Month: January 2013

More headlines at Streetsblog Capitol Hill

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.

Earlier this month, two pedestrians were severely injured trying to cross Route 355 and Shady Grove Road in Rockville, Maryland. So Ben Ross at Greater Greater Washington went out to investigate.

This morning the SF Municipal Transportation Agency is presenting its strategic plans to reduce pedestrian injuries and increase bike ridership over the next five years at a staff workshop with the agency's board of directors.

After a few false alarms, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has finally come out and said it: He's leaving the administration.

More headlines at Streetsblog Capitol Hill

Cars littered on San Francisco's sidewalks are a painfully common sight. The problem is perhaps most prevalent in outer neighborhoods like the Sunset and Bayview, where, for decades, homeowners with residential garages have paved over their front yards. The pedestrian environment on these streets is left degraded, with swaths of dead space where families and people with disabilities are often forced to walk around an obstacle course of cars and driveway ramps.

Planners at the SF Municipal Transportation Agency are set to present the agency's five-year Strategic Plan tomorrow, laying out a framework to improve walking, biking, and transit in the city -- stay tuned for coverage.

It is really a testament to how dominant the highway industrial complex has become that we even have to talk about Birmingham's Northern Beltline, a $4.7 billion outerbelt first proposed in the 1960s. But with backing from big companies that would reap windfall real estate profits from the highway -- and with a U.S. Senator working to secure federal funding -- this boondoggle might actually get built.