Recent Streetsblog USA posts about Congestion

TTI Urban Mobility Report Bungles Congestion Analysis Yet Again

By Tanya Snyder | Feb 5, 2013 | 7 Comments

At the risk of repeating ourselves: The Texas A&M Transportation Institute (TTI) got it wrong again. Their 2012 Urban Mobility Report (using 2011 data) just came out [PDF]. Like every year, they tout their “improved methodology,” but the authors still haven’t made the changes that would make their congestion rankings meaningful in the real world. Not only that, […]

What Do Anti-Density NIMBYs and Road-Wideners Have in Common?

By Tanya Snyder | Dec 19, 2012 | 18 Comments

Matt Yglesias made an excellent point about NIMBYs over at Slate yesterday. Writing about opposition to multifamily residential construction in the tony neighborhood near Lake Calhoun in Minneapolis, Yglesias wondered how much value residents really place on keeping the area a “single-family residential community.” Just because there’s value in something doesn’t mean people are willing to […]

September Brings ‘Back to School’ Jump in Traffic Congestion

By Tanya Snyder | Sep 5, 2012 | 41 Comments

Why do traffic delays jump in September? Obviously, fewer people are on vacation. But it’s not just commuters back to the grind getting to and from work. It’s parents dropping their kids off at school, often with even less forgiving start times than an adult workday. Region Forward, a DC-based livability partnership, shows that the […]

There’s a Lot Riding on U.S. DOT’s Definition of “Congestion”

By Tanya Snyder | Aug 15, 2012 | 13 Comments

Congress has done its job, such as it is, and passed a transportation bill. Now it’s handed off the policymaking to U.S. DOT, which must issue a raft of rules, definitions, and guidance to accompany the new law, known as MAP-21. According to sources with intimate knowledge of this process, much depends on how DOT […]

International Funders Shift Investments Toward Sustainable Transportation

By Tanya Snyder | Aug 13, 2012 | 6 Comments

If you think the United States is doing a bad job shifting toward sustainable transportation, take a look at the developing world. The places with the most to lose from auto-oriented development are doubling down on it — to the enormous detriment of their citizens, especially the poorest. The number of cars in the world […]

The Projections Fallacy

By Charles Marohn | Jul 23, 2012 | 12 Comments

Cross-posted from Streets.MN. We spend billions every year in this country on our transportation network, large percentages of it based on traffic projections. This despite the fact that we have a long record of not being able to accurately project traffic. The answer isn’t better projections but a better transportation system, one that is robust […]

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