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
LaHood: “We’re Not Giving Up on High-Speed Rail” in California
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California Republicans from Fresno and Bakersfield put their foot down in a House hearing yesterday, rejecting the high-speed rail project whose initial segment would run between those two cities. Rep. Jeff Denham, whose district includes Fresno, is the author of an amendment, passed in June, to ensure that no more federal money gets spent on […]
A “Movement For Movement” Puts Walking Front and Center
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Six weeks after my daughter was born, my midwife asked me if I was getting any exercise. I confessed I wasn’t. I hadn’t figured out a new routine that included exercise, my old activities weren’t baby-friendly, I just didn’t have the time, and I wasn’t up for anything high-impact. She recommended I try walking for […]
Surgeon General Announces Call to Action on Walking
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Walking can seem like a rather mundane thing to get organized about, until you realize that it’s a direct challenge to car-oriented transportation and it’s the best thing people can do for their health. Then walking is downright revolutionary. Not only that, but it can be joyful. That was the message that the U.S. Surgeon […]
Four Republicans Who Might Work Across the Aisle on Transportation
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UPDATE: An earlier version of this article included Robert Dold as the fifth potential aisle-crosser. I’ve since been informed that Dold lost his re-election bid this year. Charlie Bass and Judy Biggert, named briefly at the bottom for supporting the Senate transportation bill and Amtrak funding, also lost their elections, making this list even shorter. First […]
Eight Burning Questions About Post-Election Transpo Policy and Politics
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If I’ve learned one thing from all the meetings about transportation I’ve covered, it’s this: There is no progress without a solution on funding. Every conversation about infrastructure turns on the question of how to pay for it. As the power of the gas tax declines, can it be restored or replaced? Does the political […]
What Would Meaningful Amtrak Reform Look Like?
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For the past two years, Amtrak has been under constant attack from House Transportation Committee Chair John Mica (R-FL), who has used his gavel to bully the rail company. He likes to call it a “Soviet-style” monopoly and he goads it for losing money on everything from long-distance routes to food service. His vitriolic diatribes […]
It’s Official: Bill Shuster Named Transportation Committee Chair
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Republicans met today to choose committee chairs, and Rep. Bill Shuster (R-PA) has been placed at the head of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. The former chair, John Mica, dropped his request yesterday to stay on as chair despite term limits. You can read all about Shuster’s record on rail and bike/ped issues in these recent posts. Majority Leader […]
How States Are Adapting to MAP-21’s Changes to Bike/Ped Funding
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The current transportation law dealt a few hard knocks to bicycling and walking programs. One big one was the restructuring of the Transportation Enhancements program into something called Transportation Alternatives, which has to fund more types of projects with less money. The idea is that each state’s TA money will get split in half. Fifty […]
Mica Drops Chairmanship Bid, Endorses Shuster
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Rep. John Mica (R-FL) has withdrawn from the running to remain chair of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. He was up against Republican term limits, which specify that no Congressmember can spend more than six years as the highest-ranking member of their party on a committee — regardless of whether that time is spent […]
GAO: States “Flexing” Fewer Federal Dollars to Transit
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Supporters of livable streets may hear about the “flexibility” of transportation dollars and cringe – after all, that word often refers to the ability of states to use bike/ped money for road building. But flexibility can work both ways. Between 2007 and 2011, states devoted $5 billion in surface transportation funds — known in some […]
Why Traffic Deaths Are More Common in Red States Than in Blue States
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Public interest journalist Stuart Silverstein at FairWarning.org has uncovered the fact that red states (defined as those that went for Mitt Romney in the last election) have higher traffic fatality rates than blue states (those that went for Barack Obama). The correlation is striking, Silverstein says, but he’s at a loss to explain it: The […]
Philly Bike Win: Complete Streets Bill Sails Through City Council Committee
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Big congrats to the Greater Philadelphia Bicycle Coalition, which had a “pretty cool success” Thursday, in the words of Policy Director Sarah Clark Stuart. The entire Streets and Services Committee of the City Council voted to approve a complete streets bill, advancing what could be one of the strongest municipal complete streets policies in the […]