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
Will Bike-Phobic Dan Maes Cost the Colorado GOP Major Party Status?
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This is the third installment of Streetsblog Capitol Hill’s series on key governor’s races. Earlier we brought you stories about a candidate who likes bikes but isn’t sure about transit in Tennessee, and the choice between light rail and bus rapid transit in Maryland. Here we turn our attention to Colorado. Colorado is a classic […]
Light Rail Line Hangs By a Thread as Maryland Goes to the Polls
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With Election Day fast approaching, Streetsblog Capitol Hill is turning our attention this week to key governor’s races. As Ya-Ting Liu of the Tri-State Transportation Campaign recently wrote (and as New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has made painfully clear), “decisions by state and local elected officials ultimately determine whether federal transportation policies become instruments of […]
Avoiding the Unintended Consequences of Transit-Oriented Development
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We see it over and over again in our cities. Migration out of central cities hollows out neighborhoods and leaves the people who remain struggling with the consequences of disinvestment. But when development returns to urban areas, the arrival of new residents can impose burdens on people who never left. Often, as amenities come into […]
Could Common Design Standards Bring Back U.S. Transit Manufacturing?
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The Portland area is the only place in the country that manufactures streetcars these days. United Streetcar, in the suburb of Clackamas, opened last year to build Portland’s streetcars — and to serve as a lesson, perhaps, that rail transit manufacturing doesn’t all need to happen overseas. Ray LaHood’s deputy, John Porcari, said as much at Rail~volution. […]
Even Portland’s Model Transit System Has Labor Disputes
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Rail~volution’s participants were treated to a whole series of workshops titled “Portland: How Did We Do It?” on the last day of the four-day conference. The sessions touted Portland’s excellence on everything from regional partnerships to bike innovations to Metro. But outside the conference, just as TriMet’s General Manager took the stage, dozens of picketing […]
Why Transit Agencies Expand Capacity While They Cut Service
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The past couple of years have been bittersweet for American transit riders. While the Obama administration’s TIGER grant program and livability initiatives have spurred investments in new streetcar and bus projects, service cuts and fare hikes have been the order of the day in cities large and small, as transit agencies cope with shrinking revenues […]
If You Come, They Will Build It: Notes on Livability From Rail~volution
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Those looking for hope in this era of transit service cuts took heart from the words of William Millar, President of the American Public Transportation Association (APTA), at Rail~volution yesterday. In his keynote speech, Millar reasons to hope for a better future — despite the fact that 84 percent of APTA members were cutting service, raising fares, […]
Blumenauer Gets Things Started at Rail~Volution 2010
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Earl Blumenauer, Portland’s representative in Congress, gets credited with being one of the founding fathers of the movement for livable communities. He helped start the annual Rail~volution gathering nearly 20 years ago, and this morning he kicked off the conference, telling attendees about his effort to move Congress in a more “bikepartisan” direction – and […]
How to Slay a Highway: Notes on the Mt. Hood Freeway and Harbor Drive
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I promised in my last post to tell you the triumphant stories of citizens beating back highways, both planned and already built. Here are more stories from the Rail~volution bike tour around Portland’s “lost highways.” Exhibit A: The Mount Hood Freeway “There was a period of ignorance, a period of enlightenment and catharsis, and a […]
Fighting Freeways: War Stories From Portland
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Rail~volution is underway in Portland, Oregon, bringing together more than 1,000 city planners, engineers, transit advocates, bike policy experts, and elected officials to strategize about making cities and towns better for transit, walking, and biking. Monday started with 15 different workshops that took place around the city, including one highlighting Portland’s “Lost Freeways” – the […]
Filling in the Void Left Behind By Sprawl and Abandonment
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The Reclaiming Vacant Properties Conference wrapped up in Cleveland on Friday. It brought hundreds of people together to strategize a way out of the state of abandonment so many urban areas are in. Vacant properties are a symptom of greater social ills: abandonment of cities, poverty, and sprawl. In many places, the foreclosure crisis has […]
TIGER’s Biggest Bite: Atlanta Streetcar Proposal Gets $47 Million
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More news keeps rolling in about TIGER II grantees… Atlanta scored about eight percent of the TIGER II total for its streetcar project. Rep. John Lewis got confirmation of the award this morning. Atlanta had applied for $56 million for the $70 million project. Some observers had hoped the city would apply for its “beltline” project […]