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
House Democrats Begin to Push Back on Draconian GOP Spending Cuts
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Hasn’t it felt lately like Capitol Hill is in some kind of bizarre vortex? On one hand, everyone acknowledges the November election was all about “jobs, jobs, jobs.” And President Obama is pushing for some serious government investment in passenger rail and other infrastructure projects to create jobs and build the foundation for economic growth. […]
Key House Republicans Aren’t Buying Administration HSR Proposal
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Vice President Joe Biden’s announcement of a $53 billion infusion for high-speed rail has fallen like a lead balloon on the ears of some key GOP leaders. House Transportation Committee Chair John L. Mica (R-FL) and Railroads Subcommittee Chair Bill Shuster (R-PA) expressed “extreme reservations” about the plan. “This is like giving Bernie Madoff another […]
“Amtrak Joe” Biden, in Philly, Announces a New Plan for High-Speed Rail
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The Obama administration is taking its infrastructure push on the road. First stop: Philadelphia, to announce a $53 billion plan to invest in high-speed rail. To Vice President Joe Biden, high-speed rail isn’t just another administration initiative. He’s Mr. Amtrak. He gets it. Biden says he’s made 7,900 round trips between Wilmington and Washington on Amtrak. […]
SGA: Transportation Funding Pays Big Dividends Only If Invested Wisely
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In just the last month, several reports have quantified, in various ways, how investing in transportation infrastructure pays off in jobs and economic health. Now Smart Growth America is out with new research showing that it’s not enough to plunk down a bunch of money and expect miracles. You’ve got to do it right. Doing […]
Obama Finally Brings the Chamber a Fruitcake (It’s Called Infrastructure)
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President Obama paid a visit to the Chamber of Commerce this morning, trying to make nice after a hot-and-cold couple of years. “I’m here in the interest of being more neighborly,” Obama said by way of introduction. “Maybe we would have gotten off on a better foot if I had brought over a fruitcake when […]
GOP Targets Transportation, Housing For the Deepest Cuts
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The House Appropriations Committee yesterday gave a glimpse into their plans to cut spending as promised. Chair Hal Rogers (R-KY) set spending ceilings each of the 12 Appropriations subcommittees, cutting the budget for the Transportation and HUD Subcommittee by 17 percent, or $11.6 billion. It is, by far, the most dramatic of all the cuts. […]
AASHTO Suggests Some Tools for Getting Out of the Transpo Funding Mess
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The Problem: Highway Trust Fund revenues only cover about 44 percent of the transportation system’s needs. The Solution: an alphabet soup of funding and financing mechanisms (they’re different!) which, if used optimally, could supplement gas taxes and tolls and boost transportation investment. The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) just came out with […]
Transpo Committee Adds Southern Locations to Field Hearing Schedule
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The T&I Committee has fleshed out the schedule of its nationwide tour to solicit input on transportation issues. The tour is an opportunity for lawmakers to hear what communities around the country would like to see in a new transportation authorization bill. Since we published the first, tentative schedule last week, the committee has added several […]
APTA Survey: Transpo Bill Delay May Force Job Losses in U.S. Transit Industry
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Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and House Transportation Committee Chair John Mica (R-FL) both agree that a new surface transportation authorization bill needs to be finished before Congress leaves for the August recess. But that doesn’t mean it’ll happen. Mica is making noises about a far smaller bill than the one proposed in 2009 by then-Chair […]
What Will Become of Amtrak If It’s Left Out of Plans to Expand HSR?
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When President Obama and Secretary LaHood talk about their bold new vision for high-speed rail, you don’t hear them mention the country’s very own train company, which just celebrated ten years of providing the closest thing this country has to high-speed rail service, in the Northeast Corridor. The administration has doled out $10.5 billion so […]
Biggest TRB Meeting Ever Highlights Visionary Bicycle Research
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If you attended last week’s annual meeting of the Transportation Research Board, you were one of 10,900 people presenting 2,200 papers and 2,500 slide presentations on everything from the conspicuity of pavement markings to complete streets for blind pedestrians. TRB changed in 1976 from a highway research board to a multimodal focus, and now “TRB […]
Schedule for Transpo Bill Listening Tour Announced
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More committee news… Yesterday’s field hearing of the House Transportation Committee on high-speed rail in New York City wasn’t officially part of the series of field hearings on the reauthorization. The tentative schedule hits small towns, big cities, and suburbs: February 14th – West Virginia (Ranking Democrat Nick Rahall’s home state) February 17th – Philadelphia area (Republican […]