential to transform the way people get around, but also has proven to be incredibly expensive and difficult to get right. The deal also gives Argo a global reach. The company, which was founded by former Uber engineers with ties to Carnegi

PHOENIXVILLE — Crossing the Schuylkill River bridge between Mont Clare and Phoenixville on bike, or on foot, will soon be much safer. In order to keep a project 20 years in the making on track, Phoenxiville Borough Council voted 7-1 Tuesday night to spend $100,000 toward the cost of a project to widen the sidewalks on the bridge. The purpose of the $1.4 million project is to improve access to the Schuylkill River Trail. Councilwoman Dana Dugan cast the vote against the move, saying she questioned why the borough should be fronting $100,000 with no pledges of funding from the other municipalities that will benefit — Chester County, Montgomery County and Upper Providence Township. But Board Pr

The Society of Automobile Engineers (SAE) sets what have come to be the most globally recognized standards for driving automation and these are divided into six levels of driving automation. Level 0 Driving Automation This is the lowest level of driving automation. The driver is in control of the car from the start to the end of the journey. Driver support features are limited to warnings and momentary assistance. Examples include automatic emergency braking and lane departure warnings. Level 1 Driving Automation The driver is in control of the car from the start to the end of the journey. The partly automated driving support system is limited to brake or acceleration support, but not both.

THE INITIATIVE IS PART OF A TREND WHERE RENTING A BIKE TO GET AROUND TOWN IS JUST AS EASY AS BORROWING A BOOK. If you find yourself in Lorain, Ohio, and have the urge to ride, try heading to the local library. The Lorain Public Library collaborated with county health and parks departments to launch its Go Lorain Bike Share program this past May, and the initiative in another step in a growing trend where renting a bike to get around town is just as easy as borrowing a book. That’s because unlike most bike share programs, this one in Lorain is free and allows people to check out bikes with their library card. Helmets and locks are also available at no cost. “We are thrilled that this program

When cities fail to provide basic amenities like seats at bus stops, community organizations step in with creative DIY fixes. The world is full of sorry bus stops. The sorriest ones—as Streetsblog has chronicled in their annual contest—are just a sign and a patch of unshaded dirt. And while grassroots organizations have come up with creative ways to reimagine bus stops as exercise hubs, sustainable gardens, and the like, many would stand to benefit from a more modest addition: a better place to sit. Benches can be hard to come by at bus stops, much less full bus shelters, even as transit advocates have long stressed their benefits, especially for older riders. Better amenities can boost ride

If you’ve recently visited another city, you may have been surprised to see people zipping around the streets on e-scooters. Around the world, including American cities such as Austin, Texas; Santa Monica, Calif.; Nashville; and Atlanta, dockless scooters have become a quick and affordable way to get from point A to point B. The dockless scooters are similar to the kick-scooters kids use to dash up and down your block on summer nights, but instead of being fueled by feet, they are powered by an electric motor and capable of speeds up to 20 miles per hour. Pennsylvania lawmakers are considering a bill to permit e-scooters on streets across the commonwealth. The City of Philadelphia, however,

Robocars are very close to being able to drive the roads at a safety level to match humans. But what about dropping you off, picking you up, and parking or waiting? For most teams, driving on the roads will be done with detailed maps of the road. They will know where to go on any road, and also how to tell if the road differs from the map and what to do in that situation. (All cars will have at least rudimentary ability to drive without maps for this situation.) Those maps will include the locations of parking spaces and standing spaces on the public roads. Standing spaces can include the entrances to driveways and spaces in front of fire hydrants, suitable for pick-up an drop-off. Cities ha