Elections
UPDATED: Last Night’s Quiet Transit Victories
Yesterday was a relatively quiet election day for transportation-related ballot measures, but of the six transit initiatives that came before voters yesterday, five six passed, with a sixth seventh too close to call. That’s in line with last year’s 79 percent success rate -- 71 percent since 2000. When asked, voters overwhelmingly choose to raise their own taxes to improve public transportation.
November 6, 2013
Setbacks and Victories For Urbanism in Yesterday’s Mayoral Races
Mayoral elections broke both ways for livability in American cities yesterday: The results of some may slow progress on transit and street safety, while one-midsized city elected an executive who campaigned strongly on light rail expansion and bikeability.
November 6, 2013
How StreetsPAC Emerged as a Political Force in NYC
"Livable Streets has arrived as a political force," tweeted NYC Deputy Mayor Howard Wolfson the morning after last week's all-important primary election. StreetsPAC -- a political action committee formed earlier this year to strengthen local candidates who support policies that improve walking, biking and transit -- endorsed the winner in 13 of the 18 City Council races in which it was active, and might pick up another victory pending the results of a recount.
September 16, 2013
Why Traffic Deaths Are More Common in Red States Than in Blue States
Public interest journalist Stuart Silverstein at FairWarning.org has uncovered the fact that red states (defined as those that went for Mitt Romney in the last election) have higher traffic fatality rates than blue states (those that went for Barack Obama). The correlation is striking, Silverstein says, but he's at a loss to explain it:
November 20, 2012
What Kind of Leadership Would Bill Shuster Bring to the Transpo Committee?
This is the first of two posts examining Rep. Bill Shuster's candidacy for the chairmanship of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. We'll post the second one, focused on his positions on bike/ped programs and funding issues, tomorrow.
November 14, 2012
Communities Vote to Tax Themselves to Support Transit
In addition to some of the high-profile measures that we covered already, Election Day brought many successes on some smaller ballot initiatives. According to the Center For Transportation Excellence, pro-transit campaigns had an 80 percent success rate this year at the ballot box, with more ballot measures coming up for a vote than any previous year.
November 9, 2012
Two Big Wins For Mayors With Sustainable Transpo Cred
On the local level, the night’s biggest win for sustainable transportation was the victory of Kirk Caldwell over Ben Cayetano to be mayor of Honolulu. Caldwell had won just 29 percent of the vote in the three-way primary race, facing a steep uphill battle in the general election versus Cayetano, a popular former governor who had pulled in 44 percent of the primary vote.
November 7, 2012
Election Reveals Who Will Shape the Next Transportation Bill
Yesterday's election made history on many different fronts: gay marriage, immigration, consumer protection, and more. But America also voted to maintain essentially the same balance of power in Washington that has brought about so much gridlock. In the transportation arena, that gridlock meant three years of dithering on a national bill and, ultimately, a new law that failed to make many of the reforms needed to help the country build a greener, safer, 21st century transportation system.
November 7, 2012
Where to Get Your 2012 Transportation Ballot Results
It's Election Day -- finally! The top of the ticket has sucked most of the oxygen out of the room, but don't forget that there are 19 transportation-related measures on ballots across the country. So far this year, pro-transit measures have an 86 percent success rate at the ballot, and there are more transportation amendments being voted on this year than any other in recent memory. Here's Streetsblog's overview of the big ones.
November 6, 2012
Don’t Forget the Third Party Candidates!
In recent posts, we've explored the impact President Obama has had on transportation and land-use policy, and we've tried to square Candidate Mitt Romney's oil-soaked rhetoric with Governor Mitt Romney's smart growth record.
November 6, 2012