Ben Fried

Federal funding for pedestrian and bicycle projects reached a new high last year, according to a report released today by the Federal Highway Administration. In terms of dollars, federal investment in walking and biking more than doubled compared to the previous high, set in 2007, thanks largely to an infusion of $400 million in stimulus funds.

As regular readers of the Capitol Hill blog already know, yesterday marked Elana Schor's last day covering the national transportation policy beat for Streetsblog.

This is too fun not to post. John Leguizamo, who's been biking in New York since before the actual Summer of Sam, takes a CNN crew on a ride through Midtown and shares some pointers on NYC cycling. (Sorry about the BASF commercial you'll have to sit through before it gets started.) Leguizamo's big pitch to potential cyclists comes about two-thirds of the way through. While I think he might be overemphasizing the danger and thrills, it's hard to argue after you see the police nearly door him.

Streetsblog founder Aaron Naparstek passes along this tale of legislative dysfunction from sunny Phoenix, Arizona. The narrator is former Arizona state legislator Steve Farley, a former public artist and community activist who recently brought home a $63 million TIGER grant to fund a new streetcar in Tucson. It's a good thing the feds provide funding opportunities outside the Highway Trust Fund formula, or else it would be even harder to invest in efficient, sustainable transportation in Arizona -- a state that goes to extraordinary lengths to avoid spending on transit. Farley's story explains why this is still the case:

The days are numbered for the military vehicle that carmakers turned into the bane of pedestrians, cyclists and planet Earth. GM has announced plans to wind down Hummer production after a deal to sell the brand to a Chinese manufacturer fell apart. According to the Times, the Chinese government wanted no part of Hummer because it is "trying to put a new emphasis on limiting China’s dependence on imported oil and protecting the environment."

The high-water mark for American parking policy came in the early 1970s, when cities including New York, Boston, and Portland set limits on off-street parking in their downtowns. They were compelled to do so by lawsuits brought under the Clean Air Act, which used the lever of parking policy to curb traffic and reduce pollution from auto emissions. This level of innovation went unmatched over the ensuing three-and-a-half decades. Only now are American cities implementing effective new parking strategies that cut down on traffic.

Hopefully you don't seethe too much about how many parsecs ahead of us New York City is in reclaiming space for people from cars, but we thought we'd share this momentous news from Streetsblog NY. Looks like Mayor Bloomberg has made a complete one-eighty from his position on traffic just a few years ago. The news actually gives us hope that Mayor Newsom, or his successor, will feel the Livable Streets spirit deep in his soul, too.

Don’t count out Boston just yet, but it looks like Minneapolis may be the first American city out of the gate with a public bicycle system of 1,000 bikes or more. Last week, the non-profit Nice Ride Minnesota selected the Public Bike System Company (the same firm behind Montreal’s Bixi) to install its system, which … Continued

As we've reported, the last bastion of closed transit data had been the New York Metropolitan region, served by the nation's largest transit operator, the NYMTA, which is comprised of the Long Island Railroad, Metro North Railroad, and the NYC subways system. Today, with the redesign of its website, the NYMTA also opened its data to third party developers and unveiled its new Developer Resources page.

At a panel discussion yesterday at the Copenhagen climate summit, American policymakers and transit experts delivered a clear message: Walkable urban development must be part of any effective plan to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. Thanks to the magic of live webcasts, I can relay a few highlights for Streetsblog readers.