Streetsblog Capitol Hill
Bridging the Local-National Message Divide: The Climate Bill is the Answer
This week, I was fortunate to attend the Open Cities conference in Washington (along with fellow Streetsbloggers Elana Schor and Aaron Naparstek), on the ways in which new media is shaping urban policy.
October 9, 2009
When $1 Billion Doesn’t Buy What it Used To — And When it Does
Since Washington's economic recovery debate first began last fall, advocates for greater infrastructure investment have invoked one phrase more often than almost any other: "Every $1 billion spent on transportation creates 47,500 jobs."
October 8, 2009
Two More Senate Dems Back Plan to Devote Climate Money to Transit
This week has brought news of a brewing compromise on the Senate climate change bill, introduced last month amid signals that the upper chamber would give only a bit more to clean transportation than the House's meager 1 percent set-aside of revenue from cap-and-trade carbon regulations.
October 8, 2009
Streetsblog Q&A: Bush DOT Chief Backs Transport Tech Funding
Former Transportation Secretary Mary Peters, who served for eight years in George W. Bush's DOT, sat down with Streetsblog Capitol Hill yesterday to urge that Congress add a dedicated funding stream of $1 billion each year for transportation technology to the next long-term infrastructure bill.
October 8, 2009
Streetsblog Q&A: Bush DOT Chief Endorses National Transport Goals
Mary Peters, who spent four years as George W. Bush's Federal Highway Administrator before taking over the U.S. DOT in 2006, has entered the simmering debate over whether Washington should set performance goals for the nation's transportation system. Her answer: "Absolutely."
October 8, 2009
SF, NYC, and DC Sign Deals to Upgrade Transit Technology
IBM's Smarter Planet project, which uses technology (and sometimes plain old polling) in an effort to revamp urban infrastructure, today signed deals with transit agencies in San Francisco, New York City, and Washington D.C. to "smartly" manage the ins and outs of keeping trains and buses running.
October 7, 2009
Obama’s Engaged With Transit More in 9 Months than Bush Did in 8 Years
The Obama administration has brought both good news and bad news to transit riders. But here's a positive sign you haven't heard before, straight from Federal Transit Administration (FTA) chief Peter Rogoff: In the nine months of the new presidency, the FTA has fielded more requests for information "directly from the White House" than in the entire eight years of the Bush administration.
October 7, 2009
Team Obama Adviser: Here’s How to Make Sustainability Mainstream
Shelley Poticha, head of the Obama administration's inter-agency sustainable communities push, is so new to the job that the legislation creating her office has yet to be officially approved by Congress -- but she has already hit upon two goals aimed at remaking the way Americans, and their government, view local development.
October 7, 2009
$8B for High-Speed Rail, $1.5B in Transport Stimulus Coming This Winter
It's shaping up to be anything but a quiet winter for the U.S. DOT, with $9.5 billion in grants for clean transportation set for release to the winners of two highly competitive contests for federal aid.
October 6, 2009
White House Urban Affairs Chief: Promising Words But Little Hint of a Plan
Adolfo Carrion Jr., director of the White House's new Office of Urban Affairs, today vowed to begin reconnecting Washington with the needs of the nation's cities -- even as he offered few tangible plans for breaking through the morass of the federal bureaucracy and effecting change in the near term.
October 6, 2009