When Uber picked this former Rust Belt town as the inaugural city for its driverless car experiment, Pittsburgh played the consummate host. [...]

Nine months later, Pittsburgh residents and officials say Uber has not lived up to its end of the bargain. [...]

The deteriorating relationship between Pittsburgh and Uber offers a cautionary tale, especially as other cities consider rolling out driverless car trials from Uber, Alphabet’s Waymo and others. — nytimes.com

Since the company’s introduction, many (including Futurism) have speculated that the tunnels’ true purpose was to work in tandem with the Hyperloop. This is the real clincher here. It seems like The Boring Company isn’t just going to be for cars. “The electric skate can transport automobiles, goods, and/or people. And if one adds a vacuum shell, it is now a Hyperloop Pod which can travel at 600+ miles per hour,” the site explains. — Futurism

The strategy reflects a consensus among some developers and planners that California’s vaunted car culture is inevitably going to run out of gas...[Andy] Cohen, co-chief executive of Gensler, predicts car ownership will peak around 2020 and then start to decline, with more Americans relying on some form of ride-sharing than their own vehicles by 2025. That means cars gradually would disappear from home garages, curbs and parking structures, freeing up acre upon acre of real estate for new uses. — Los Angeles Times

Passengers and cargo are loaded into a pod which gradually accelerates with electric propulsions through a low-pressure tube. Then, the pod lifts above the track using magnetic levitation and moves at airline speeds. This would connect 80 percent of the country, making a cross-country trip just about five hours long. — 6sqft

Transportation officials in Georgia are scrambling to cope with a crisis, after a huge fire caused a bridge on Interstate 85 to collapse in Atlanta on Thursday night. Gov. Nathan Deal has declared a state of emergency, and with the heavily used road closed in both directions, drivers are being told to find other options — from detours to mass transit.

Friday morning, officials said they don't yet know what caused the fire or how long repairs will take. — NPR

China's once-celebrated Traffic Elevated Bus (TEB) has been left abandoned in the middle of a Hebei city road, not having moved once in over two months. Originally touted as the futuristic solution to urban traffic jams, the "straddling bus" is currently causing them.
A local reporter recently checked up on "the future of public transportation" at its testing site in Qinhuangdao, only to find it forgotten in a rusted garage, covered in dust. — shanghaiist.com

Mr. Trump...has said that infrastructure redevelopment will be a priority of his first 100 days in office. And Ms. Chao has experience — politically and personally — in navigating the competing centers of power in the capital...But now that she is in line for a prominent position in Mr. Trump’s cabinet, it is her own ties to business that are likely to come under scrutiny. As labor secretary, she faced criticism that her department favored business and was lax on enforcement and worker safety. — The New York Times

Car and Driver caught up with Foxx in Pittsburgh. The DOT chief, previously mayor of Charlotte, North Carolina, reflected on the promise of autonomous and connected cars, the recent Smart City Challenge, the massive increase in traffic deaths, the potential of the shared vehicles unfolding right outside the window, and more. What follows is a transcript of our conversation, lightly edited for grammar and brevity. — blog.caranddriver.com

Penn Station is much more than a transportation center. As the heart of the Northeast Corridor rail system, it has the potential to link downtown to downtown along the Eastern Seaboard in a way far more economical, expedient and environmentally sustainable than air travel.

But while the governor’s recently announced plan is a step toward this goal, more must be done. What we propose in addition is a completely new commuter station on the site of Madison Square Garden — nytimes.com

Airbus appears to be serious about its "Vahana" project, aimed at creating an autonomous passenger drone network, and thinks testing can begin as early as 2017. [...]

Airbus is also working on a drone delivery service [...] and plans to start testing it at a Singapore university by mid-2017. The cargo-laden vehicles fly automated routes in "aerial corridors," then drop them off and send delivery notifications to customers. — Engadget

Starting later this month, Uber will allow customers in downtown Pittsburgh to summon self-driving cars from their phones, crossing an important milestone that no automotive or technology company has yet achieved. Google, widely regarded as the leader in the field, has been testing its fleet for several years, and Tesla Motors offers Autopilot [...] But none of these companies has yet brought a self-driving car-sharing service to market. — Bloomberg