A Waymo self-driving car sits parked on Massachusetts Avenue NW near Union Station. Image by Rob Pegoraro licensed under Creative Commons.

Autonomous vehicles are a frontline for how society considers safety and responsibility, in an age when technology increasingly makes its own decisions. Unlike the direction much federal data is going, the US Census Bureau has new, more-accurate-than-ever data on the country’s housing stock. How do you get officials to understand the value of buses and trains?

Future traffic deaths by autonomous vehicles: In a surprisingly candid moment for a technology CEO, the head of Waymo admitted she believes that society will accept when one of their vehicles kills someone as part of the tradeoff for what many believe are safer vehicles in the long run. But after a Waymo vehicle illegally passed a school bus in Georgia without receiving a $1,000 ticket, the question of who is responsible when something happens still lingers. (Sharon Adarlo | Futurism)

Better census data on housing: The US Census Bureau’s new Address Count Listing Files (ACLF) now provide the most accurate, timely, and granular data ever on the nation’s housing stock. The data, which is available from January of 2023, is released every six months and offers jurisdiction-level numbers on change in housing units. Previous to the ACLF, incomplete local surveys and reporting gaps led to inaccurate data. (Alex Armlovich | Niskanen Center)

Giving up equity for long term community: The Douglass Community Land Trust in Washington DC has put together a program that allows home sellers to keep their homes affordable into the future. In order to achieve that, homeowners will need to sell their homes to the land trust below market value by up to 25%. But once the home is sold to the land trust, new buyers purchase under a new structure that creates a 99-year ground lease and keeps it more affordable long term. (Allaire Conte | Realtor.com)

Communicating the value of transit: Public transit provides a multitude of benefits that are not always easily explained or often overlooked. But some members of the public and decision makers are stuck believing outdated or untrue narratives about the value of automobility. One way to address this gap is for advocates to collect and share stories that demonstrate the benefits as they find them. (Todd Litman | Planetizen)

Secret to Norway’s electric vehicle success: Norway’s been praised for getting more people to adopt electric vehicles, with over 80% of new cars sold in 2022 being electric. The success stems from a clear and long term policy strategy starting in the 1990s that focused on making owners of polluting vehicles pay more taxes, creating more economic incentives such as reduced road tolls, and bus lane exemptions. Now the program will move along to other vehicle types than passenger vehicles. (Georgia Collins | Energy Digital)

Quote of the Week

“I don’t mean to discount all the intangible things that make cities great, like block clubs and schools. But also I think it’s important to remember that the city is a thing we build. And that investment, bold investments, are an important part of that.”

Angie Schmitt writes in The Love of Place wondering what legacies current generations will leave their cities.

This week on the Talking Headways Podcast, Sarah Goodyear and Doug Gordon of the War on Cars podcast join the show to talk about their new book: Life After Cars – Freeing Ourselves from the Tyranny of the Automobile.