Gersh Kuntzman

The United States Postal Service — under fire from environmental groups — is no longer moving ahead with a plan to almost entirely replace its aging delivery fleet with gas-fueled trucks.

Call it the forgotten pandemic: road fatalities surged by double-digit percentages, including a significant increase in deaths outside of cars, in 2021, according to a new report issued Tuesday by federal authorities.

President Biden's $1.2-trillion "infrastructure" bill passed the House late on Friday evening and was hailed by a POTUS needing a win as a “once-in-a-generation investment.” But what's really in it?

Thanks to a well-documented increase in reckless driving on less-congested roadways during the pandemic, the pedestrian fatality rate rose 22 percent in the first half of 2020 compared to the same period a year earlier, according to a new report by the Governors Highway Safety Association.

“I was really struck … about [the mayors’] unwillingness to support or implement things that we in transportation planning know are evidence-based ways to make roads safer for vulnerable road users,” said Katherine Levine Einstein, a Boston University political science professor.

“Cell phone use by pedestrians does not appear to be disproportionately contributing to fatal pedestrian crashes,” a report from the New York City Department of Transportation stated.

The Markey-Cohen bill would also require grant recipients to adopt and prioritize a “Complete Streets” policy — and it would require the federal government, the states and federal “metropolitan planning organizations” to adopt design standards for all highway projects “that provide for the safe and adequate accommodation of all users of the surface transportation network, including motorized and non-motorized users, in all phases of project planning, development, and operation.”