Recent Streetsblog USA posts about Car Dependence

Affordability as a Transportation Planning Objective

By Todd Litman | Feb 28, 2013 | No Comments

— This article originally appeared on Todd Litman’s blog at Planetizen, and was reprinted with permission of the author. What do transportation system users consider to be the most important problem? Here’s a hint: it’s not traffic congestion. The 2009 National Household Travel Survey asked respondents to rate the importance of six transport problems: traffic […]

High Anxiety: Good Parents and Bad Parents on the Road

By Anne Lutz Fernandez | Jun 26, 2012 | 12 Comments

America’s roads have suddenly become dangerous places for America’s children. At least, that’s what’s suggested by a flurry of viral stories involving kids and cars. In May, an inebriated Florida couple made news when they took their granddaughter for a joy ride, pulling her behind their SUV in a toy car. Then came the story […]

U.S. PIRG Report: Young Americans Dump Cars for Bikes, Buses

By Angie Schmitt | Apr 5, 2012 | 30 Comments

The U.S. Public Interest Research Group has been crunching the numbers on travel preferences among young Americans — and the news is not good for auto makers. The report — Transportation and the New Generation — is chock-full of nuggets like this: Driving is down: “From 2001 to 2009, the annual number of vehicle miles […]

Bad Transit Condemns Much of Ohio’s Growing Urban Poor to Dependency

By Angie Schmitt | Mar 9, 2012 | 2 Comments

Once every four years, politicians descend on a hard luck steel town in Northeast, Ohio called Youngstown. With a 50 percent poverty rate — the worst in the country — Youngstown makes a compelling a campaign speech backdrop, illustrating everything that is wrong with government, or maybe America. Mitt Romney appeared there this week on […]

As the Economy Grows and Adds Jobs, Americans Keep Driving Less

By Angie Schmitt | Mar 5, 2012 | 4 Comments

Well, there you have it. Driving is on the decline — even as the economy grows. You can see in the above chart, created by analyst Doug Short and brought to our attention by Jonathan Maus at BikePortland, America’s shrinking appetite for car travel is outlasting the recession. As the Center for Clean Air Policy pointed […]

Mounting Transportation and Housing Costs Devour Household Budgets

By Ben Goldman | Feb 29, 2012 | 1 Comment

On Monday we wrote that Americans can’t afford a transportation bill that locks households into the expenses of car dependence. Yesterday the Center for Neighborhood Technology hammered the point home, releasing new data showing how communities are getting less and less affordable nationwide. Only 28 percent of American communities meet CNT’s definition of “affordable,” which accounts for […]

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