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
Strange Bedfellows Unite for Infrastructure Investment, Financing Tools
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The “Tom and Rich Show” continued on Capitol Hill yesterday. Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue and AFL-CIO President Rich Trumka joined up for yet another event to show that business and labor, which don’t agree on anything, agree on a major infusion of federal investment for infrastructure. They weren’t the only strange bedfellows there. […]
Forty Transportation Experts, One Message
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The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee just spent two days listening to 40 experts from different aspects of the transportation sector and advocacy community, from engineers to environmentalists to the Tea Party. Each person had just four minutes to speak and they crammed as much as they could into their time: observations, demands, recommendations for […]
Day Two of Massive Transportation Committee Hearing Underway
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Highways and Transit Subcommittee Chair John Duncan (R-TN) can’t stop mentioning that this kind of hearing has “never been done before.” The subcommittee is hearing from 20 witnesses a day for two days in an effort to satisfy every interest group’s need to speak before the committee gets to work crafting the next surface transportation […]
Aviation Bill: Foretelling What’s to Come For Surface Transportation?
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If today’s FAA vote in the House is a preview of the upcoming debate over funding for the nation’s surface transportation infrastructure, we can foresee fights between the House and Senate over funding levels and the loss of key public services. The House will vote today on a proposal to bring aviation spending down to FY2008 […]
CBO: Mileage Fee Would Cover the Full Costs of Driving Better Than Gas Tax
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With the White House unwilling to engage on the specifics of how to pay for its $556 billion transportation bill, members of Congress are studying the possibilities. Earlier this month, Senate Budget Committee Chair Kent Conrad (D-ND) asked the Congressional Budget Office to analyze the potential of a vehicle-miles-traveled fee as a fairer way to […]
Mapping Bicycle Mode Share Where You Live
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All right dataheads, this is what you’ve been waiting for. Wondering about bicycle mode share in your state? Of course you are. Dying to find numbers on the ratio of male to female cyclists, government spending on bike infrastructure, and traffic fatalities? We knew you were. And so, apparently, was Kory Northrop, a master’s student […]
Put Your Listening Cap On, Committee Members
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As promised, the Transportation Committee (the Highways and Transit Subcommittee, to be precise) has sent the tentative witness list for its two-day hearing that purports to “Focus on Surface Transportation Bill and Streamlining Programs, Cutting Red Tape & Creating Jobs.” Lawmakers better get a comfy seat, because they’re planning to sit through twenty witnesses each […]
The Week Ahead: Congress Fights About Budget Cuts and Talks Transpo
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I hope members of Congress had a nice, relaxing recess this week, because it’s about to get crazy on Capitol Hill. The Budget Congress isn’t any closer to consensus on the FY2011 budget than when they adjourned March 18 with a three-week budget extension to avoid a government shutdown while they duke it out over […]
Can Transit-Oriented Development Lift All Boats?
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Streetsblog San Francisco reported earlier this week that the Metropolitan Transportation Commission has made a $10 million funding commitment to a mixed-use affordable housing project in the Tenderloin neighborhood, a convenient two-block walk from the nearest Muni stop: The development at 168 Eddy Street would provide 153 new apartments reserved for low-income families and space […]
The Secrets to Success for Transit-Oriented Development
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“Transit alone is insufficient to make a real estate market,” said Dena Belzer, the president of Strategic Economics, an urban design consulting firm. Her group is a partner in the Center for Transit-Oriented Development (CTOD), which this week released a new report on the effects of transit expansion on real estate markets. Transit won’t, on its own, […]
WSJ: Mica Says Transit Funding Will Stay “About the Same”
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Update 3:35 p.m.: Transportation Committee staff says Mica has confirmed what he meant: “He was referring to the share. Keep in mind that we have no numbers or details for a bill yet — the hearing process is not yet finished and we have not drafted a bill. He was simply speculating at this point.” […]
House Transportation Committee Rejects Obama’s 2012 Budget Request
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The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee is having its say about the president’s ambitious – and unpaid-for – budget request for transportation. “The [president’s] proposal assumes a ‘placeholder revenue increase’ of $435 billion over a 10-year period but does not identify how to pay for the revenue increase,” says the committee’s “Views and Estimates” document, […]