Ohio
The State DOT Revolving Door: Meet Jerry Wray, Ohio’s “Asphalt Sheriff”
One of the top goals of the national transportation reform movement is to get state DOTs to spend their money more wisely. The feds distribute tens of billions of dollars to state DOTs each year with very few strings attached. But for every state like Massachusetts or Tennessee that's decided to shift toward building walkable streets and away from highway construction, there are plenty of state DOTs that continue to build very expensive, sprawl-inducing roads, even though they can't afford to maintain what they already have.
January 29, 2013
Suburban Voters Wisely Reject Proposals to Withdraw from Regional Transit
Job markets are regional. So in order to serve a metropolitan region's workers and by extension the local economy, transit must also be regional, seamlessly serving both central cities and their suburbs, whose share of employment has grown. Almost everyone recognizes that.
November 8, 2012
How NOT to Fix Your Economy: Prevent People From Getting to Jobs
Let's say you're a Rust Belt city trying to dust off your stale image and compete in the 21st century. You would think the last thing you would want to do is prevent able-bodied people in your region from working, especially those who are most economically vulnerable.
September 24, 2012
Rep. Steve LaTourette Leaving Congress, Cites Disgust Over Transpo Bill
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.
August 16, 2012
Ohio Rep’s Rider Would Block Cincinnati Streetcar From Receiving Funds
Remember the good old days when congressmen used to try to insert riders into spending packages to win money for a project in their home districts?
July 2, 2012
Will Greater Cleveland Squander Its Chance to Be Competitive Again?
Population density in metro Cleveland, 1940 - 2007
June 1, 2012
Christie, Walker, Kasich, and Scott All Deceived the Public to Kill Rail
Wisconsin, Ohio, New Jersey, Florida -- the Republican governors in each of these states recently aborted a major rail project claiming it was too expensive. Their methods were remarkably similar; their justifications aligned. In many ways, it was like they were all working from the same playbook.
April 13, 2012
Bad Transit Condemns Much of Ohio’s Growing Urban Poor to Dependency
Once every four years, politicians descend on a hard luck steel town in Northeast, Ohio called Youngstown.
March 9, 2012
House Transportation Bill Too Extreme for Some Republicans
The House GOP's transportation bill is legislation only Big Oil can love. By eviscerating dedicated transit funds, killing programs that support safe streets, and linking transportation funding to oil drilling in the Arctic, the bill has managed to alienate everyone from environmental advocates to the ultra-conservative Club for Growth.
February 8, 2012
Streetsies 2011: The Local Edition
Yesterday, we started our year-end 2011 round-up. We lamented transit cuts in places where transit is more important than ever, cheered the successful ballot initiatives that will fund transportation lifelines, took a moment to explore the nuances of some difficult issues, and called out Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin for some hare-brained ideas about the best way to spend money.
December 29, 2011