Recent Streetsblog USA posts about Elections

Setbacks and Victories For Urbanism in Yesterday’s Mayoral Races

By Angie Schmitt | Nov 6, 2013 | 42 Comments

Mayoral elections broke both ways for livability in American cities yesterday: The results of some may slow progress on transit and street safety, while one-midsized city elected an executive who campaigned strongly on light rail expansion and bikeability. The biggest story was Cincinnati’s mayoral race, where Queen City voters backed Democrat John Cranley by a […]

How StreetsPAC Emerged as a Political Force in NYC

By Angie Schmitt | Sep 16, 2013 | 1 Comment

“Livable Streets has arrived as a political force,” tweeted NYC Deputy Mayor Howard Wolfson the morning after last week’s all-important primary election. StreetsPAC — a political action committee formed earlier this year to strengthen local candidates who support policies that improve walking, biking and transit — endorsed the winner in 13 of the 18 City […]

Why Traffic Deaths Are More Common in Red States Than in Blue States

By Tanya Snyder | Nov 20, 2012 | 46 Comments

Public interest journalist Stuart Silverstein at FairWarning.org has uncovered the fact that red states (defined as those that went for Mitt Romney in the last election) have higher traffic fatality rates than blue states (those that went for Barack Obama). The correlation is striking, Silverstein says, but he’s at a loss to explain it: The […]

What Kind of Leadership Would Bill Shuster Bring to the Transpo Committee?

By Tanya Snyder | Nov 14, 2012 | 6 Comments

This is the first of two posts examining Rep. Bill Shuster’s candidacy for the chairmanship of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. We’ll post the second one, focused on his positions on bike/ped programs and funding issues, tomorrow. Over the next few weeks, we could see a shake-up on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee […]

Communities Vote to Tax Themselves to Support Transit

By Tanya Snyder | Nov 9, 2012 | 4 Comments

In addition to some of the high-profile measures that we covered already, Election Day brought many successes on some smaller ballot initiatives. According to the Center For Transportation Excellence, pro-transit campaigns had an 80 percent success rate this year at the ballot box, with more ballot measures coming up for a vote than any previous […]

Two Big Wins For Mayors With Sustainable Transpo Cred

By Tanya Snyder | Nov 7, 2012 | No Comments

On the local level, the night’s biggest win for sustainable transportation was the victory of Kirk Caldwell over Ben Cayetano to be mayor of Honolulu. Caldwell had won just 29 percent of the vote in the three-way primary race, facing a steep uphill battle in the general election versus Cayetano, a popular former governor who had pulled in […]

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