Welcome back to TheCityFix Picks, our series highlighting the newsy and noteworthy of the past week. Each Friday, we’ll run down the headlines falling under TheCityFix’s five themes: mobility, quality of life, environment, public space, and technology and innovation.

Mobility

U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood is receiving a lot of backlash over his comments that bicycling and walking should be given the same priority as cars, when it comes to transportation planning and choosing projects for federal money.

The Association of Pedestrian and Bicycle Professionals is still interested in gathering input from women and girls on their bicycling habits. Ladies, fill out the survey now!

Car2go, Daimler’s car-sharing service that launched in Germany and Texas last year, will soon be offered exclusively to city and state officials in Austin, Tex.

Quality of Life

Traffic deaths in the United States are at a record low since the 1950s, but highway safety advocates and transportation officials are pushing the country to adopt a goal of zero traffic fatalities.

Poor road conditions in the Washington, D.C. area cost area taxpayers $217 billion annually – more than in another other region of the United States.

Two Pulitzer Awards were announced on Monday, and two journalism awards went to stories on distracted drivers: The New York Times’ “Driven to Distraction” and The Washington Post’s “Fatal Distraction: Forgetting a Child in the Backseat of a Car Is a Horrifying Mistake. Is It a Crime?”

Environment

The Center for American Progress recommends creating incentives to convert the nation’s heavy vehicle fleet to natural gas, in order to reduce oil use and air pollution.

Public Space

Campus Martius Park, a gathering place in downtown Detroit, Mich., won the first ever Amanda Burden Urban Open Space Award from the Urban Land Institute, a nonprofit education and research institute based in Washington, D.C.

The Abu Dhabi Urban Planning Council will showcase a full display model of what Abu Dhabi will look like in the next 30 years at the Cityscape Abu Dhabi event, held April 18-21.

A new picture book, “Watch This Space: Designing, Defending and Sharing Public Spaces,” released this month, helps to build young people’s appreciation of urban issues.

Technology and Innovation

Stanford University hosted the Electric and Fuel Cell Vehicle Showcase last week.

Technology company IBM is collaborating with the Swedish KTH Royal Institute of Technology to improve transportation in Stockholm, Sweden by gathering real-time information from GPS devices fitted to about 1,500 of the city’s taxi cabs, which will provide data on traffic flow, travel times and the best commuting options.

Mass Transit magazine releases the year’s Top Tech Innovations, including things like the Daily Crime Forecast for transit police in Edmonton, Canada, hybrid streetcars in Savannah, Ga., and ultraviolet germicidal irradiation for the Houston, Texas metro system.