Recent Streetsblog USA posts about Transportation for America

Seven Jiu-Jitsu Moves for Advocates to Use MAP-21 to Their Own Advantage

By Tanya Snyder | Dec 11, 2012 | 2 Comments

OK, truth: Raise your hand if you find federal transportation legislation intimidating and incomprehensible. I thought so. Me too. The problem, as you know, is that it’s enormously important that advocates not only understand the new transportation law, MAP-21, but that they understand it in granular detail so they can find the small opportunities buried […]

Everything You Wanted to Know About Transit Funds (But Were Afraid to Ask)

By Tanya Snyder | Aug 16, 2012 | 1 Comment

Transit agencies can have a hard time finding the money to expand rail lines and busways. While federal grants for road projects require a 20 percent local match, transit projects need to get 50 percent or more from local funding sources. The byzantine federal funding bureaucracy creates high hurdles, especially for smaller agencies without on-staff expertise in […]

GOP’s “Bridge Repair, Not Bike Lanes” Mantra Was Just a Lot of Hot Air

By Tanya Snyder | Jul 6, 2012 | 3 Comments

Last fall, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) proposed diverting all transportation enhancements funding, which goes primarily to bike and pedestrian projects, to bridge repair. “With nearly 25 percent of our nation’s bridges deemed either structurally deficient or functionally obsolete, we need to make their reconstruction a priority over errant beautification projects,” Sen. Paul said. He also […]

Buck Up, Reformers: Despite the Hard Knocks, This Bill Is a Step Forward

By David Burwell | Jul 5, 2012 | 3 Comments

David Burwell is the director of the Energy and Climate Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He was also co-founder and CEO of the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy, and a founding co-chair and president of the Surface Transportation Policy Project, a national transportation policy reform coalition. There is much despair in the transportation reform community about […]

Making Lawmakers Answer For Pedestrian Deaths In Their Districts

By Tanya Snyder | Jun 21, 2012 | 5 Comments

Rep. James Lankford, a Tea Party Republican representing Oklahoma City, probably wasn’t responsible for any of the 118 pedestrian deaths in his district between 2001 to 2010. And it’s unlikely Rep. Steve Southerland of Panama City, Florida was behind the wheel when any of the 164 people were killed while walking in his district during […]

Compare the Senate and House Transpo Bills, Side-By-Side

By Ben Goldman | Mar 15, 2012 | 1 Comment

Now that the Senate has passed a transportation bill and everyone’s waiting to see what the House will do next, Transportation for America has done us all a great service and compared the Senate’s bill to the House’s — well, to the last thing the House showed us before things fell apart for John Boehner’s […]

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