Check out Seattle’s New Subway!*
*...but only for stormwater runoff, not people. And considering that cars, trucks, roads and parking lots for cars are responsible for half of stormwater volumes — and contribute most to toxic runoff — why are households that don't even drive paying to keep other's waste from polluting sensitive waterways?
May 13, 2025
Congestion Pricing Works in Small Metros, Too
The default pundit view is that New York City is the only place in the US where pricing makes sense because of the bountiful availability of buses and subways. A pricing experiment in Indiana and Kentucky, though, busts that myth entirely.
April 23, 2025
Boondoggle: Oregon Highway Widening Gets ‘Reconnecting Communities’ Cash
The US Department of Transportation just awarded $450 million to the $1.9-billion Rose Quarter 1-5 project, which opponents have long called one of America’s most-notorious highway boondoggles.
April 8, 2024
Alleged Decline In Transportation Trips Is The Result Of Bad Data Analysis
USDOT counted fewer trips in 2022, because it used a different, and less reliable survey method.
January 11, 2024
This is What Victory Looks like, Freeway Fighters
In the end, a lot of bad freeway projects die not with a bang, but a whimper. But we still need to celebrate the win.
September 18, 2023
A Reporter’s Guide to ‘Congestion Cost’ Studies
Every year or so, one or more traffic-counting organizations trots out a report claiming that congestion is costing us tens of billions dollars each year. Despite the “big data” and elaborate estimates, the results are simply bunk, because they’re based on a flawed premise.
January 17, 2023
Two Big Reasons States Keep Expanding Freeways
Highway widening advocates offer up a kind of manifest destiny storyline: population and traffic are ever-increasing, and unless we accommodate them we’ll be awash in cars, traffic and gridlock. The rising tide of cars is treated as a irresistible force of nature. But is it?
April 22, 2022
Oregon DOT’s Real Climate Plan: Keep on Polluting
The Oregon DOT’s “Climate Action Plan” claims the agency wants to decrease greenhouse gases, but its revenue projections show it is planning for gasoline consumption not to decline at all – meaning that carbon emissions don’t decline, either.
December 14, 2021
Opinion: Louisville’s ‘Fix’ for Traffic Congestion Shows the Irrationality of Drivers
Two states spent $1 billion doubling the size of I-65, only to have half as many people use the bridge. Nothing more clearly illustrates the utter folly of highway expansions.
November 18, 2021
Opinion: American Parking Policy is the Real Socialism
"There may be massive inequities in other aspects of life, but each citizen is guaranteed equal access to adequate parking spaces." - Joe Cortright
October 22, 2021
