Tanya Snyder
Tanya became Streetsblog's Capitol Hill editor in September 2010 after covering Congress for Pacifica Radios Washington bureau and for public radio stations around the country. She lives car-free in a transit-oriented and bike-friendly neighborhood of Washington, DC.
Recent Posts
Foxx Rocks His Confirmation Hearing, Reveals Some Initial Priorities
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Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx’s Senate hearing was, by all accounts, the one “oasis of calm” on an otherwise stormy Capitol Hill yesterday. There were no sharp exchanges, no tense moments, not even any particularly tough questions. Two weeks from today, we’ll probably be calling him “Mister Secretary.” Cabinet nominees often spend all their time on […]
Live-blogging Anthony Foxx’s Senate Confirmation Hearing for DOT Secretary
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4:29: Hearing adjourned. Rockefeller: “I adjourn this hearing on the supposition that you will ride the fast rail right into the secretaryship.” 4:27: Thune: We also can’t continue to borrow from general fund to fund highways. Either we need to find a way to pay for it or we need to cut our appetites. Can’t […]
Capital Bikeshare Members Reduced Their Driving 4.4 Million Miles Per Year
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We’ve noted before that it can be challenging to figure out exactly how much driving is avoided when someone rides a bike. But here we have it straight from the horse’s mouth – nearly 7,000 horses, in fact. According to a November 2012 survey of Capital Bikeshare members, released today, the average subscriber drove 198 miles […]
Mr. Money Mustache on Retiring at 30 By Riding a Bike
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His claim to fame is that he retired at age 30. He swears that you can achieve greater financial freedom too, if you follow his example by eliminating unnecessary expenses and investing wisely. He calls himself Mr. Money Mustache. And he says nothing is more essential to his philosophy and wealth-building strategy than riding a bike. Mr. […]
Suburbanization of Poverty Isolates a Growing Number of Americans
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Poverty is no longer a predominantly urban problem — and the suburbs are no longer the refuge of the upper classes. There are now almost 3 million more poor people living in suburbs than in cities, according to a new book, “Confronting Suburban Poverty in America,” by Elizabeth Kneebone and Alan Berube of the Brookings […]
Obama’s Budget Would Save the Transpo Trust Fund. If Only It Were Real.
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President Obama’s transportation budget proposal can give you a contact high if you stand too close. The prospect of budget surpluses — in the near-term, at least — is intoxicating. And the source of those surpluses — from Overseas Contingency Operations — is a hallucination. The Congressional Budget Office, in its invaluable “just-the-facts” way, released […]
With Less Driving, Can We Tone Down the Hysteria About Congestion?
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There’s so much to unpack in the landmark report released by U.S. PIRG and the Frontier Group earlier this week on transportation trends. Tuesday, we focused on the disparity between government transportation forecasts and recent realities. We also took a look at a few reasons to believe that the millennial generation – those aged 13 […]
Solo Driving Drops in DC as Transit and Biking Soar
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We’ve been writing a lot this week about the national shift away from car travel and toward transit, biking, and walking. Yesterday, Washington area officials released new data that indicates the DC region is at the forefront of that trend. The region added half a million new workers between 2000 and 2011, according to a […]
Seven Ways Technology Is Rendering the Automobile Obsolete
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As we try to understand why young people are so much less jazzed about driving than previous generations, one possible explanation always comes up: Kids today just love their smart phones. That is part of it. But the full picture is far more nuanced. The internet, and the ability to carry it wherever you go, […]
Refereeing the Raging Debate Over the “Specialness” of Cyclists
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There’s a tussle going on right now about how cyclists should ride on city streets. Yesterday’s Streetsblog Network post took a snapshot of this debate, excerpting the WashCycle’s response to a Sarah Goodyear piece in Atlantic Cities. Sarah wrote that cycling is no longer a mode for daredevils and mavericks weaving through traffic. Some cities now […]
Millennials Will Drive More As They Age, But Still Less Than Their Parents
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At some point over the past few years, a lot of my friends started moving to Silver Spring and Takoma Park and Falls Church. These inner-ring, transit-connected suburbs of DC are still far less compact and walkable than the neighborhoods my friends moved from. So they bought cars. Why did they do this? They’re entering […]
U.S. PIRG: The Driving Boom Is Over But the Road-Building Binge Continues
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The driving boom is over. After decades of steady growth, U.S. driving rates have stagnated and even fallen. Per capita driving is as low as it was in 1996. And yet, federal and state government estimates continue to predict inexorable growth, relentlessly building expensive new highways for drivers who might not materialize. A groundbreaking new […]