NHTSA: Traffic Deaths Shot Up 5.3 Percent to 34,080 in 2012
Deaths from motor vehicle crashes rose 5.3 percent in 2012, according to new numbers from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration [PDF]. It's the first time since 2005 that fatalities have gone up. Vehicle miles traveled only rose 0.3 percent last year.
May 3, 2013
Sustainability Busts Out of Its Cubicle, Permeates DOT, HUD, and EPA
The Partnership for Sustainable Communities has had a rough couple of years. The program got zeroed out of the 2012 budget, and the 2013 budget is just a carbon copy of 2012. But they’re looking to make a comeback.
May 3, 2013
Tell Us About Your “Commuter Idyll”
Before I became your editor here at Streetsblog Capitol Hill, I was a reporter for WTOP, the DC area’s “most-listened-to” radio station. Its traffic reports “on the 8s” helped feed my ire toward auto-centrism – they wasted one out of every 10 minutes of airtime on an unintelligible litany of route numbers and exits. Meanwhile, I only got 35 seconds for actual news stories.
May 2, 2013
A Golden Opportunity for Congress to Avoid the Transportation “Fiscal Cliff”
MAP-21 expires in a year and five months. When it does, if lawmakers haven’t already found a solution to the “transportation fiscal cliff,” they’ll have to do one of three things, according to a report issued last week by the Congressional Budget Office [PDF]:
May 1, 2013
Support Streetsblog, Get a Chance to Win a Folding Bike
No one can deny the tides are turning when it comes to how people in this country get around. While the majority still drive everywhere, they number fewer every day, with more people joining the ranks of the straphangers, bicyclists, and walkers. This country is waking up to what we can gain by investing in healthy, sustainable transportation and vibrant urban development.
May 1, 2013
Does President Obama Have the Power to Influence Transportation Policy?
In 1962, President John F. Kennedy called for a federal transit funding plan. Two years later, President Lyndon B. Johnson took baby steps toward starting that program, but Johnson’s true transportation legacy was signing the bill that created the Department of Transportation, bringing all modes under one roof.
April 30, 2013
Today’s Headlines
Sustainable Transpo Advocates Pleased by Foxx Pick (The Hill) Foxx Could Be Friendly to Cincinnati Streetcar (Examiner) No, Foxx Isn’t a Transportation Expert; Neither Were Half of the Last 10 Secretaries (TID) Obama: “LaHood May Be the Best Transportation Secretary the Nation’s Ever Had” (The Hill) LaHood, In Turn, Heaps Praise on His Successor (Fast Lane) … Continued
April 30, 2013
Meet Your Next Transportation Secretary
Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx just accepted President Obama’s nomination to be the next transportation secretary.
April 29, 2013
Today’s Headlines
Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx to Be Nominated Transportation Secretary This Week (HuffPo, TID) CBO: To Keep Transpo Solvent Past 2015, Cut Spending by 92% or Raise Gas Tax by 10 Cents (TID) 93 Percent of U.S. Transportation Still Relies on Fossil Fuels (Face the Facts USA) What If We Never Run Out of Oil? (The … Continued
April 29, 2013