Posts Tagged "featured"
Secretary LaHood receives your message loud and clear, responds in kind
Just a week after the release of Dangerous by Design, Transportation for America and six of our key partners met with Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood yesterday to deliver a petition with thousands of signatures urging him to make pedestrian safety and complete streets a priority at USDOT. He responded with resounding support, telling T4 America during a meeting yesterday, “the right of way doesn’t just belong to cars — it belongs to pedestrians and bicyclists as well.”
Help us send a message to Secretary LaHood and the USDOT
As our new Dangerous by Design report illustrates, pedestrian safety is a matter of life or death for thousands of Americans each year. With a loss of life equivalent to a jumbo jet going down roughly each month, it is a tragedy that does not get enough attention at nearly any level of government. These are preventable deaths, largely on roads that are not safe for walking or biking. Transportation for America is working to arrange a meeting with U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and to deliver the message from our hundreds of partner organizations and thousands of supporters across the country that safer streets must be a priority! Sign our petition today!
Dangerous by Design
Every year, nearly 5,000 Americans die preventable deaths on roads that fail to provide safe conditions for pedestrians. This decade alone, more than 43,000 Americans – including 3,906 children under 16 – have been killed while walking or crossing a street in our communities. A new report from Transportation for America and the Surface Transportation Policy Partnership, Dangerous by Design: Solving the Epidemic of Preventable Pedestrian Death (and Making Great Neighborhoods), ranks metropolitan areas based on the relative danger of walking. Read the report and view the full metro rankings.
Bay Area business leaders push the Senate for clean transportation
A top-flight organization (and T4 America partner) representing more than 300 elite Silicon Valley businesses from Apple to Yahoo! sent a letter last week to Senate Environment and Public Works Chairman Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat, urging her to make sure the Senate climate bill adequately invests in clean transportation alternatives to reduce emissions in their region while keeping it mobile and competitive.
T4 America health fly-in participant meets Senator Barbara Boxer
Fourteen-year-old Julia Lopez, a childhood wellness advocate from Los Angeles, CA, met California Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer in the Capitol yesterday. Lopez is in Washington, D.C. to participate in Transportation for America’s “health fly-in” to speak with Congressional representatives about the link between and health and transportation.
California Supreme Court hands victory to local transit riders and providers
A recent California Supreme Court decision could restore billions in funding for public transportation in the nation’s most populous state. The Court’s ruling late last week upheld a lower court decision declaring the state’s $3.6 billion raid of public transit funds illegal and ordered that the money be returned to local transit providers.
FAQ: Transportation bill expires, emergency extension passed
As you may have read on Streetsblog Capitol Hill, the Senate passed a stopgap one-month extension of the current law last night. There have been a lot of questions flying around today, so we’re going to try to post a handful with some simplified answers when possible to clear up any confusion. The short explanation? The Senate failed to pass an extension of their own to match the House’s 3-month extension before the transportation bill expired last night. Instead, they passed an emergency one-month extension.
Tell Congress to make a historic investment in high speed rail
Congress is heading towards a decisive, historic moment on investing in high speed rail for America. But the outcome is far from certain. In the next few weeks, Congress will decide whether or not to give the Department of Transportation $1.2 billion or $4 billion on high speed rail for the next year. $8 billion was allocated for planning and implementing clean, efficient, high speed train travel in the economic stimulus earlier this year, and with another $4 billion, we’d be making a historic $12 billion investment in high speed rail.Tell Congress to keep $4 billion in the bill at www.fourbillion.com
Improving access to healthcare by improving transportation options
We noted transportation’s impact on health care costs and how expanding access to public transportation and investing more money in complete streets safe for walking and biking can improve overall health and lower healthcare costs. We should remember that having transportation options and the ability to easily get where you need to go have a huge impact on whether or not you receive care. How does access to transportation affect the health of Americans?
States clamor for high-speed rail stimulus funds as applications pour into DC
When the stimulus passed in February, $8 billion for high-speed rail was added at the 25th hour, at the behest of the Obama administration. In the days since, states have scrambled to prepare their proposals to receive a share of the money, which will be distributed via a process of competitive grants. With states competing for their share of the $8 billion to start developing and building high-speed corridors, competition was sure to be tough. But did anyone expect this many applications for the funds?
Does transportation have an impact on growing health care costs?
With Congress directing their attention to the contentious debate over health care reform and how to pay for it, it seems that transportation has been relegated to the back burner. In the meantime, evidence is continuing to mount that transportation investments — what we build and where — have an enormous impact on our health and the financial bottom line of providing health care. Two new studies add to a compelling case…
Driving down in 2008, congestion down much more
Due to the impact of high gas prices, the economic slowdown, and a growing preference for public transportation and other options for getting around, congestion was down in 2008 over 2007, marking the first two-year decrease in congestion since the Texas Transportation Institute began keeping track in 1982. Today, TTI released their bi-annual Urban Mobility Report today on the state of congestion and traffic in the U.S.
Administration releases their principles for an 18-month transportation bill
When DOT Secretary LaHood was on Capitol Hill a few weeks ago discussing the Obama Administration’s plan for a transitional transportation bill, he mentioned that their plan for an 18-month extension would “enact critical reforms” while stopping short of a fundamental overhaul of the program — leaving that for the full six-year bill. A lot of transportation advocates were left wondering what sort of reforms the administration would propose. Today we got a first look at their general proposal.
How have states fared with the billions in transportation stimulus funds?
You may recall that the $787 billion economic stimulus bill that passed in February had nearly $30 billion allocated for transportation investments. That money was given out to states and Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) — largely free of any criteria or requirements for what projects it should be spent on. So after 120 days, how have states done in addressing these pressing needs and investing in progress for their communities?
What does Oberstar’s proposal do for the New Starts transit program?
Americans are taking the train (and the bus) like never before, and public transportation ridership reached its highest level in more than 50 years in 2008. Cities of all sizes are looking to meet the burgeoning demand for quality public transportation service. With Chairman James Oberstar’s 90-page proposal for the next transportation bill coming out this morning from the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, we are left with an important question — how would these current or future transit systems fare under his proposed program?
Sec. LaHood proposes 18-month extension of current transportation bill
This morning on Capitol Hill, DOT Secretary Ray LaHood proposed an 18-month extension of the current SAFETEA-LU transportation authorization bill. Beyond simply extending the current bill, LaHood indicated that he wants to include some reforms in the 18-month extension — including a focus on metro areas, extensive cost-benefit analysis, and a commitment to “livable communities” — but was short on other specifics.
What do Americans really think about spending on transportation?
Parade Magazine has a misleading poll up about transportation, asking their readers, “should America divert some funding from highways and bridges to invest in public transit?” There are a few faults with such a simple question, namely making it sound like there’s something written in stone determining that federal transportation money is “roads” money — instead of money that should be spent on whatever can best keep us moving and give us the most bang for our buck. Rather than asking Americans if we should “take” money from roads, what happens when you ask Americans the positive, “where should we spend our transportation money?”
Today’s briefing on Complete Streets — and the view from Decatur, Georgia
With the Environmental and Energy Study Institute and a few of our key partners this morning, Transportation for America held a briefing on Capitol Hill about Complete Streets — and how putting complete streets into the next transportation bill will go a long way towards improving health, safety and livability for Americans. Decatur, Georgia Mayor Bill Floyd, one of the panelists, told the story of how building complete streets in Decatur have made the city safer and more livable for its residents and visitors.
Highway Trust Fund could need as much as $17 billion to stay in the black
News broke yesterday that the Obama administration is telling Senators that the Highway Trust Fund — that pays for the projects approved in the transportation bill — will go broke by August if an emergency infusion of at least $7 billion isn’t approved. The system is broke, but it’s also broken. We need a federal transportation system that works, not the same broken thing at twice the price.
Transportation Secretary affirms smart principles for US transportation system
“Livable and Sustainable Communities” might not be at the top of the list of what one would expect to hear from the person in charge of how the Federal government spends our tax dollars on all forms of transportation — ports, railroads, highways, interstates, sidewalks, bike lanes and more — but that’s exactly what Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood named as a primary goal for DOT.
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