Recent Streetsblog USA posts about Congestion

Stuck With Bad Transit Options? There’s an App for That.

By Tanya Snyder | Jul 30, 2013 | 8 Comments

The next time your subway car is overcrowded, or your train is delayed, or your bus is bogged down in traffic, you can access a direct line to your members of Congress and let them know you’re not gonna take it anymore. Building America’s Future, a lobbying group for more federal infrastructure spending, just released […]

Car Ownership May Be Down in the U.S., But It’s Soaring Globally

By Tanya Snyder | Jul 5, 2013 | 39 Comments

Two weeks ago, transportation researcher Michael Sivak brought us the news that there are fewer cars per person in the U.S. now than there were a few years ago – and that the number isn’t expected to rise again. But globally, the trend is in the opposite direction, and it’s alarming. The world is producing more […]

With Less Driving, Can We Tone Down the Hysteria About Congestion?

By Tanya Snyder | May 17, 2013 | 1 Comment

There’s so much to unpack in the landmark report released by U.S. PIRG and the Frontier Group earlier this week on transportation trends. Tuesday, we focused on the disparity between government transportation forecasts and recent realities. We also took a look at a few reasons to believe that the millennial generation – those aged 13 […]

Millennials Will Drive More As They Age, But Still Less Than Their Parents

By Tanya Snyder | May 14, 2013 | 20 Comments

At some point over the past few years, a lot of my friends started moving to Silver Spring and Takoma Park and Falls Church. These inner-ring, transit-connected suburbs of DC are still far less compact and walkable than the neighborhoods my friends moved from. So they bought cars. Why did they do this? They’re entering […]

A Better Way to Grade City Transportation Systems

By Angie Schmitt | Apr 15, 2013 | 5 Comments

How should we grade America’s transportation systems? The big, headline-grabbing transportation metric right now is the Texas Transportation Institute’s Urban Mobility Report, which holds up the lack of congestion as the ultimate sign of a well-functioning transportation system. By that measure, cities like Kansas City, Phoenix, and Detroit — where car commutes can be free-flowing […]

Gary Toth: TTI Congestion Scores Prove Road Expansion Isn’t the Answer

By Tanya Snyder | Feb 6, 2013 | 5 Comments

In response to yesterday’s story on the Texas Transportation Institute’s congestion rankings, which take traffic delays out of context and risk being used to justify road expansions, former New Jersey DOT leader Gary Toth raised this question: What if, instead of getting frustrated with the report, we reframe its interpretation? He does it by pointing out that […]

Show More Stories