Recent Streetsblog USA posts about Highway Expansion

NRDC Poll: Americans Support New Transit Twice as Much as New Roads

By Tanya Snyder | Sep 12, 2012 | 11 Comments

When asked what would solve traffic problems in their community, 42 percent of Americans say more transit. Only 20 percent say more roads. And 21 percent would like to see communities developed that don’t require so much driving. Two-thirds support local planning that guides new development into existing cities and near public transportation. That’s the […]

How Highway Spending Could Become as Transparent as Bike/Ped Spending

By Tanya Snyder | Sep 11, 2012 | 3 Comments

“There’s an inverse proportion of the size of a transportation program to the amount of transparency,” says Deron Lovaas of the Natural Resources Defense Council. While anyone can easily find in granular detail anything they would ever want to know about where bike/ped money goes, and they can get a pretty good idea of what’s going […]

Tennessee DOT Moves Past Road-Widening as a Congestion Reduction Strategy

By Tanya Snyder | Aug 30, 2012 | 2 Comments

In the late eighties and nineties, every traffic issue the Tennessee Department of Transportation faced was assigned the same solution: a bypass. But over the years, the department has come around to a new way of doing things, according to 40-year TDOT veteran Ralph Comer. Comer says the current commissioner, John Schroer, wants to become […]

Highway Builders to Party Leaders: The Future Is “More Than Just Roadways”

By Tanya Snyder | Jul 26, 2012 | 3 Comments

Over the past two weeks, the American Road & Transportation Builders Association has sent letters to the Republican National Committee [PDF] and the Democratic National Committee [PDF], asking them to consider inserting a plank in their platforms about transportation. And they were clear in their letter that, despite being major cheerleaders for road-building, the future they see […]

Smart Growth America: States May Pave Over Their Own Good Intentions

By Tanya Snyder | Jul 23, 2012 | No Comments

Last week, the Tri-State Transportation Campaign revealed how states prioritize spending: 20 percent for transit, 2 percent for bike/ped, 38.5 percent for maintenance, and about 22.5 percent for highway expansion. Looking just at those last two numbers, that breaks down to 71 percent more spending on repair than sprawl-inducing new lanes. But Smart Growth America cautions […]

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 […]

Show More Stories