Recent Streetsblog USA posts about Streetsblog.net

What should we make of the recent headline-grabbing service disruptions at Washington Metro and BART? This chart from Houston transit advocate Christof Spieler offers some important perspective. These transit systems are reaching the age where maintenance needs are increasingly urgent. Alex Block at City Block writes: BART, the snake digesting the mouse: Until seeing the data presented this way, I never appreciated how much of the […]

Ohio Democratic Party Chair David Pepper recently tweeted that “Ohio needs an urban agenda.” A group of local bloggers (myself included) think that’s a great idea, and we’ve been writing about what good state-level policy for Ohio cities would look like. Despite being one of the most urbanized states in the nation, Ohio doesn’t really have a coherent policy agenda to strengthen […]

It’s refreshing to see public agencies go beyond PSAs to deter distracted driving, which contributes to thousands of deaths in the U.S. each year. With traffic deaths on the rise in Oregon, state officials are ramping up their efforts. Oregon DOT Director Matt Garrett has pledged to “change cultural norms when it comes to distracted driving,” reports Jonathan Maus at Bike Portland, […]

Forty years ago, the Washington region had 60 miles of bus lanes on its streets, a network that was erased once Metrorail started operating. Today passengers make about half a million trips on Metro buses each weekday, not a great deal less than Metrorail, but there is no network of priority streets for buses. That’s starting […]

My, how things change. It’s always revealing to go back and look at how Americans responded to traffic deaths before they were regarded as an unavoidable aspect of everyday life. The era when the loss of lives to traffic violence was regarded with widespread shock and revulsion has almost faded from living memory. Here’s a glimpse of […]

For every transportation agency trying to innovate and update policies for the 21st century, there are several thoughtlessly widening highways like it’s still 1956. Case in point: Ohio DOT, which wants to widen three highways in the Cleveland region. Tim Kovach has been poring over the global urban congestion rankings produced by Tom Tom, the GPS company. TomTom says that out of […]