Tanya Snyder

On Thursday, DOT Secretary Ray LaHood announced the creation of a new Freight Policy Council, which is charged with coming up with a freight strategic plan. This is a first step toward a sorely lacking national plan around freight.

CBO: Romney’s Drilling Plan Wouldn’t Actually Yield That Much Energy (WaPo) New York Times: Republicans Should Be Improving Amtrak, Not De-funding It Don’t Subsidize Renewables; Tax Carbon Instead (Forbes) Will Georgia Lawmakers Buckle on Penalty For T-SPLOST Rejectors? (Athens Banner-Herald) Nebraska Will Spend Its Trails Funding; Iowa Is Still Deciding (Omaha World-Herald) Announcement on Detroit Light Rail Coming … Continued

Childless urbanites love to hate the stroller. New Yorker Laura Miller started a blog, “Too Big For Stroller,” dedicated to mocking older children who get around the easy way. Commenters on a Greater Greater Washington story about strollers on buses last year showcased surprising vitriol, saying, “Carry your child, like an able-bodied adult should” and “Pretty lousy parenting, when you could fold the stroller and hold the child” and “Keep those strollers off our buses.” There are internet rants against giant, SUV-style strollers (and, five years ago on Streetsblog, a defense). A New York Times story about stroller rage ended up plumbing deeper emotional issues around unequal social status for breeders and non-breeders.

The MAP-21 transportation bill in many ways made it tougher for cities and towns to provide safer streets for walking and biking. Projects to build bike lanes and sidewalks now have to compete harder for the tiny bit of funding they're eligible for. And right now, states are deciding whether or not to “opt out” of the Recreational Trails Program (RTP). Instead of spending RTP money on bicycle and pedestrian trails -- both urban and rural -- states can "opt" to spend it on something else.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney unveiled his energy plan today [PDF]. The idea is to break our addiction to foreign oil -- by increasing our addiction to domestic oil. If by "domestic" we mean Canada, Mexico, and the U.S.

The Obama campaign has fired the opening salvo in a new presidential campaign front: transportation.

Transit agencies can have a hard time finding the money to expand rail lines and busways. While federal grants for road projects require a 20 percent local match, transit projects need to get 50 percent or more from local funding sources. The byzantine federal funding bureaucracy creates high hurdles, especially for smaller agencies without on-staff expertise in applying for and managing these grants. Loans and private sources of funds are also difficult, since they need to be paid back, and transit tends not to make back its capital outlays from the farebox.

We mentioned last week that transit advocates were losing one supporter in Congress: Russ Carnahan of Missouri. They'll be suffering another grave loss come January: Ohio Republican Steve LaTourette.

Congress has done its job, such as it is, and passed a transportation bill. Now it's handed off the policymaking to U.S. DOT, which must issue a raft of rules, definitions, and guidance to accompany the new law, known as MAP-21.

Milan’s Congestion Charge Undone By a Complaint From a Parking Garage (NYT) Famously Wronged Georgia Pedestrian, Raquel Nelson, Arrested — For Speeding (Patch) Lessons From Portland Transit Riders’ Organizing Campaign (Americans for Transit) Yes, Thanks to Elimination of TIFIA Criteria, Bridge-to-Nowhere May Really Get Financing (Fiscal Times) Google Collects Traffic Data From You When You … Continued