CityLab Daily: The Road to a Green Highway
Also today: Why Amsterdam’s canal houses have endured, and Microsoft learns money alone can’t fix Seattle’s housing mess.
2020 Democratic presidential candidates Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat from Massachusetts, left, and Former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden stand on stage ahead of the Democratic presidential debate in Des Moines, Iowa, on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020.
Photographer: Daniel Acker/BloombergGreener postures: The first U.S. Democratic presidential debate of 2020 was dominated by health care and military policy. But in CityLab’s wheelhouse, there were a few nods to infrastructure from Bernie Sanders, Pete Buttigieg, and Joe Biden.
Biden offered the night’s most specific infrastructure policy idea, albeit also the biggest head-scratcher. “We should be investing in infrastructure that raises roads, makes sure that we're in a position where we have—that every new highway built is a green highway, having 550,000 charging stations,” he said toward the end of the night. Transportation wonks on Twitter had a field day: What exactly is a “green highway”? The best example seems to be an experimental project in Georgia that features native wildflowers in the median, photovoltaic pavement, and electric charging stations.