St. Louis

The evolution of state and regional transportation agencies is painfully slow in places like Missouri and Ohio, where officials are plowing ahead with pricey highway projects conceived of decades ago. But plenty of Midwesterners have different ideas for the future of their communities, and they aren't shy about speaking up.

For three years, grassroots advocates in St. Louis have been pressing for the removal of elevated portions of I-70 through downtown. This group of urbanists and architects, with little to no financial support, came together to make the case for highway removal.

At the local level, business has been a key force in cementing transit victories. But at a national level, the business voice has been largely absent from heated, high-stakes debates about transit. With a new report called “Bosses For Buses,” Good Jobs First investigates the disparity between local- and national-level organizing efforts by employers.

Well, it was a tough competition for America's Worst Intersection, with a lot of worthy contenders -- the kind of intersections that would make an Olympic sprinter nervous. But the people have spoken -- 468 of them -- and in the end it wasn't even close. Our winner is Omaha, Nebraska's intersection of 132nd Street, Industrial Road, Millard Avenue, and L Street.

In 2006, 14-year old Kristen Bowen was killed on the train tracks near her house in the Chicago suburb of Villa Park. She was using a well-worn shortcut across the tracks that cut her residential neighborhood off from the school and the park they used. Four years after Kristen's death, her twin sister committed suicide by stepping in front of a train near where Kristen was struck. Those tracks are covered with balloon memorials and crosses, commemorating those who have died.

$10,860 in New York City. $5,694 in St. Louis. $4,199 in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

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.

If you live in Stamford, Connecticut and your walk to the train station gets safer next year, you can thank USDOT’s TIGER grant program. Or when your hometown of American Falls, Idaho suddenly gets complete streets downtown, accommodating people on foot, on bikes, on buses, in cars, and in wheelchairs, encouraging local shopping. Or when you realize that traffic congestion between Olympia and Tacoma, Washington has eased, not by adding lanes but by installing intelligent technology to manage traffic and encourage ridesharing.

There's been a lot of ink spilled lately over population losses in cities. And these gloomy numbers from Yonah Freemark at The Transport Politic help explain why: