✊🏙 NYC subway needs to be fixed 🚇 Driverless cars still far off 🚗 Berlin trying to save affordable rents 🇩🇪

LONGREAD: A great piece arguing that the subway is the backbone of the city and the leading driver of its prosperity. The city and state governments can’t afford not to do whatever it takes to fix and rebuild the system.

LONGREAD: Why does the MTA pay $3.5 billion per mile when a similar project in Paris costs just $400 million per mile? This piece investigating why MTA projects cost so much more than comparable transit investments elsewhere in North America and Europe is aggravating, but instructive. (See issue 10 for political interference in the MTA.)

In order to put new money into the MTA, Governor Cuomo looks to be about to announce his congestion pricing plan. StreetsBlog argues the system will be able to absorb additional passengers switching from vehicle to subway in the short-term. (See issue 11 for more on congestion pricing.)

Uber lost $2.8 billion in 2016, is on track to lost $5 billion in 2017, and self-driving cars are much further off than the industry initially led us to believe. Uber will have to raise its prices, and the more it transforms our existing transport systems before that happens, the greater the shock will be to riders and cities.

A great overview of the state of driverless vehicles, how autonomous tech still needs work, and how many companies in the space are pushing their timelines for cars to hit the road by several years.

An interesting argument that people are wary of self-driving vehicles, and they should be rolled out slowly when they’re ready. A poll shows 56% of Americans do not want to ride in a driverless car.

While Berlin’s rents are still much more affordable than in many Western European capitals, that doesn’t mean the city’s residents aren’t starting to feel rent pressure. However, one borough has been trying to protect its residents by using its right of first refusal to buy apartment buildings and preserve affordability. This brought to mind how Vienna owns much of the housing in its jurisdiction and rents it at affordable prices (see issue 13).

Paris and London are making big investments in cycling infrastructure to get closer to the Dutch and Danish leaders, and now Berlin has a plan to join them. The Green Party has presented a new law aimed at adding new bike parking spaces, expanding and improving bike lanes, and building new bike superhighways.