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
Deal Imminent?
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We’re hearing reports that a deal on the surface transportation bill is imminent. We’ll let you know when we hear more. Could it be that the Walz Motion to Instruct lit a fire under the conferees? Three more motions are about to be voted on, assuming peace doesn’t break out first. One, sponsored by Rep. […]
386 to 34: House Instructs Conference to Get It Done By Friday
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There’s no excuse for dilly-dallying. That was the overwhelming sense of the House of Representatives, which just voted 386 to 34 that the conference should wrap up its work and pass some sort of transportation compromise by Friday. In his floor speech on the provision, sponsor Tim Walz said if the two chambers can’t agree on […]
House to Vote on Firming Up the Conference Deadline
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UPDATE 3 PM: The text of the MTI doesn’t mention forcing a vote on the Senate bill. The House is about to vote on a motion to instruct, sponsored by Rep. Tim Walz (D-MN). It’s a non-binding command to the House members of the conference committee to finish their work by June 22 — this Friday. […]
AASHTO Adds Designs to Bikeway Guide, But Not Protected Bike Lanes
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Last week, AASHTO, the national association of state DOTs, published the first update to its bicycle facility design guide in 13 years (available online for $144). Since many transportation engineers take their cues from AASHTO, there was an urgent need to update the 1999 guide, which failed to include many effective design treatments and promoted […]
No More Mr. Nice Guy: Transit Advocates Get Organized
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What do you do if your bus service is cut by a third? If you’re Metropolitan Congregations United in St. Louis, you hold a ballot initiative – and win. What if your transit system neglects less affluent areas compared to the wealthy part of town? If you’re the L.A. Bus Riders’ Union, you bring a […]
Boxer Changes Her Tone, Adopts a Fighting Stance
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The transportation bill conference committee negotiations have been difficult and contentious, by all accounts — all except Senator Barbara Boxer’s account. The EPW chair has been optimistic when others have been bitter, consistently focusing on how much the two sides agree rather than the places where they’re still far apart. But that seemed to change with […]
Where Is John Mica as Congress Takes Transpo Programs to the Brink?
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Over the past month or two, I couldn’t help noticing that Rep. John Mica, chair of the Transportation Committee in the House, seemed completely consumed with fingerpointing at federal agencies. While the country’s transportation programs neared a crisis point — and indeed, there is no other way to describe the current deadlock over a transpo […]
House Attack on Safe Streets Makes Transpo Bill Ever More Elusive
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We reported last week that the House had proposed allowing states to “opt out” of funding bicycle and pedestrian safety improvements in its counter-offer to the Senate during transportation bill negotiations. The House GOP essentially wants to reject the Cardin-Cochran amendment, which gave local governments control over half the “Additional Activities” funding set aside for […]
House GOP Threatens to Wipe Out Local Control Over Bike/Ped Funding
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The House GOP couldn’t pass a transportation bill of their own, so now they want to undo one of the major bi-partisan achievements in the Senate transportation bill. As part of its counter-offer to the Senate in conference committee negotiations over the transportation bill, the House appears to be proposing the elimination of the Cardin-Cochran […]
Conference Devolves Into Talk of Extensions
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If you were still hoping a real bill could come out of the transportation conference, here’s a bitter pill: House Speaker John Boehner is now talking about a six-month extension of the current law. That extension would expire at the end of the year, along with such a massive bundle of economic initiatives that the […]
Pelosi Challenges Boehner to Cancel Recess, Pound Out a Transpo Bill
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All play and no work makes Jack an unemployed construction worker. That, more or less, was Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s message to Speaker John Boehner today. She called on him to cancel next week’s recess and work on passing a transportation bill, now struggling through a divisive conference process. “Almost three months after Senate passage [of the […]
House Appropriators Leave TIGER, HSR Out of Next Year’s Budget
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It’s always confusing when, in the middle of endless bicameral hand-wringing about transportation spending, the House Appropriations Committee puts out a budget for transportation without much ado. That’s what they did today. The Transportation and HUD Subcommittee will vote tomorrow on its draft budget, released today, in preparation to send it to the full Appropriations Committee. The […]