Author Archive
Tell your story: 15.5 million seniors will have poor or non-existent transit access in 2015. How will it affect you?
By 2015, more than 15.5 million Americans 65 and older will live in communities where public transportation service is poor or non-existent. That number will continue to grow rapidly as the baby boom generation “ages in place” in suburbs and exurbs with few mobility options for those who do not drive. How will we address […]
Senate committee due to release bill next week, must prioritize repair
We’ve heard that the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee is releasing their portion of the transportation bill next week. (Though as Tanya Snyder at Streetsblog pointed out, they promised it would be released in two weeks, three weeks ago.) There’s a vital piece of policy that must be included in the Senate bill next […]
New report and map chronicles the visceral reality of 47,000 preventable pedestrian deaths
From 2000-2009, 47,000 people were killed while walking our nation’s streets, according to the 2011 edition of our pedestrian safety report. These fatalities occurred largely on streets designed for speeding traffic at the expense of people on foot. Dangerous by Design 2011 adds a visual element: Data from 2001-2009 can be viewed on an interactive map, showing details about the victim, the street type and even what the street looks like via Google Street View.
DOT chronicles the inspiring success story of United Streetcar
There’s been a resurgence of streetcars in the United States, with dozens of cities from Washington, D.C. to Tucson, Arizona and Cincinnati, Ohio competing each year for federal dollars to build new streetcar systems to help fill gaps in the existing transit network, bring new development to neglected corridors, and provide another travel option for […]
Newspaper editorial boards urge action on repairing bridges
In the days since our comprehensive bridge report (The Fix We’re In) was released, at least one governor has promised action, and several newspaper editorials have urged their states to prioritize repair and address the growing backlog of deficient bridges.
National report and interactive map shows the state of our nation’s bridges
69,223 bridges, more than 11 percent of all U.S. highway bridges, are rated “structurally deficient,” requiring significant maintenance, rehabilitation or replacement, according to a T4 America report released today, The Fix We’re In: The State of Our Nation’s Bridges. 69,000 bridges sounds like a lot, but what does that really mean? Where are these bridges? A new interactive map from T4 America makes it much easier to answer those questions.
New report assessing the condition of our nation’s bridges coming Wednesday
A new report being released Wednesday by T4 America chronicles the state of our nation’s bridges, with accompanying data and reports for all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Our country is facing a backlog of deficient bridges that need repairs and maintenance to stay open and safe, with needs far greater than what we’re currently spending. So what’s the state of our nation’s bridges? Check back Wednesday for the answer.
Americans want Congress to ‘fix it first’, invest in and improve our transportation system
In the midst of the fervor about the House’s budget resolution for 2011 released Friday, and the President’s budget proposal for 2012 dominating the news this week, a new bipartisan poll from the Rockefeller Foundation contains compelling arguments from a majority of Americans in favor of more investment in transportation.
House budget for the rest of 2011 has deep cuts for transportation
On the Friday before the President releases his budget for 2012 (forthcoming sometime this morning), the House Appropriations Committee, led by Chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) released their funding proposal to carry the government through the rest of 2011. Quick refresher: The government is currently operating under what’s known as a Continuing Resolution (CR) that expires […]
Proposed budget would gut transit spending, passenger rail funding
The budget proposal from the Republican Study Committee, which consists of 165 of the 242 GOP House members, released a week or so ago, calls for completely eliminating the main federal transit program, zeroes out Amtrak, cuts all funding for the metro system in the nation’s capital and slashes $2.5 billion in high-speed rail grants. Sign our petition objecting to this assault on public transportation funding.
So what do you want from transportation?
We noticed that the folks at AASHTO are asking all their visitors to weigh in and “tell Congress” what they want to see in a transportation bill, and more broadly, what they think we need to be building and doing with our transportation dollars. During the six-week campaign, people can use AASHTO’s Facebook page to […]
Blaming the pedestrian won’t solve the problem
Walking in the ditch Originally uploaded by Transportation for America to Flickr. If this woman got hit by car, it’s probably her fault, right? Photograph by Stephen Lee Davis/Transportation for America. We noted on Twitter this morning a story in the USA Today about pedestrian deaths increasing in 2010, halting a decline that had been […]
What do the House rule changes mean for transportation spending?
Earlier this week the House adopted rules for this new session of Congress. It’s a bit of inside baseball that can be hard to decipher, but these rules determine how bills are considered by lawmakers and what bills can and cannot do. Streetsblog Capitol Hill covered this issue on Monday and today, but it’s worth […]
Could another new passenger rail line be facing the ax?
Potentially following in the footsteps of Wisconsin and Ohio, the Republicans in the state legislature are considering the possibility of killing Iowa’s portion of a planned higher speed passenger rail line from Chicago to Iowa City that would pass through the Quad Cities and the new Moline (Ill.) multimodal transportation hub funded by a TIGER grant.
Smarter transportation case studies — innovation from around the world
When a resource is scarce, the first step is always to make sure that you’re using that resource to its fullest. A quick glance at a congested road, a street with no parking or a jam-packed morning rush hour train might tell you that there’s no excess capacity going unused, but is that really true? While we push for a greater investment in transportation overall to expand options for all Americans, are there ways to better use the resources that we’ve already got? This series of 14 case studies from around the U.S. and the world demonstrate the community benefits smart mobility solutions are giving regions, cities, and businesses.
Debunking the congestion index used to justify the policies that keep us stuck in traffic
The cycle is familiar by now. A study tells us what we all know: our roads are congested. We pour billions into new roads and lanes to “reduce congestion.” Then the study comes out two years later and just as before, our roads are still congested. There’s a call for new roads, new roads open up, we drive further and further and congestion goes up. But a significant new report from CEOs for Cities suggests that there’s a fundamental flaw in that study.
Once a critic, now a supporter, Ohio Rep. helps make complete streets bill bipartisan
Rep. Steve LaTourette (R-OH) probably learned the hard way earlier this year that safe, accessible streets for bikers, walkers and all users don’t tend to have any party affiliation, and he is to be commended for proving his support for complete streets by signing onto the House complete streets bill last week, becoming its first Republican cosponsor.
DOT poised to move on a long-term transportation bill in 2011?
When President Obama made his announcement on Labor Day about investing in infrastructure, most media outlets focused in directly on the $50 billion amount that would be spent up front to jumpstart infrastructure investment — something we already noted last week. But he also talked about the need for a reformed long-term transportation reauthorization, the full six-year bill that would provide certainty to job creation and the economy. So the million dollar question has been, when will we see this bill?
Don’t let transportation get lost in the political shuffle; send a letter to your local paper
When President Obama announced his vision on Labor Day for investing in 21st century infrastructure, he put our country on the right path toward smart transportation reform. But his vision immediately came under fire from many of the usual suspects who prefer the current system of earmarks and oil industry tax breaks. We need to respond to these attacks on transportation reform. Take 5 or 10 minutes and write a letter to the editor of your local paper today.
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