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
UPDATE: Reminder: Amtrak Subsidies Pale in Comparison to Highway Subsidies
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UPDATED 9/24 with chart. House Transportation Committee Chair John Mica continued his “holy jihad” against Amtrak yesterday, holding the third full-committee hearing in a series on “Reviewing Amtrak’s Operations.” He’s planning at least three more hearings during the lame duck session after the election. Mica went after subsidies in this one, and he clearly thinks […]
Liberate Yourself From Costly Highway Expansion, State DOT! Here’s How.
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“Innovative” might not be the first word you think of when you think of state DOTs. But Smart Growth America and the State Smart Transportation Initiative are out to change that. The two groups have published a menu of options for states looking to get out of the cash-for-highways rut. “The Innovative DOT: A Handbook […]
USA Today: Homebuilders Pass On Garages, Build Front Porches
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USA Today reported today that more and more homes are being built without garages or carports. That stands to reason, as developers are (belatedly) building what the market wants: denser housing in walkable urban centers near transit. Copious parking and driveway curb cuts simply don’t mesh with that model. At the peak of the housing […]
Public Interest Group Makes Progress in Case Against Transit Patent Troll
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Martin Kelly Jones makes his living suing transit agencies and other entities for violating his patents on real-time tracking technology. His lawsuits have been an expensive nuisance for the companies and agencies he sues, usually settling for $50,000 to $75,000. But a movement to stop him is gaining traction. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, in its […]
“We’d Rather Work on Our Fixies”: Cars Fade Into the Background
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What is it with kids today? They just don’t seem to be that interested in driving. Over the weekend, the LA Times ran a long story about Crenshaw Boulevard, a corridor under transformation by light rail. The story’s subtitle was: “Optimism and anxiety travel along its route, as a revived rail service push and an […]
UPDATE: Here’s Your Chance to Influence MAP-21’s Implementation
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UPDATE 9/18 with comments from DOT officials. In July, Congress handed U.S. DOT a transportation bill with a lot of holes in it, especially relating to performance measures. We’ve reported on some of the more significant holes, and suggested some ideas on how to fill them. But there’s much more to say – and U.S. […]
What Would Happen If Washington Cuts Transpo Funding 35 Percent?
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The Republicans have retreated from their insistence on cutting transportation spending by 35 percent to match Highway Trust Fund revenues — for now. But the problem is far from solved. As a reminder of the dangers such a policy presents, the Bipartisan Policy Center and the Eno Center for Transportation put out a new report […]
Leinberger: Walkable Urbanism Is the Future, and DC Is the Model
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Chris Leinberger wears too many hats to count – real estate developer, George Washington University professor, Brookings fellow – but he has one message: “Walkable urbanism is the future.” For years now, Leinberger has been preaching the gospel that the postwar era of automobile-oriented “drivable suburbanism” is over – and urbanism is the new wave. […]
Boxer Demands Restoration of MAP-21 Funding Levels
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The MAP-21 transportation bill was just signed two months ago, and its funding levels, agreed to by a difficult and fragile compromise between warring political parties, are already under attack. In Congress, authorization and budgeting are two different processes, run out of different committees. And right now, House budgeters are looking to shave down the $52.6 billion […]
NRDC Poll: Americans Support New Transit Twice as Much as New Roads
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When asked what would solve traffic problems in their community, 42 percent of Americans say more transit. Only 20 percent say more roads. And 21 percent would like to see communities developed that don’t require so much driving. Two-thirds support local planning that guides new development into existing cities and near public transportation. That’s the […]
How Highway Spending Could Become as Transparent as Bike/Ped Spending
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“There’s an inverse proportion of the size of a transportation program to the amount of transparency,” says Deron Lovaas of the Natural Resources Defense Council. While anyone can easily find in granular detail anything they would ever want to know about where bike/ped money goes, and they can get a pretty good idea of what’s going […]
How Will Automatic Budget Cuts Affect Transportation?
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Friday was the Obama administration’s reporting deadline on a slew of scheduled budget cuts set to take effect January 2. I guess the president was busy or something, because his administration blew this deadline. Now they’re promising to have some answers this week. Here’s what they’re tasked with: The administration needs to put some concrete numbers […]