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
Streetsblog Readers Have Spoken: Janette Sadik-Khan For DOT Secretary
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On Friday, we put this question to our readers: Who should be the next Transportation Secretary? And lucky for us, 323 of you had nothing better to do with your weekend than answer our poll. The runaway winner, starting as soon as the polls opened, was Janette Sadik-Khan of New York City DOT. Under her […]
Poll: Who Should Be the Next U.S. Transportation Secretary?
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Ryan Holeywell over at Governing Magazine has put together a pretty comprehensive list of possible contenders for the top job at U.S. DOT, if Ray LaHood makes good on his word and splits for the private sector. It’s unclear when he’s leaving, or if he even really meant to say he was definitely leaving, but […]
How MAP-21 Pushed Transit to the Edge of Its Own Fiscal Cliff
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Congress has seven weeks to come to some sort of agreement on the so-called “fiscal cliff,” with two of those weeks devoted to photo ops and turkey dinners. The consequences are real: Transportation programs paid out of general fund transfers to the Highway Trust Fund, rather than gas tax receipts, are not exempt from the automatic spending […]
Will the Next Transpo Chair Continue Attacks on Bike/Ped Funding?
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This is the second of two posts examining Rep. Bill Shuster’s candidacy for the chairmanship of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. Yesterday, we took a look at Shuster’s positions on rail and his leadership style. Here we delve into his record on active transportation and the always-thorny topic of funding. While you might […]
What Kind of Leadership Would Bill Shuster Bring to the Transpo Committee?
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This is the first of two posts examining Rep. Bill Shuster’s candidacy for the chairmanship of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. We’ll post the second one, focused on his positions on bike/ped programs and funding issues, tomorrow. Over the next few weeks, we could see a shake-up on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee […]
Grover Norquist Buckles to Pressure From Koch-Backed Group on Carbon Tax
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Some readers took issue with yesterday’s post that characterized a carbon tax as a terrific but politically unlikely proposal, after the Obama administration shot down the idea last week. Putting a price on carbon emissions is, after all, generating renewed interest from across the ideological spectrum. Notably, the libertarian American Enterprise Institute is co-sponsoring a forum on […]
Yes, We Have No Carbon Tax
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About 12 hours after President Obama won re-election, Bloomberg News ran this tantalizing headline: “Obama May Levy Carbon Tax to Cut U.S. Deficit, HSBC Says.” The article suggested that a $20-per-ton tax on carbon emissions, rising gradually over time, could help reduce the deficit by half within a decade. Within the same story was the […]
Communities Vote to Tax Themselves to Support Transit
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In addition to some of the high-profile measures that we covered already, Election Day brought many successes on some smaller ballot initiatives. According to the Center For Transportation Excellence, pro-transit campaigns had an 80 percent success rate this year at the ballot box, with more ballot measures coming up for a vote than any previous […]
UPDATE: Boehner’s Cryptic Message on Taxes
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UPDATE 1:47 p.m.: Speaker Boehner just sent out an email to reporters, highlighting media reports of his comments that assert that he doesn’t intend to raise tax rates. It clarifies his position that the election doesn’t equal a “mandate for raising tax rates” on the American people. In a move likely calculated to distract attention away […]
Two Big Wins For Mayors With Sustainable Transpo Cred
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On the local level, the night’s biggest win for sustainable transportation was the victory of Kirk Caldwell over Ben Cayetano to be mayor of Honolulu. Caldwell had won just 29 percent of the vote in the three-way primary race, facing a steep uphill battle in the general election versus Cayetano, a popular former governor who had pulled in […]
Election Reveals Who Will Shape the Next Transportation Bill
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Yesterday’s election made history on many different fronts: gay marriage, immigration, consumer protection, and more. But America also voted to maintain essentially the same balance of power in Washington that has brought about so much gridlock. In the transportation arena, that gridlock meant three years of dithering on a national bill and, ultimately, a new law […]
Where to Get Your 2012 Transportation Ballot Results
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It’s Election Day — finally! The top of the ticket has sucked most of the oxygen out of the room, but don’t forget that there are 19 transportation-related measures on ballots across the country. So far this year, pro-transit measures have an 86 percent success rate at the ballot, and there are more transportation amendments being […]