Mass Transit

Google won a $10 million bankruptcy auction to acquire a hefty collection of business data from the now defunct Spirit Airlines, which it plans to use for AI training. The data, which includes calendar info, documents, spreadsheets, emails, and employee chats will be “deidentified,” a Google spokesperson said in a statement to Axios:

The MTA is auctioning off its old MetroCard vending machines, and I’m struggling to picture where one would fit something like this in your average New York City apartment. It weighs 1,050 pounds! Maybe some enterprising transit nerd could convert it into a work station for their computer.

We asked the company to clarify what’s going on here. Maybe there’s an explanation, but I know a lot of people wouldn’t put it past Amazon to pull a stunt like this.

A new study analyzed anonymized Google data to conclude that drivers who never even enter the toll zone in Manhattan are also saving a lot of time. Hey, anything that makes ex-New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy look even more stupid in his failed attempt to block the climate change-fighting policy from going through.

The New York Times has a bunch of neat graphs depicting how the first year of congestion pricing in Manhattan has resulted in 27 million fewer car trips through the central business district. While we’re still partial to the Moshes Brothers’ tracking tool, this data is helpful for understanding how the new tolling scheme has led to faster commute times, cleaner air, and more funding for public transportation. Suck on that, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy! (I can say that because I live in New Jersey.)

That’s the name the British public selected for a new leaf-kicking train rolling out next week. It will blast high-pressure water to remove leaves from tracks, a much bigger problem than it sounds like.

That’s the assessment from US Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, who just released a 300-page report (PDF) detailing key findings, including “missed deadlines, budget shortfalls, and overrepresentation of projected ridership.” Duffy is ordering the agency in charge of the project to respond in 37 days, or risk contract terminations. And he frames the demand as being “good stewards” of US tax dollars — even as Trump’s “big beautiful bill” is projected to grow the federal deficit to $2.4 trillion. Of course, Trump has been angling to kneecap California’s high-speed rail project for years now.

It’s scheduled to last until midnight Friday due to an early morning fire at an electrical substation in West London that powers the European continent’s busiest airport. Passengers have been told not to travel to the airport “under any circumstances” with “significant disruption” expected over the next few days.

France has unveiled the fifth generation of its TGV Inoui high-speed intercity trains. The gorgeous retro-inspired ‘Atomic Age’ design influence throughout the interior almost made me overlook that the seat power outlets are still USB-A. Something that will seem all the more dated when these trains enter service in 2026.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy issued a memo ordering officials to halt all Biden-era discretionary grants related to “green infrastructure,” which includes bike lanes, walkable cities, and electric vehicle charging stations, according to Streetsblog. The plan is to cancel all projects that don’t adhere to President Trump’s anti-DEI/pro-climate change agenda. Urban Institute’s Yonah Freemark, who shared screenshots of the memo on BlueSky, called canceling bike lane infrastructure counterproductive. “On a per-dollar basis, cycling improvements are some of the most efficient ways to increase mobility, and they enable people from all backgrounds and income levels to get around,” he said in an email.

This isn’t much of a shock, considering Trump has been loudly considering this for weeks. But today, the Federal Highway Administration made it official by rescinding its approval for congestion pricing in New York City. Interestingly, one of reasons given for cancelling the toll was that the price was “set primarily to raise revenue for transit, rather than at an amount needed to reduce congestion.” (You’ll remember NY Gov. Kathy Hochul tweaked the price before its launch.) Data has shown that congestion pricing is succeeding in both aspects, raising needed cash for transit and discouraging drivers from entering congested Manhattan. Anyway, this seems like yet another Trump thing headed for the courts.

The new tolling scheme that charges people $9 to drive below 60th Street in Manhattan went live at 12:00:01AM on Sunday. New York joins London, Singapore, Milan, and other global cities to force drivers to shoulder some of the burden in paying for good public transportation. I wrote about how congestion pricing can save cities from robot-powered gridlock back in 2019 — check it out.

Can self-driving shuttles give people a reason to ride the bus or a train? Waymo says it will test the idea with a credit for riders who connect “to or from eligible Bay Area transit stations.”

In a press release festooned with enough emoji to confuse it with a X post from a cryptobro, American’s major passenger train company announced it wants to figure out how to get high speed Wi-Fi blanketing its Northeast Corridor.

That’s how many turns the subway system’s most high-traffic turnstile — No. 602 in Fare Control Area R238, located in Grand Central-42nd Street station — is estimated to do in a year. That’s more throughput than some whole transit systems combined. These durable three-armed machines called tripods are designed by a company called Cubic, which also oversees the MTA’s fare collection system. And boy are they built to last.

Some big changes include the addition of real-time ETA, live train and bus tracking, service alerts, and multi-modal trip planning. If you already have the MTA app, it will automatically update. If not, it’s available for Android or iOS. I’m no New Yorker, but this looks way better than the app we have for Los Angeles public transit.

We don’t know whether the leg came from a man or woman, nor do we know how old the leg is. We do know, however, that “a human leg has been found abandoned on a New York subway track, police said, sparking an investigation into who it once belonged to and how they lost it.”

As noticed by Jalopnik, the bus will display the digital symbol for “hang lose” if you let it merge — which is just delightful. Most drivers are big babies that need to be patted on the head when they do something good, so this is exactly the right kind of energy we need to be bringing to our roads.