Angie Schmitt

The people have spoken, and the winner of Streetsblog's 2016 Sorriest Bus Stop in America tournament is this beauty on Colesville Road in Silver Spring, Maryland.

The National Transportation Safety Board is best known for investigating train crashes and plane crashes to figure out what went wrong.

Should we continue to let state transportation departments spend tens of billions of dollars in federal funds each year without regard to how highway expansions contribute to climate change? Right now U.S. DOT is looking to inject some accountability into a process that has created a very carbon-intensive transportation system, and a new poll suggests most Americans would welcome that.

What can a Google Maps visual teach us about the cities we live in?

The way we move around is shaped by many factors -- the physical environment, culture, technology, and economic status, to name a few. A new report from the engineering firm Arup, "Cities Alive: Towards a Walking World," looks at how motorized cities can become walkable again.

More cities should copy this idea for their park-and-ride transit stations: At DC Metro's King Street station in Old Town Alexandria, plans are underway to turn parking spots into a pedestrian plaza. This goes against the grain of typical transit agency practice. Despite the fact that park-and-rides are an inefficient use of scarce land, a recent survey by researchers Lisa Jacobson and Rachel Weinberger found that most agencies are looking to expand them.

What a sad state of affairs for transit in the nation's capital.

When Portland launched its bike-share system last week, it became the biggest American city to go live with a "smart bike" model. The system allows users to drop off bikes anywhere within the service area, as opposed to the more prevalent "smart dock" model, where users pick up and return bikes only at fixed stations.

When a police officer in Falcon Heights, Minnesota, shot and killed Philando Castile earlier this month, the encounter began with a traffic stop. The stop fit a pattern: Castile had been pulled over many times before -- 46 times in 13 years -- but few of those citations were for dangerous driving. More prevalent were stops for minor issues like vehicle defects or misplaced license plates -- the type of justifications that police are more likely to use when stopping black and Latino drivers throughout the country.

Earlier this week tech entrepreneur Elon Musk released his updated "master plan" for Tesla, including some thoughts on how autonomous mini-buses will supplant today's transit and "take people all the way to their destination." Like every Musk pronouncement, this one got a lot of buzz -- but it also drew some healthy skepticism.