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
McClatchy Muckrakers Expose Seedy Underbelly of the Highway Bonanza
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The work of a sustainable transportation reporter can be a lonely lot. But it’s a lot less lonely now that two McClatchy reporters, Curtis Tate and Greg Gordon, have taken up the mantle of exposing wasteful road expansion. With their far-reaching and well-researched three-part series, published last Sunday, Tate and Gordon brought stories of highway […]
Cycling Advocates to President: We’d Like Another Ray LaHood, Please
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Next month, outgoing Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood will speak at the National Bike Summit — he never misses one — and I’ll bet the standing ovation lasts 10 minutes. His support for biking and walking has been unprecedented at U.S. DOT. Now cyclists are worrying about who could replace him, and whether that person will […]
Shuster Pre-empts Devolutionists With Defense of Federal Role
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New House Transportation Committee Chair Bill Shuster (R-PA) clearly knows he’s got some devolutionist conservatives in his caucus (and on his committee). While many Republicans would like to see the federal government get out of the business of infrastructure and just let the states raise and spend their own money, Shuster has always been clear […]
Interior Secretary Nominee Is a Friend to Cyclists — and Oil Drillers?
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President Obama’s choice for Interior Secretary could be an unexpected breath of fresh air for cyclists. Sally Jewell, nominated to the position yesterday, is the CEO of adventure outfitter REI, a business-minded conservationist — and a veteran of the fossil fuel industry. Under Jewell, REI has been one of the nation’s leading corporate promoters of […]
So God Created Transit: A Fitting Response to Dodge Ram’s Super Bowl Ad
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Hey, so you also shed a tear or two for the Dodge Ram “So God Made a Farmer” Super Bowl commercial before you realized it was about trucks. Because really, what does Dodge have to do with the noble, heart-warming, bittersweet story of farmers anyway? It’s a speech conservative radio personality Paul Harvey gave in 1978, and […]
Gary Toth: TTI Congestion Scores Prove Road Expansion Isn’t the Answer
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In response to yesterday’s story on the Texas Transportation Institute’s congestion rankings, which take traffic delays out of context and risk being used to justify road expansions, former New Jersey DOT leader Gary Toth raised this question: What if, instead of getting frustrated with the report, we reframe its interpretation? He does it by pointing out that […]
Richard Florida to Obama: Create a Department of Cities
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If the U.S. federal bureaucracy includes Cabinet-level agencies dedicated to agriculture and “the interior,” why shouldn’t it have one dedicated to cities, which do so much of the heavy lifting for America’s economic productivity and innovation? This is what urbanist Richard Florida proposed in an op-ed Sunday for the New York Daily News. He wants President Obama […]
TTI Urban Mobility Report Bungles Congestion Analysis Yet Again
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At the risk of repeating ourselves: The Texas A&M Transportation Institute (TTI) got it wrong again. Their 2012 Urban Mobility Report (using 2011 data) just came out [PDF]. Like every year, they tout their “improved methodology,” but the authors still haven’t made the changes that would make their congestion rankings meaningful in the real world. Not only that, […]
Secretary Villaraigosa? Not So Fast.
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A favorite for transportation secretary has stepped out of the race. Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa released a statement late Friday saying he is “flattered and humbled” by the buzz around his candidacy but is “firmly committed to remaining in LA and finishing [his] term.” “I have said many times I will be focused on my […]
Quick Hits From U.S. DOT’s TRB Panel
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We’ve had a busy two weeks since the Transportation Research Board conference, and one thing that’s slipped through the cracks is passing on a few tidbits that came at the end of the TRB panel of U.S. DOT officials on January 16. First, in response to my question about whether the dip in vehicle-miles-traveled had […]
Keeping CNN Honest: 10 Ways Anderson Cooper Got the Rail Story Wrong
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Last Friday, CNN’s Anderson Cooper ran a segment about high-speed rail as part of his “Keeping Them Honest” series. Reporter Drew Griffin did an “exposé” of a Vermont rail project that spent .00006 percent of the federal stimulus money on needed track improvements and came in on time and under budget. Scandal! It amounts to […]
How Will the Next Transpo Secretary Build on Ray LaHood’s Legacy?
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He strung it out long enough, but Ray LaHood has finally announced that he’s resigning as Transportation Secretary. Speculation has been rampant for months about who could replace him, and now it kicks into high gear. Matt Yglesias captured the sentiments of many transportation advocates when he tweeted yesterday, “Ray LaHood was a surprisingly good DOT […]