Recent Streetsblog USA posts about State DOTs

Why a Broke State DOT Could Be Great for Missouri

By Angie Schmitt | Jan 22, 2015 | 5 Comments

In August, Missouri voters roundly defeated a sales tax increase supported by road building interests that would have dramatically boosted funding for the state DOT. During the run-up to the election, state leaders laid it on thick in their appeal for more road money, arguing that the fallout would be disastrous for public safety if […]

Transit and Equity Advocate Stephanie Pollack to Lead MassDOT

By Tanya Snyder | Jan 14, 2015 | 52 Comments

Stephanie Pollack was one of the first transportation experts who made a serious impression on me. A few weeks after I started working at Streetsblog, at my first Rail~volution conference, she gave a presentation on the complex relationship between transit, gentrification, and car ownership. Her energy, intellectual rigor, and passion for social justice were apparent […]

Kentucky Threatens 17 Louisville Street Trees, Citing Safety [Updated]

By Angie Schmitt | Dec 17, 2014 | 2 Comments

Here’s a classic story of traffic engineering myopia. Officials at the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet are threatening to remove 17 newly planted street trees in a Louisville suburb. As reported by Next City and Louisville’s Courier-Journal, the trees had been selected and planted in part to ameliorate the area’s growing urban heat island problem. Louisville has lost 9 […]

Talking Headways Podcast: I’m Not a Scientist

By Tanya Snyder | Nov 20, 2014 | 2 Comments

Do you ever think about the ecology of the city you live in? Not just the parks and the smog. Scientists are starting to examine urban ecosystems more holistically: the trees and the concrete, natural gas lines and soil, water pipes and rivers. The natural and the synthetic feed off each other in surprising ways. […]

Why the Federal Funding Emergency Matters for Transportation Reform

By Angie Schmitt | Jul 7, 2014 | 4 Comments

Why does it matter if state departments of transportation get less money? In light of last week’s news that the U.S. DOT might have to ration its payments to states in the absence of new revenue for the federal transportation program, we posed that question to David Goldberg, communications director at Transportation for America. After all, a […]

To Make Streets Safer, Michigan DOT Takes the Pedestrian’s Perspective

By Angie Schmitt | May 6, 2014 | No Comments

A lot of state transportation departments talk the talk when it comes to designing streets that are safe for everyone. But Michigan — forgive the pun — is literally walking the walk. Chris Spahr at the State Smart Transportation Initiative reports today on the Michigan DOT’s “walkability reviews,” which the agency started conducting 10 years ago: […]

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