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
The Streets and the Courts Failed Raquel Nelson. Can Advocacy Save Her?
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Last week, we reported on the horrific story of Raquel Nelson, whose four-year-old son was killed as she attempted to cross the street with him to reach their home. Nelson was convicted of reckless conduct, improperly crossing a roadway and second-degree homicide by vehicle — all for the crime of being a pedestrian in the […]
Boxer Confirms Bike-Ped Funding, Gang of Six Loves infrastructure Spending
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At today’s hearing, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee celebrated the bipartisan consensus it has reached on a new transportation reauthorization – but details of that consensus are still not public. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) did confirm that dedicated federal funding for bicycle and pedestrian programs remains in the bill. Addressing LA Mayor Antonio […]
Senate Leaders Vow to “Marry” Competing Infrastructure Bank Proposals
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At a Commerce Committee hearing today, Sens. John Kerry (D-MA) and Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) spoke out in favor of their infrastructure bank proposal, while Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) and John Rockefeller (D-WV) championed their own legislation. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), who is a member of the Commerce Committee as well as chair of the Environment […]
GOP ‘Streamlining’ Plan Threatens to Clear a Path for Highways and Pollution
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The summary of the House Transportation Committee’s reauthorization bill – no legislative text has been released yet – includes several provisions for “streamlining” project delivery. While on its face, a little streamlining could help reduce excessive delays and bring costs in line, environmentalists are concerned that underlying the “streamlining” provision is a desire to gut […]
Senate Staff Says Bill Maintains Dedicated Funding For Bike/Ped
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We reported yesterday that the outline of the Senate bill appeared not to preserve dedicated funding for bicycle and pedestrian programs. It has come to our attention that the complete draft of the bill will include a hard commitment to bike-ped programs. Senate staff tells us that Sen. Barbara Boxer worked hard and was able to maintain her […]
EPW Wraps Up Bipartisan Negotiations
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The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee just sent out its outline of their transportation reauthorization bill (which many of us found online hours ago.) In the statement, Ranking Republican James Inhofe (R-OK) said: Today I am pleased join Senator Boxer to announce that we have completed bipartisan negotiations on the highway policies that will be […]
What Bipartisanship Hath Wrought: Zilch for Bike-Ped in Senate Bill Outline
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Update 7/20: It has come to our attention that the complete draft of the Senate bill will include a hard commitment to bike-ped programs. Senate staff tells us that Sen. Barbara Boxer worked hard and was able to maintain her priorities in the bill, including dedicated federal support for bike infrastructure. More details will come out […]
Rich People Love Sidewalks, And Other Livability Lessons From USDOT
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When asking people what transportation options are important in their communities, why do poll-takers never ask them to choose between different options? Here comes another survey in which people say they want everything and are never asked to make the tradeoffs that come in the real world. USDOT’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics asked 1,000 households […]
House Votes to Strip High-Speed Rail Funding
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This morning, the House voted 232-182 for an Energy and Water Appropriations bill that redirects $1 billion of high-speed rail money to flood relief for the Midwest. Never mind that that flood relief won’t arrive for many months, since this is a 2012 appropriations bill. The important thing here is to kill high-speed rail. (Why? […]
Desperately Seeking: One Senate Transportation Bill, Preferably Bipartisan
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Rumors were flying yesterday that a rollout of the Senate transportation bill, or at least a significant announcement about its status, was imminent. Staffers were locked away in meetings, finalizing the last details – or so we hoped. Some said that Democrats and Republicans were still trying to work out some significant issues, and that […]
Rail-Wary FL Gov. Scott Threw Caution to the Wind in Supporting SunRail
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On Monday, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood will travel to Orlando for the ground-breaking of the SunRail commuter rail project in central Florida. We reported with some pleasure two weeks ago that Gov. Rick Scott had approved the project. But what we didn’t mention was that there’s significant opposition to the project, and it’s not all […]
Georgia Mom Convicted of Vehicular Homicide For Crossing Street With Kids
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We don’t normally report on vehicle crashes here on the Capitol Hill blog, but this was so outrageous we couldn’t help ourselves. A 30-year-old woman in Marietta, Georgia was convicted of vehicular homicide this week – and she wasn’t even driving a car. The woman was crossing the street with her three children when a […]