Trump’s Pick for U.S. DOT Is GOP Insider Elaine Chao
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Chao was secretary of labor under George W. Bush and is married to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. An official announcement is expected shortly.
Recent Streetsblog USA posts about U.S. DOT
Engineers to U.S. DOT: Transportation Is About More Than Moving Cars
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A trade group representing the transportation engineering profession thinks it’s high time for American policy makers to stop focusing so much on moving single-occupancy vehicles. U.S. DOT is currently deciding how it will assess the performance of state DOTs. Will it continue business as usual and equate success with moving huge numbers of cars? That’s […]
Yes, Local Transportation Agencies Can Measure Their Climate Impacts
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It’s going to be a tough sell for those who claim that greenhouse gas performance measures for transportation can’t possibly work, when plenty of transportation agencies say it would be no problem. That’s according to transportation officials in several regions across America who responded to a survey commissioned by the Natural Resources Defense Council. The responses were […]
Unless US DOT Changes Course, Building Protected Bikeways May Get Tougher
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Michael Andersen blogs for The Green Lane Project, a PeopleForBikes program that helps U.S. cities connect high-comfort biking networks. “Hey, how long does it take you to get to work?” “Well, on average my car is usually traveling at 36 mph.” No actual human makes transportation decisions this way. But for some reason, the federal […]
Will U.S. DOT Get Serious About Climate Change? Here’s Cause for Optimism.
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Last fall, national environmental advocates sat down with officials from U.S. DOT to talk about how federal transportation policy can address climate change. There is wild variation between state transportation departments when it comes to green transportation policy. Some of the more sophisticated agencies, like California’s and Oregon’s, are starting to factor greenhouse gas emissions into their transportation plans. Most […]
It Just Got Easier for Cities to Design Walkable, Bikeable Streets
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We probably haven’t seen the last of engineers who insist on designing local streets like surface highways. But at least now they can’t claim their hands are tied by federal regulations. Last week, the Federal Highway Administration struck 11 of the 13 design rules for “national highways” — a 230,000-mile network of roads that includes many urban streets. The rule change eliminates […]