Tanya Snyder

When asked what would solve traffic problems in their community, 42 percent of Americans say more transit. Only 20 percent say more roads. And 21 percent would like to see communities developed that don’t require so much driving. Two-thirds support local planning that guides new development into existing cities and near public transportation.

“There’s an inverse proportion of the size of a transportation program to the amount of transparency,” says Deron Lovaas of the Natural Resources Defense Council. While anyone can easily find in granular detail anything they would ever want to know about where bike/ped money goes, and they can get a pretty good idea of what's going on with transit capital investments, highway spending is a black box -- and that's 80 percent of U.S. transportation dollars.

Amtrak Becomes an Election Issue (HuffPo) John Mica Continues His “Holy Jihad” Against Amtrak Today Despite Record Ridership (Politico) Federal Government Doesn’t Think Urban Policy Is Its Bailiwick Anymore (Next American City) Gentrification Isn’t About Race, It’s About Attitude (Transportation Nation, Urban Times) Chicago’s Pedestrian Plan Is Still Too Car-Centric, Lacks Some Basic Information (Grid … Continued

Friday was the Obama administration's reporting deadline on a slew of scheduled budget cuts set to take effect January 2. I guess the president was busy or something, because his administration blew this deadline. Now they're promising to have some answers this week.

If the Democrats Are the Party of Cities, Why Don’t They Ever Talk About It? (Salon) Narrow Sidewalks Cause Fights: How the Built Environment Affects Crime and Safety (WaPo) Other States Could Copy Texas’ 85-MPH Speed Limit to Raise Toll Revenues (USA Today) Raquel Nelson Loses Appeal; Next Step: Georgia Supreme Court (AP) Design Downtowns … Continued

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) confirmed she is already working on the next transportation bill -- "two months to the day after President Obama signed MAP-21 into law and before the new policies even kick in on Oct. 1," according to Politico, which broke the story this morning.

More Development in Walkable Urban Neighborhoods Benefits Everybody (GGW) Clinton Makes It Simple: Fuel Efficiency Saves You Money (The Hill) More About Chicago’s New Pedestrian Safety Plan (Tribune) … But Chicago’s Got Nothing on Florianópolis, Brazil’s Hilarious Ped Initiative (VIDEO) (Atlantic Cities) A Tax to Fund Transit Won’t Kill As Many Jobs As No Tax to … Continued

Last week, delegates and visitors at the Republican National Convention in Tampa helped themselves to 1,250 free rides on a bicycle bus -- a sort of communal bike-share system called Freewheelin, sponsored by health insurance company Humana. According to the Freewheelin website, those RNC attendees logged 542 miles on the 20 free pedal-buses, burned 18,137 calories, and reduced their carbon footprint by 596 metric tons. Even Mayor Bob Buckhorn was inspired. "I think I'm going to trade in the big, black SUV that we took from a pimp and make this the new Mayor Mobile," he said.

Once again, the National Association of City Transportation Officials has proven what an agile, modern coalition of transportation agencies is capable of. It was just a year and a half ago that NACTO released its first Urban Bikeway Design Guide and today, it's released the first update to that guide.

Out of thin air, House Speaker John Boehner sent an email yesterday with the subject line, "Labor Day Pain: Gas Prices Have Doubled on President Obama's Watch." As evidence of the "doubling" charge, Boehner links to his own website, where he claims, "The average price for a gallon of gasoline was $1.85 when President Obama took office."