Posts Tagged "safety"
Senate Republicans’ small funding proposal is a roadmap to nowhere
Last week, Senate Republicans released an infrastructure proposal in response to President Biden’s American Jobs Plan. Not only did Republicans cut public transit funding by $7 billion, but they missed the mark on the policy, pumping billions into the existing—and broken—federal transportation program. Here’s our take.
How the Biden administration can make immediate strides on climate and racial equity
The spread of COVID-19 has sent the United States plummeting into an unprecedented national crisis, but it has also illuminated the path forward. Smart Growth America, along with some of our programs, identified immediate executive actions and long-term policy changes that the incoming Biden administration can implement to eliminate structural inequities and address catastrophic global climate change.
State safety targets show need for Congress to further prioritize safety
For decades, state departments of transportation have treated pedestrian and cyclists fatalities like weather events: something that increases simply as people drive more, putting these deaths outside of the control of DOTs. But with COVID-19 proving this to be false, it’s past time for state DOTs to implement performance measures to reduce the number of people killed while walking or biking. Here’s our comparison of state safety targets.
House transportation bill goes big on climate
House transportation leaders introduced legislation to update our national transportation program to address climate, equity, safety and public health. Climate advocates and climate leaders on the Hill should recognize the strides taken with this proposal from Congress and fight to protect those changes in the bill.
CDC quietly revises their guidance to encourage people to use transit safely
Two weekends ago the CDC quietly revised their guidance for using public transportation after an outpouring of criticism from Transportation for America, NACTO, TransitCenter, the American Public Transportation Association, and others that the CDC was contradicting years of their own public health guidance that encouraging more driving incurs massive public health costs in pollution, respiratory illnesses, obesity, and preventable traffic deaths.
Connecting people to jobs and services week: How bad metrics lead to even worse decisions
When the top priority of our transportation investments is moving cars as fast as possible, the end product is streets that are wildly unsafe—as chronicled at length last week. But this focus on vehicle speed and throughput is the result of outdated metrics that also utterly fail to produce a transportation system that connects people to what they need every day.
Safety over speed week: The key to slowing traffic is street design, not speed limits
Today, as “safety over speed” week continues, we’re running a guest post from our friends at Strong Towns that uses some simple pictures to explain how street design is a far more powerful tool for slowing down traffic and prioritizing safety compared to the strategy of lowering speed limits.
Safety over speed week: Prioritizing safety is intrinsically connected with improving transit service
Nearly every bus transit rider starts and ends their trip with a walk, and decisions made to prioritize vehicle speed over safety often have significant impacts on transit. This excerpt from the new book “Better Buses, Better Cities” helps explain how better bus transit and prioritizing safety over speed are intrinsically related.
Safety over speed week: Drive like your kid business lives here
Economic slowdowns are generally a bad thing. But slowing down might be good for the economy, so long as we’re slowing vehicle speeds. Streets designed to accommodate (slow) drivers, people walking and biking, and transit riders are better for businesses, save money on health care costs, and can help businesses attract and retain talent.
Safety over speed week: Slip lanes would never exist if we prioritized safety over speed
A specific design feature on our roadways is the quintessential embodiment of what happens when speed is the #1 priority and safety becomes secondary. Slip lanes, those short turning lanes at intersections that allow vehicles to turn right without slowing down, are incredibly dangerous for people walking. Yet states & cities keep building them. Why?
Competition: Which street is the most dangerously-designed?
This week, we’ll be taking a deep dive on our second principle for transportation policy: design for safety over speed. Throughout the week, send photos of streets in your area that are designed for speeds far higher than the posted speed limit or where the speed limit is way too high for the context. On Friday (Nov. 8), you’ll have a chance to vote for the worst offender.
Safety over speed week: There’s one thing that almost every fatal car crash has in common
We face an epidemic of people struck and killed while walking and biking because our local streets—not just highways—are designed to move vehicles at the highest speeds possible rather than prioritizing the safety of everyone. It’s high time to stop sacrificing safety on the altar of speed with the billions that we spend every year. Here’s how Congress could make that happen.
Explaining our three principles for transportation investment
Today, T4America is releasing a new set of three concrete, measurable principles for transportation investment.
Senate Transportation Infrastructure Act makes welcome additions but fails to change the status quo
Today the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works approved America’s Transportation Infrastructure Act, a bill that will reauthorize the FAST Act once it expires in September 2020. T4America director Beth Osborne offered this statement: “This first attempt at reauthorization from the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee has some notable new additions worth praising, […]
Many of the most dangerous states for people walking are planning for more people to die
13 Americans per day were struck and killed while walking by drivers from 2008-2017, according to a report released today by our colleagues at the National Complete Streets Coalition. Dangerous by Design 2019 also shows how some of the most dangerous states are, astonishingly, committed to making the problem even worse.
House abdicates methodical policymaking for new regulations on automated vehicles
Congress has taken the first major legislative step to encourage & govern the roll-out of automated vehicles, passing the SELF DRIVE Act of 2017 by a voice vote today. Unfortunately, the House only consulted a narrow range of stakeholders like automakers and technology companies to produce this flawed legislation.
Feds get out of the way of communities that want to design safer, more complete streets
Two encouraging moves made by the Federal Highways Administration in the last week clear the way for states, metro areas and local communities to use their federal dollars to design safer, more complete streets.
2,100 letters delivered to FHWA in support of easing restrictive street design regulations
Earlier this week, with our partners at the National Complete Streets Coalition, we delivered nearly 2,100 letters to FHWA supporting their proposal to ease the onerous federal design standards that make it needlessly difficult for local communities to build safer, more complete streets.
USDOT proposes to remove restrictive design guidelines that make safer streets more difficult to build
The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) took an encouraging and surprising step, proposing to ease federally-mandated design standards on many roads, making it dramatically easier for cities and communities of all sizes to design and build complete streets that are safer for everyone.
Hold states accountable for repairing roads and bridges – send a letter to USDOT
The U.S. Department of Transportation is in the process of writing new rules to hold states accountable for the condition of their roads and bridges. USDOT’s strong first draft rule was a step in the right direction, and we want to thank them — and ensure they don’t bow to pressure to soften these requirements.
Our three principles
It’s past time to elevate the national conversation about infrastructure.
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