Tanya Snyder

Transportation reauthorizations have typically not been a time for major discussions about national policy goals. They’ve been a time for getting while the getting’s good, a time for deal-making and pork and a lot of back-room transactions to make sure every member of Congress could go home and talk about how much federal money they were bringing home.

It's October 1, the start of the federal government's fiscal year 2013, and the first official day of the MAP-21 transportation law. The law was signed July 6 but got a three-month grace period to let U.S. DOT set guidance and give states a little time to get ready for the new requirements -- things like setting up grant programs to distribute bike/ped funding to local communities (though they can also just squander that money).

When to take grandma's keys away: In the United States, this question treated is largely treated as a family matter.

Have you ever thought to yourself, “What I really need is a map showing what U.S. counties use the most gasoline, so that I can target my sustainability efforts there?” Funny, the Natural Resources Defense Council and Sierra Club were thinking the same thing. What they came up with gets us partway there.

Last week, U.S. DOT Secretary Ray LaHood helped NYC transpo commish Janette Sadik-Khan launch a new phase of the "LOOK!" campaign, with pavement markings instructing texting pedestrians to wake the hell up. He made a comment that made its way into his blog post about the event, as well as other media reports on the event, and it caught the attention of Streetsblog NYC's crack reporting team.

This whole “peak car” may be more than just a sustainability nut’s fantasy. We’ve seen time after time that young people are souring on car culture and finding other ways to get around and connect with friends. We know that the suburban sprawl that fueled the rise of the automobile is in decline. And now The Economist – no treehugging lefty publication – is listing off reason after reason why the trend of declining driving -- "peak car," they call it -- is here to stay.

Walk Score is a service that quantifies how walkable your neighborhood is and helps connect people with housing in areas where they can live car-free or car-lite. It's a widely-used and practical tool, but it can be a little frustrating: Like anything so data-driven, it can leave out some of the intangible things you love most about where you live. Today, Walk Score is trying to solve that problem by launching a new iPhone app and website, seeking to harvest all those unquantifiable neighborhood attributes.

Despite the number of two-wheeled cop patrols around some cities, police aren't always the most bike-minded bunch. When there’s a conflict between motorists and cyclists, they're often inclined to take the motorist’s side. As Streetsblog has reported, police in New York City care more about drunk pedestrians than unsafe drivers, despite the fact that most fatalities are caused by motorists violating traffic laws. And then there's the bizarre example of Los Altos, California, where police say cyclists are the ones causing crashes by speeding or even failing to yield automobile right-of-way. Huh?

UPDATED 9/24 with chart.

"Innovative" might not be the first word you think of when you think of state DOTs. But Smart Growth America and the State Smart Transportation Initiative are out to change that. The two groups have published a menu of options for states looking to get out of the cash-for-highways rut. "The Innovative DOT: A Handbook of Policy and Practice" outlines myriad ways states can save money and create better transportation options for their residents. If states take note, we could see a lot more innovation coming out of some unlikely places.