Noah Kazis
Noah joined Streetsblog as a New York City reporter at the start of 2010. When he was a kid, he collected subway paraphernalia in a Vignelli-map shoebox.
Before coming to Streetsblog, he blogged at TheCityFix DC and worked as a field organizer for the Obama campaign in Toledo, Ohio. Noah graduated from Yale University, where he wrote his senior thesis on the class politics of transportation reform in New York City. He lives in Morningside Heights.
Recent Posts
Who Killed Transit on the New Tappan Zee? Feds and NY State DOT Won’t Say.
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Call it the mystery of the missing transit. One of New York state’s biggest transit projects, in the works for nearly a decade, was canceled overnight and no one will explain why, or even claim responsibility for the decision. Two weeks ago, each of the four alternatives for replacing the Tappan Zee Bridge, which spans […]
Federal Fast-Track Process Strips Transit Component From Tappan Zee
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We reported yesterday that the Obama administration had selected 14 infrastructure projects, including five transportation projects, to put on the fast track for construction. We mentioned that there were early warnings from transit advocates that at least one of these projects might not go exactly as planned. Noah Kazis at Streetsblog NYC looked deeper into […]
Post-Irene Open Thread: A Teachable Transportation Moment
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Sometimes the best way to understand the ordinary is to examine the extraordinary. Watching Hurricane Irene wreak havoc on the entire transportation system from North Carolina to the Canadian border brought certain patterns and questions into high relief. Here’s some of what we thought about while the power was down. Most striking to me was […]
GOP Budget Would Slash Transpo Spending, Entrench Oil Dependence
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With the release of House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s budget proposal yesterday, right wing calls for massive cuts to transportation spending are now enshrined in the GOP leadership’s fiscal plan. Ryan singled out transportation as an area particularly ripe for cuts, criticized the use of gas tax revenues for projects that aren’t highways, and […]
EPA: Energy Efficiency Is About Location, Location, Location
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Where we live has an enormous impact on energy use, according to new research commissioned by the EPA. The report, “Location Efficiency and Housing Type — Boiling It Down to BTUs” finds that Americans use far less energy if they live in an apartment building in a transit-oriented neighborhood than if they live in a […]
Mica Touts Public-Private Northeast Corridor HSR In Grand Central Hearing
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Sitting beneath the famous zodiac mural of Grand Central’s main concourse, with the rumble of commuters and trains in the background, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee held its first field hearing of the new session this morning. The topic was the future of high-speed rail on the Northeast Corridor. Chairman John Mica led the […]
House Transpo Committee Promises Bipartisanship, To Tackle Aviation First
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Meet the new House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. The committee’s meeting this morning, the first of the 112th Congress, included twenty new Republican faces, 19 of whom are freshman representatives. The mostly administrative agenda didn’t offer many chances for the committee members to talk policy, but even some of the freshmen’s short introductions proved potentially […]
European Parking Policies Leave the U.S. Behind
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Flashback to Europe, sixty years ago. Only still emerging from the ruin of total war, the continent was in the midst of a nearly unprecedented reconstruction. Over the next decade, however, industry finally was able to turn toward consumer products, from stockings to refrigerators and, of course, the automobile. Italians owned only 342,000 cars in […]
Schumer Calls for Increased Transit Spending, Slams Christie
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In a speech at a Crain’s breakfast this morning, Senator Chuck Schumer called for reinvesting in infrastructure, including repairs to New York’s existing transportation system and new transit projects. Schumer also blasted New Jersey Governor Chris Christie for killing the ARC tunnel and for his proposal to use Port Authority funds to pay for maintaining […]
Report: Letting Transit Tax Benefit Expire Will Throw Riders From the Train
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For many transit riders, there’s another fare hike coming down the track, one that many may not even be aware of. A provision of the stimulus bill that offered a larger tax break for some transit riders is set to expire at the end of the year. A new report by TransitCenter [PDF], a non-profit […]
U.S. DOT Unveils Full List of TIGER II Winners
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The complete list of TIGER II grants has been released by U.S. DOT today, after members of Congress revealed many winners last week. In keeping with the department’s livability goals, the list is filled with transit projects (especially streetcar lines), efforts to bolster the country’s non-trucking freight network, and fix-it-first projects aimed at deteriorating roads […]
Report: Want to Ease Commuter Pain? Highways and Sprawl Won’t Help
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Imagine two drivers leaving downtown to head home. Each of them sits in traffic for the first ten miles of the commute but at that point, their paths diverge. The first one has reached home. The second has another twenty miles to drive, though luckily for her, the roads are clear and congestion doesn’t slow […]