Recent Streetsblog USA posts about Studies & Reports

Five Ex-Secretaries Map Out a Communications Strategy For Transportation

By Tanya Snyder | Apr 24, 2012 | 3 Comments

If 80 percent of the American people agree that federal infrastructure investment will create jobs, and two-thirds say better infrastructure is important, why is the call for a robust transportation bill being made in whispers? And why is Congress already two and a half years late in producing one? There are many political reasons — […]

How Local Transportation Decisions Can Put Public Health Front and Center

By Ben Goldman | Apr 4, 2012 | No Comments

Transportation projects often have profound consequences for public health, whether negative (in the case of fossil fuel-burning highway expansions) or positive (in the case of calorie-burning bike-friendly, walkable streets). So why don’t cities and states always consider health impacts when evaluating a transportation project or policy? That’s the question at the heart of a new […]

APTA: How to Talk to a Detractor of High-Speed Rail

By Ben Goldman | Jan 12, 2012 | 36 Comments

Stop me if you’ve heard these before: “Most Americans don’t use railroads, they use cars.” “There’s no better example of excessive government spending than the $53 billion President Obama allocated for high-speed rail in his 2012 budget.” “Would you pay $1,000 so that someone — probably not you — can ride high-speed trains 58 miles […]

$1,060: The Cost of Decrepit Infrastructure for Your Family Last Year

By Angie Schmitt | Jul 27, 2011 | 5 Comments

Five months’ groceries for a family of four. A year’s worth of textbooks for a college student. One thousand sixty dollars: That’s how much inadequate infrastructure spending cost the average American family last year, according to a new report from the American Society of Civil Engineers, “Failure to Act: The Economic Impact of Current Investment […]

The Public Interest and Private-Sector Involvement in High-Speed Rail

By Angie Schmitt | Jul 20, 2011 | 4 Comments

The issue of privatization of public infrastructure was polarizing enough before the recent House proposal to take the Northeast Corridor away from Amtrak and turn it over to private firms. The privatization plan has its champions, who say it’s the only way to save high-speed rail, and its detractors, who call it a death knell […]

Study: Building Roads to Cure Congestion Is an Exercise in Futility

By Tanya Snyder | May 31, 2011 | 15 Comments

We hear it all the time: The road lobby insists that the only way to reduce mind-numbing traffic congestion on the roads they built is to build new roads. Federal funding gives huge blank checks to state DOTs, which tend to prioritize road building over transit, bridge maintenance or anything else. But mounting evidence suggests that […]

Show More Stories