The Huffington Post: Here’s What Happens When Public Transit Is Free

The communities testing or considering free transit are diverse, ranging from major metropolises to small towns and from blue-collar to affluent. Just an hour’s drive from Worcester is Lawrence, Massachusetts, a post-industrial city with a large immigrant population. It used a municipal budget surplus to make some bus service free on a trial basis last fall, and the city has seen ridership go up 20%. [...]

The equity impact of a free ride is obvious: Beyond a few big cities, it’s the most marginalized people who are least likely to own cars and thus rely most on transit. And for those who count on it, transit is at least as vital as other services that cities are expected to fund entirely through tax revenue, from parks and libraries to schools and police forces. [...]

Climate change, however, may finally tip that political calculation. In the United States, according to federal government data, transportation is responsible for 29% of greenhouse gas emissions, with passenger cars and light trucks emitting 59% of that. Putting a dent in those figures will require public transit to become more attractive than driving, and given the cost of fueling, parking and maintaining an automobile, the word “free” could have a certain appeal. [...]

Fares sometimes amount to only a small fraction of a system’s funding — 14%, or about $3 million, in Worcester — which means lost revenues can often be made up for with federal and state grants, budget reallocations or special taxes. France uses a payroll tax on businesses to support urban and regional transit systems, allowing some of them to offer free rides. In the U.S., free transit in some college towns is made possible by a subsidy from the local university.

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Vox: The gun solution we're not talking about

It seems like after every mass shooting, politicians talk about expanding background checks for gun buyers. But background checks don't actually do a great job of keeping dangerous people from getting guns. What does? A licensing system, where before you can buy a gun, you need a license from the state.

Los Angeles Times: States with the worst anti-abortion laws also have the worst infant mortality rates

States with the largest number of abortion restrictions such as mandatory waiting periods, counseling and ultrasounds; restrictions on insurance coverage for abortions in public or private health plans; and unnecessary standards on ambulatory abortion clinics tended to have the fewest number of supportive policies, the survey found. Those included Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act; family leave; sex- and HIV education programs; and good access to children’s health insurance programs. [...]

These statistics should give the lie to legislators’ arguments that their anti-abortion measures are somehow good for women’s health or aimed at protecting their rights. A 2017 study by the Center for Reproductive Rights and IBIS Reproductive Health, a healthcare think tank, found that hostility to reproductive rights tended to go hand-in-hand with a lack of state-level policies supporting women’s and infant health. [...]

Experts have connected the dots between abortion restrictions and maternal and infant health problems. Limits on access to legal abortions can prompt women to choose unsafe alternatives. Indeed, the reported rate of maternal deaths in Texas soared from 72 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2010 to 148 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2012, a trend that some experts attributed to the state’s closing of abortion clinics and cuts in funding for Planned Parenthood and other family planning services during the same period.

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CityLab: What Cities Are Getting Wrong About Public Transportation

If you peruse this data-dump every year, you’ll probably notice something: Despite the tireless efforts of transit planners, bike-lane boosters, and other actors in the mobility arena, the mode-share percentages don’t seem to budge much in the any given growing city as they add more people, despite massive investments in transit infrastructure. Take Dallas, Texas, for example: In 1996, that city opened the first stage of its light-rail network, which has since grown into the largest system in the U.S., at a total cost of something around $5 billion. But the share of commuters in the city who ride transit has remained below 6 percent since 1990. [...]

A weighted-index does not quite get at why only 30 percent of Seattleites took sustainable transportation in 2015 when 91 percent of its jobs are within 10 minutes of what the report considers “frequent service,” where any stop is serviced an average of 5 times an hour between 7 a.m. and 9 p.m. But there’s a mismatch in accessibility: Only 10 percent of Seattle residents were reachable within 60 minutes by walking, biking, or public transit. Even the city’s successful rapid-transit options only reach 7 percent of its population. [...]

But making progress on these indicators does not necessarily mean having to overhaul your public transit options or build new systems from scratch. Consider Minneapolis and its progress on biking. If you factor in improvements in bike infrastructure, the population living near frequent transit jumps 9 percent, rising from 64 to 73 percent. “We only included protected bike lanes as a way to travel by bike in the transportation network,” says Chestnut. “It goes to show that number of people who have access to frequent transit can be improved without having to put in vast sums of money.”[...]

Another avenue where each city has room for improvement is with providing better transit service to people living in low-income households that earn less than $20,000 a year. Los Angeles may not reach as much large of a share of its total population with frequent transit in its car-centric sprawl, but where it does reach matters to a larger share of low-income households that rely on it compared to say, Atlanta. The indicators make that task appear not as difficult as you might think: Transit networks do reach where low-income people live; it is just that service needs to be more reliable.

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Axios: Marijuana legalization, daylight savings and other notable measures passed in the midterm elections

Marijuana legalization: Michigan became the 10th state to legalize marijuana — including the District of Columbia — and first midwestern state to do so for recreational use. North Dakota rejected a similar measure, but voters in Missouri approved the legalization of medical marijuana.

Abortion: The matter was on the ballot in three states. In Oregon, voters defeated a measure that would have banned the use of public funds to pay for abortion coverage. Alabama and West Virginia approved sweeping anti-abortion language to the states’ constitution, proclaiming that women have no right to perform the procedure.[...]

Daylight saving: Californians decided they no longer want to reset clocks twice a year. A measure they approved would implement a permanent year-round daylight saving time. But, it requires a two-thirds vote from the state legislature and a change in federal law to go into effect.

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The Huffington Post: Republican Gov. Signs Automatic Voter Registration Bill Into Law In Massachusetts

Under the new provision, residents will be automatically registered to vote when they make a transaction at the Registry of Motor Vehicles or MassHealth, the state Medicaid program. The law goes into effect on Jan. 1, 2020 ― “just in time for the next presidential primaries,” the state’s election chief said ― and early estimates say up to 680,000 people could be added to the rolls in the next five years, according to MassLive. [...]

“Voting should be simple, accessible, and protected, especially in light of national efforts to limit access to the polls,” Carol Rose, executive director of the ACLU of Massachusetts, said in a statement. “With automatic voter registration, Beacon Hill has acted to engage nearly 700,000 more eligible Massachusetts voters in the democratic process. This is a victory for voters, and for a healthy and vibrant democracy.” [...]

“Not doing this is really a form of voter suppression. To not do this, it doesn’t make sense,” State Sen. Cynthia Creem said in November. She said Thursday she was “so proud” that the bill had been signed into law, sharing her brief note with the #votingisaright.

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Social Europe: Breaking The Populism ‘Doom Loop’

When they raise issues that are of genuine concern to voters, populists from Trump to Grillo put forward simple solutions to complex issues – “Worried about immigration? Build a wall!”, “Tired of low pay and poor social services? Leave the EU!”, “Frustrated at how our nation is insulted by the global elite? Kick-out George Soros!” – that will not solve them. If populists have a point in highlighting the failures of liberal democracy with regard to managing immigration or facilitating increasing economic inequality, their opponents have failed in explaining that it is only with the consensus and compromise building approach inherent in liberal democracy that they can be solved. 

It is not enough for defenders of liberal democracy to wait on the sidelines for populism to fall on its sword. When the actions of populists fail to deliver change to the major policy challenges they promised to solve, there will still be popular resentment about the – both perceived and real – distance of liberal democracy from the lives of ordinary voters. This situation I describe as a ‘populism doom loop’. As liberal democratic institutions and actors continue to resist reform, the ‘doom loop’ of support for populists caused by distant and disconnected liberal democratic institutions and actors will continue. The loop must be broken for the crisis of democracy to end. [...]

The key issue here is with the ability of voters to process this information critically. This is not to label the electorate as ignorant or stupid, far from it. Rather it is to point to the desultory state of civics education around the world. Citizens have not received the kind of comprehensive education required to become active, involved, and informed citizens in an era of information oversaturation. Massachusetts has recently taken a step forward in this regard by passing a bill aimed at modernising civics education with a focus on explaining how the US political system works across its different levels, as well as promoting critical engagement with the media.

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Associated Press: Winner take all? Not if Electoral College critics win cases

Advocates took their first step last month by filing federal lawsuits in four states — Massachusetts, Texas, California and South Carolina — arguing that the practice of assigning all of a state's Electoral College votes to the popular winner, no matter how narrow, runs counter to the principle of "one person, one vote" by disenfranchising those who voted for the losing candidate. [...]

Vera said the group deliberately chose two Democratic-leaning states and two Republican-leaning states — Clinton won about 61 percent of the vote in Massachusetts, while Trump won about 55 percent in South Carolina — to argue that the winner-take-all system harms voters of both parties. [...]

The National Popular Vote initiative is hoping to persuade enough states to pass laws assigning all of their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote. The strategy would kick in when states with enough electoral college votes to put a candidate in the White House join.

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CityLab: Where Hate Groups Are Concentrated in the U.S.

The geography of organized hate in America is at once significantly concentrated and considerably spread out. On the one hand, hate groups are found in slightly more than 10 percent of U.S. counties (340 of 3,142), according to the study. But on the other, hate groups span the entire country, and can be found in every single state. While the heartland—stretching from the Dakotas, Minnesota, and Nebraska to Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Texas—has among the highest levels of hate groups, the East and West Coasts have a high density of these groups as well, as the map below shows.

The study finds that, not surprisingly, the geography of organized hate is shaped by factors like race and ethnicity, education, poverty, religion, and political conservatism. Organized hate is concentrated in places that are poorer, less educated, less diverse, and whiter, more religious, and more conservative. But the precise extent to which these factors affect hate differs somewhat in different parts of the country. The maps below chart the connection between hate groups and these variables for the 340 counties that are home to hate groups. [...]

The study shows that while organized hate groups are concentrated in U.S. counties, no geographic region is immune to hate. Indeed, hate in America has a long, distressing history that cuts across America’s major geographic regions. The Midwest was a hotbed of white supremacy before the Civil War and is home to the Michigan Militia. The South and Southwest have long been centers for the Ku Klux Klan and other white-supremacist groups. The Northwest saw a striking rise in white-supremacist groups in the 1980s. And the Northeast has had its share of organized hate as well: In the ‘30s and ‘40s, a wave of anti-Semitic and racially motivated violence hit what we now think of progressive states like Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York.

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Salon: America saw a massive rise in anti-Semitism in 2017: report

There was a 57 percent increase in anti-Semitic incidents in the United States between 2016 and 2017, according to a new report by the ADL. Not only was it the highest year-to-year increase ever recorded by the agency, but it was also the second highest number of anti-Semitic incidents reported since the ADL began tracking that data in 1979. The bulk of the increase came from incidents in high schools and on college campuses, which doubled for the second consecutive year. More than three-fifths of the incidents (62 percent) occurred in six states: New York, California, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Florida and Pennsylvania. For the first time since 2010, however, every state included a report of at least one anti-Semitic incident.

While it is unclear how many of these incidents could be directly traced back to Trump's campaign and subsequent presidency, experts have long pointed out that the Republican's bigoted rhetoric could result in real-world discrimination — particularly when it invoked anti-Semitism. It was President Trump himself who aroused controversy for airing an anti-Semitic campaign commercial in 2016; last year his White House omitted any mention of Jews from a statement for International Holocaust Remembrance Day — though Jews were recognized in the 2018 statement.

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Scientific American: Trump Wants Offshore Drilling, but States Are Choosing Wind Energy

States bordering the outer continental shelf are looking for carbon-free electricity, even as the Trump administration rolls back rules requiring it. Last week, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D) announced that his state will aim for 3,500 megawatts of installed offshore wind by 2030, enough to power 1 million homes. Massachusetts has a goal to build 1,600 MW of offshore wind power by 2027, and New York has committed to 2,400 MW by 2030.

At the same time, wind technology is quickly advancing, thanks to its popularity in Europe. Ten countries across Europe had deployed 12,600 MW of offshore wind power by the end of 2016. In the United States, the Interior Department's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) has issued 13 wind energy leases off the Atlantic coast. In late 2016, the first offshore wind farm in the United States came online about 4 miles off the coast of Block Island, R.I. [...]

It's possible that the wind and oil industries may compete for the same blocks of ocean seabed. That could create strife. Generally, when BOEM grants renewable energy rights on the outer continental shelf, they are exclusive rights to the seafloor. [...]

"Offshore wind has been in the media long enough that coastal residents have heard about it and thought through what it's going to mean," she said. "Certainly, communities differ in how they view these installations, but overall, people may be more supportive if the choice is wind or oil and gas."

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CityLab: Why New York City Is Getting Its Money Out of Fossil Fuels

On Tuesday, New York City announced it would divest pension funds from fossil fuel interests, joining New York State, a cadre of other U.S. cities, and some private universities who say they will pull investments from companies that extract coal, gas, and oil. De Blasio also announced the city’s plans to sue five major oil companies for their role in damages brought on the city by climate disasters. [...]

The money on the table is significant. New York state’s common retirement fund is the third-largest in the nation, worth $200 billion, and provides pensions for more than 1 million New Yorkers. The fund has stakes in 50 oil and gas companies, with $1 billion tied to ExxonMobil alone. New York City’s pension fund, which pays for city employees like police officers, firefighters, and teachers, is also a huge bucket, worth $191 billion. Currently, $5 billion is currently tied up in fossil fuels. (For comparison, San Francisco’s has invested $1 billion; and Seattle’s, $17.6 million.) [...]

But it’s become as much an economic strategy as an environmental one. “Quickly, that advocacy opened the black box of the business model of the fossil fuel industry, and drew the attention of investors who said: Wait, there’s a whole financial conversation as well,” Dorsey said. As founder of 350.org Bill McKibben sees it, the future of energy—and, by extension, the financial markets—lies elsewhere. [...]

Divestment has been criticized by some as an empty, primarily symbolic move: Each million- or billion-dollar divestiture can have only marginal ripple effects to a $5 trillion dollar fossil fuel industry. Multi-billionaire Bill Gates called divestment a “false solution” in 2015, arguing that pouring funds into renewable energy sources—to ignite innovation in those sectors—would be more effective. Since then, however, he has divested his $187 million stake in BP oil.

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