Apartments in Berlin by La Citta Vita licensed under Creative Commons.

Why should apartment dwellers bear the externalities of busy main roads? What happens when you walk in a place built for cars. A train station platform too small for trains.

Pick a side (street): In many cities across the US, more intense development happens on the busiest streets. Author Henry Grabar argues that results in unjust outcomes in which multifamily residents are forced to act as a buffer for lower-density side streets, bearing the brunt of problems like traffic noise and air pollution. He argues side streets should be upzoned to make way for more apartments. (Henry Grabar | Slate)

These streets aren’t made for walking: The best way to understand our autocentric landscape is to walk it, believes Alex Wolfe, a graphic designer who walks in places that are overlooked when people drive by at 60 miles per hour. His walks are a rebuke to the idea that there are places we should or shouldn’t traverse by foot. (Eve Andrews | Grist)

Fits and starts: Tri-Rail, a commuter rail line which operates in the Miami region, has hit a setback in its goal to provide service to the new Brightline terminal in Miami because the trains are too wide for the platform. The Tri-Rail move into downtown, which is expected to cost $70 million, is already four years late. (Douglas Hanks | Miami Herald)

Carrots and sticks: The House budget bill sitting in the Senate would set transportation emissions goals and reward state transportation agencies that meet them, while penalizing those that don’t. (Ian Duncan | Washington Post)

The shady investments changing whole neighborhoods: One of the findings from the Pandora Papers is a shady collection of wealthy funds that seek to profit off of economic disasters such as the Great Recession. Companies such as Pretium Partners promise wealthy investors 15-20% annual returns by purchasing modest homes using algorithms and renting them out to those that can’t quite afford them. (Spencer Woodman, Margot Gibbs and Peter Whoriskey | International Consortium of Investigative Journalism)

Quote of the week:

“Our horizon is very clear, we’ll ban diesel and non-electric cars in Paris in 2024 and 2030 [respectively]. We succeeded in shaking up the car industry. But the environment will not be protected at the expense of the more vulnerable.”

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo in Politico

This week on the podcast, University of Virginia Associate Professor Peter Norton talks about his new book, “Autonorama: The Illusory Promise of High-Tech Driving.”